Going Public
According to industry sources, Netmarble Games is to acquire Kabam's Vancouver studio for 950 billion won (US$855 million) or so in order to expand its business in the North American and European mobile game markets.
Kabam's Vancouver studio is regarded as a leading developer of massively multiplayer games. It released the Marvel: Contest of Champions in December 2014 and the game has reached US$450 million in sales since then along with more than 90 million downloads.
It has been on the top 10 sales list for a long time in the mobile game markets of multiple regions such as North America. The company is planning to launch the Transformers: Forged to Fight in the second quarter of next year.
Market experts are predicting that Netmarble Games will go public in the same quarter after completing the acquisition of the studio and acquiring some other studios in Europe and North America to attract investors.
Earlier this year, Netmarble Games was planning to acquire Playtika for approximately four trillion won (US$3.6 billion) but failed to do so, meaning it can spend about three trillion won (US$2.7 billion) to that end after the acquisition of Kabam's Vancouver studio.