He seems like the kind of guy who likes power and would love nothing more than to dig in his heels if it hurts those who have become his enemies. As evidenced by his handling of previous game closures, he's even willing to completely absorb enormous financial losses rather than give comfort to his enemies by liquidating for fractional recovery.
He's certainly willing to absorb huge financial losses, but not necessarily always to spite his enemies. Don't forget that in 2005 he gave away a 3.84% stake in NCsoft to his wife at the time, Eui-jeong Chung, as part of a divorce settlement. If there's any larger conclusion to be drawn from that though, I don't know what it is - I merely mention the fact for the record.
Divorce, wherever it happens in the world, does tend to follow at least some logical parameters in terms of settlement. But the share deal Kim made with Nexon is less logical...at least on the face of it :-
Speculation mounts over NCsoftBut the more I ponder it, the more I'm thinking Kim's
personal "realignment of focus" may be leaning towards taking a backseat, more sort of executive consultant role in the NC-Nexon behemoth. I think he's trying to cash himself out as gracefully as he can while still retaining that needlessly melodramatic 'kibun' culture mask apparently so important in Korean business.
His transfer of power from NCsoft to Nexon earned him $685million from the sale of 2/3 of his personal stock directly to to Nexon...
at $16 per share less than the market price, it should be pointed out. A quick calculation shows that in doing so, Kim netted himself $51million
less than he would've got if he'd simply sold the same number of shares on the stock market.
So you're talking here about a man who's content to lose $51million as part of some long term scheme. Perhaps he wants to move his attentions to running the company's pro-baseball team - Korean pro-baseball teams do usually run at a loss, so maybe he needs the extra cash in pocket to indulge that particular fancy.
But if he's backing out of running NCsoft, he also wants his legacy to remain...and I think that's where retaining the IPs comes in. Those IPs are his great creative assets of the past - sure, all but one of the ones he's closed were failing financially, but each was its own creative
world after all, and I believe he wants to keep them just because of that - they are his 'Trophy Intellectual Properties'.