Jeonghee “JJ” Jeong aims to build the Americas at NCSoft as she did at Pearl Abyss
Jeonghee “JJ” Jin spent a lot of time growing the business of Pearl Abyss in the Americas, as she headed Pearl Abyss America for almost eight years. …
Jeonghee “JJ” Jin spent a lot of time growing the business of Pearl Abyss in the Americas, as she headed Pearl Abyss America for almost eight years.
Now she is the CEO of NC America, and, during one of the game industry’s biggest retrenchments ever, she is leading the expansion of NCSoft in the West.
In an exclusive interview with GamesBeat, Jin said she plans to grow the company’s game business. (NCSoft recently made four investments into Korean and European studios. She is also expanding at new office in Irvine, California, and is experimenting in non-MMO genres including the recent “idle MMO” game release. And she’s using her expertise in Eastern and Western markets to expand in a different way.
Origins
Jin started at Pearl Abyss in Feb 2018 as the first employee based in the U.S. The division, Pearl Abyss America, started in August 2018, and she was appointed as the CEO of Pearl Abyss America at the same month. Over time, the division grew to around 85 people.
The South Korean companies are among the biggest in the world and they have played a role in the global market for a long time. But they have had challenges in publishing and developing in the U.S. and other Western regions.
“I actually personally believe it’s actually very important to have a local business. It’s also good to have a team that supports the local community because the market is obviously different,” Jin said.
“Nowadays, it’s not just a product. W just don’t ship it and forget about it. We all run a live service game,” Jin said. “It’s extremely important for us to be able to support these live service titles in a continuous way and doing this day-to-day work for all the services our players need over time,” Jin said.
The company spends a lot of time doing meaningful events for the local community.
“I think actually it’s a lot more critical than ever now to have a local team or actually a global team who can really understand the target audience in their regions and also just do proper support and actions on the community side,” Jin said. “There are mistakes you can easily make if you are making decisions about different regions. It’s very important to have a very good team that can actually support the live production and community and marketing.”
NCSoft’s beginnings
NCSoft got started as an online game company in 1997 in South Korea, and it has generated some of the biggest MMORPG franchises in the game industry.
“This 27-year-old company launched the original Lineage in 1998. And now NCSoftis one of the world’s top global publishers,” Jin said. “To me, NCSoft is a very unique company, one of the first in the world to develop MMO games.”
To date, NCSoft’s games have generated more than 200 million registered users, inclduing more than 100 million who have played the Lineage series. NC America is 100% owned by NCSoft, and it operates games like ArenaNet.
“And NC America is the only publishing arm of NCSoft in the West or outside of Asia, and we started it in April 2023,” Jin said. “We are trying to expand our pipeline to more, including titles from independent studios we’ve invested in, and also possibly third-party titles. We are eager to grow as a global publisher under NCSoft. NCSoft is a like a sleeping giant in the West.”
“I’m actually very excited about the future of NCSoft and NC America, the studio,” Jin said.
Part of the job could be finding new games for NCSoft to publish or acquiring new game studios as well.
“I’m really trying to increase the publishing capabilities, our self-publishing capabilities, in-house. But I’m also working very closely with the headquarters,” Jin said. “I’m talking to the CFO group for the investment and acquisition opportunities. And we’re looking closely at a lot of Western studios, of course.”
Expansion
NCSoft recently invested in a Korean Studio called Mistel Games, which is working on a shooter game. The company also acquired the global publishing rights for the title and we also invested in a studio called Virtual Akemi in Europe.
NC America will also promote existing MMORPG franchises like Blade & Soul, Aion and Lineage.
“They actually have been in the market for a pretty long time but the community is still strong,” Jin said.
In fact, last week the company announced Blade & Soul Neo as a remastered version of the original game that came out nine years ago. It is already out in South Korea and now it’s coming to the PC in North America and Europe.
“We revamped a lot of the imagery and combat actions and storyline and everything from the original version for our audience. So I’m excited about that,” Jin said. “We are also working on some other titles based on those big MMO franchise original IPs. I’m confident that we can bring those titles to the West for those players who actually enjoy original titles and have some nostalgia for vast game worlds.”
NC America includes both North America, South America and Europe. Across those regions, there are about 35 people at NCSoft, with most of them in Irvine, California. The team is now expanding.
“We want to be nimble and work on small- to medium-size projects first. We were formed last year and now we’re really in a growing stage. We’re hiring a lot of positions, though I don’t want to grow too fast,” she said. “We don’t have hundreds of job openings. We’re starting small and want to make sure we have step-by-step plans to grow the team and bring in more projects. Mostly, we need more people in game production, project management in the market, PR and marketing strategy or community.”
Hiring people
Jin said the company is looking for people who are gamers and have a passion for the games. Jin said she winds up talking to people at the headquarters in South Korea almost every day, whether it’s talking to internal studio heads or others.
“It’s really important for me to understand what kind of games they are trying to make and what the goals are so that I can be really well aligned with somebody who has to work on it,” he said. “We have a global market these days, but it’s not a single market. It consists of a lot of different regions combined.”
Teams should have a clear idea of the type of fun they’re trying to create in their games and how there is a market for the game in the West.
As for the past 2.5 years of layoffs across the game industry, Jin said she felt bad for many of the publishers and developers, including NCSoft, that have gone through big changes in their organizations.
“It’s been a very bad time for many talented people in the industry. From nearly 20 years experience in the video game industry for myself, I have seen ups and downs all the time. Everybody says that it feels like we’re at the bottom. I’m pretty sure in the next couple of years or three to five years, of course, there will be uprisings. I’m not sure every company has that turnaround moment. But I think there is a very good opportunity for any big publishers like NCSoft or any other good developers to take advantage of that momentum.”
At NCSoft, the company has worked on improving strategy and making organizational changes for things like strengthening global publishing.
“We are getting ready for a better time, and that’s I decided to join NCSoft,” Jin said.
Jin grew up playing MMOs in South Korea and has been embedded in the West for eight years or so.
“One of my dreams is to also create a really good workplace for gamers. I really want to build a good studio where game lovers can work on their games and work in the communities,” she said.
