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Lineage W, the latest version of NCSoft's massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has increased its stake in South Korea's leading gaming company NCSoft Corp. to become its fourth-largest shareholder, according to a regulatory filing on Wednesday.PIF currently owns a 6.69% stake in NCSoft, the publisher of the popular online role-playing game Lineage W, worth around 800 billion won ($670 million) based on the stock's closing price on Feb. 9.The investment comes just after the sovereign wealth fund bought a 5% stake in the Japanese arm of another Korean game developer Nexon Co. for $883 million. It is now also the fourth-largest shareholder in Nexon's Japanese operations.Both of the stake acquisitions were for simple investment, according to their announcements.The sovereign wealth fund has been making big bets on global gaming companies, including Japanese game developer Capcom Co and Activision Blizzard Inc., the game developer of World of Warcraft.With 1.8 trillion Saudi riyals ($480 billion) in assets, PIF launched its gaming company Savvy Gaming Group (SGG) last month.In November of last year, NCSoft said it will release its first play-to-earn games based on non-fungible tokens this year to enter the blockchain-based gaming market.Its founder and CEO Kim Taek-jin is the largest shareholder with an 11.9% stake, followed by another homegrown gaming company Netmarble Corp. with an 8.9% stake and the National Pension Service with an 8.4% stake.PIF's bets on Korean gaming companies came after Chinese technology giant Tencent Holdings snapped up Korean gaming startups, a move seen aimed at securing their intellectual properties (IPs) to cement its No. 1 spot in the global game industry. Tencent is already a major shareholder of leading Korean game publishers such as Netmarble Corp., Krafton Inc. and Kakao Games Corp. By Ji-Hye Minspop@hankyung.comYeonhee Kim edited this article
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