NCSoft, a South Korean video game developer, has lost $3.7 billion in market value since Aug. 25 after its highly anticipated new title flopped.
“Blade & Soul 2”, the martial arts role-playing game, is suffering a “crushing defeat” after failing to meet market expectations. The performance caused NCSoft’s stock to drop 24%, making it the worst performer on the Korean Stock Exchange over a five-day period heading into the weekend.
NCSoft isn’t the only Korean-based game company experiencing woes.
Its biggest rival, Krafton Inc., failed to meet expectations during its $3.8 billion initial public offering in August, which was South Korea’s biggest in more than a decade.
Shares of Krafton fell as much as 20% during its trading debut after opening down 9.9% — the country’s worst IPO performance in 17 years — as a result of regulators in the Chinese market punishing video game companies for neither relinquishing exclusive rights nor reporting details of investments.
The Tencent subsidiary planned to raise at least $5 billion in June by selling 20% of its shares, valuing the video game holding company at $25 billion.
