NHN Corp., South Korea’s top online video game developer, has moved its U.S. headquarters from Silicon Valley to Irvine.
NHN USA Inc. joins other online game companies in Orange County, including industry kingpin Blizzard Entertainment Inc. of Irvine.
Others include Irvine’s K2 Network Inc. and newly formed True Games Interactive, a Santa Ana-based company started last month by two K2 Network veterans.
Like Blizzard, NHN develops what are called “massive multiplayer online games” where thousands of players face off over the Internet.
The company is something of a household name in South Korea. NHN runs the country’s biggest Web search engine, www.naver.com, as well as its largest online game site, www.hangame.com.
“NHN is kind of like the Google of Korea,” spokesman Robin Rosales said.
The company is publicly traded in South Korea with a recent market value of about $1 billion. Sales were about $300 million last year.
Some 45 NHN workers moved here last month from Mountain View. Another 15 were hired locally.
For more on this story, see the Feb. 18 issue of the Business Journal.
