November 22, 2024

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NCSoft R&D center in Pangyo, Gyeonggi Province (NCSoft)

NCSoft announced Tuesday that it had invested $3.5 million in Swedish game studio Moon Rover Games, as the Korean game company continues seeking future growth engines to expand its gaming portfolio and global market.

Moon Rover Games was established in 2022 by a group of developers who had taken part in creating global hit first-person shooters such as the Battlefield series, Far Cry and Tom Clancy’s The Division. Moon Rover Games is currently developing an FPS titled Project Aldous, based on new intellectual property.

NC participated as the sole investor of Moon Rover Games’ seed round investment. Beginning with this investment, the Korean game developer said it plans to team up with the Swedish gaming studio for a long-term partnership and strategic collaboration. The two sides are discussing various ways to cooperate in the future including NC’s additional investments and publishing rights.

NC has been focusing on investing in both domestic and overseas firms and securing publishing rights to contribute to the expansion of its gaming portfolio and global market. The company said it will continue with game investments in consideration of regions, genres and platforms to find new growth engines while reviewing merger and acquisition options to boost the company’s growth and profitability.

“NC is actively looking for companies with genre-specific expertise and development capabilities to discover a new market,” said Park Byung-moo, co-CEO of NCSoft.

“Moon Rover Games, which is subject to our first investment, is a company with high potential that carries on new attempts based on their expertise in the shooting game genre.”

The co-CEO said that Moon Rover Games’ Project Aldous will establish complementary relations with NC’s projects in the aspects of genre and region, emphasizing that the investment in the Swedish gaming studio will benefit NC’s attempt to set up regional development clusters across the world.

“The Moon Rover Games investment is the beginning of the changes NC will show from now,” said Park. “In August, we will announce our plans to invest in domestic (game-developing) studios and their publishing rights, joint projects to enter the Southeast Asian market and secure Purple’s growth engine as a platform.”

Purple is NC’s cross-play platform that allows gamers to play NC’s mobile games on computers and vice versa.

Logos of NCSoft (left) and Moon Rover Games (NCSoft)