Irvine-based NHN USA Inc.’s chief executive practices what he preaches.
Philip Yun, 32, recently landed the top post and is set to run NHN’s newly established local operations from the standpoint of a pretty hardcore game fan, which means more technologically advanced games.
Yun, who’s from South Korea, says he spends a few hours a day on NHN’s free-to-play multiplayer online games,even during the weekends.
His favorite: NHN’s “Soldier Front,” a war-themed multiplayer game.
Prior to joining NHN, Yun headed international publishing and marketing for Sony Corp.’s PlayStation unit in South Korea.
He was recruit- ed from Sony when parent com pany NHN Corp., South Korea’s top online video game developer, set up a U.S. outpost in 2004.
About a year ago, NHN moved its U.S. headquarters from Silicon Valley to Irvine, joining other online game companies in Orange County, including industry kingpin Blizzard Entertainment Inc. of Irvine, which now is part of Vivendi SA’s Activision Blizzard Inc.
Others include Irvine’s K2 Network Inc. and True Games Interactive, a Santa Ana-based company started 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 as well as its largest online game site.
NHN USA established a site geared toward English-speaking players, ijji.com, with about 100 free-to-play games and more than 6 million registered users, according to Yun.
“Our plan is to be the No. 1 gaming portal in North America,” he said.
The company, which has some 60 workers here, has plans to role out six multiplayer games in the next year or so.
For more on this story, read the Nov. 10 issue of the Business Journal.
