Nexon founder Jung-Ju Kim passes away at 54

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Jung-Ju “JJ” Kim, the founding father of on-line recreation writer Nexon, handed away at age 54. Nexon introduced that he handed away in Hawaii on February 28.

Nexon did not present a state of affairs off of lack of life, nonetheless it utterly appreciable that he had been current course of remedy for despair and the indicators had gotten worse of leisurely, basically based mostly totally on the Korea Herald.

Min Kim, a historic Nexon chief who helped utter Nexon to the U.S., acknowledged in a social put up that “JJ” had a particular persona. Although Nexon made him affluent, Jung-Ju dealt with routine duties cherish paining his puny condominium in Recent York Metropolis, Kim acknowledged.

The Nexon founder moreover engaged in philanthropy that touched tons of and tons of of younger members and included predominant contributions in well being and schooling together with the Purme Basis Nexon Adolescents’s Rehabilitation Effectively being facility in Seoul, South Korea and the Nexon Basis for constructing younger members’s hospitals.

Nexon CEO Owen Mahoney provided his condolences.

“It is a methods refined to actual the tragedy of shedding our buddy and mentor Jay Kim, a person who had an immeasurably apparent affect on the sphere,” acknowledged Mahoney, in an announcement. “As a founder and visionary chief, Jay impressed these round him to disregard the skeptics and have religion their creative instincts. He’ll be deeply missed by his Nexon household and heaps of friends.”

Kim based Nexon in 1994, and launched the sphere’s first multiplayer on-line role-having enjoyable with recreation, The Kingdom of the Winds. The corporate later launched huge hits together with MapleStory, KartRider, Mabinogi, and Dungeon & Fighter. Kim grew to become a billionaire after Nexon went public on the Tokyo Stock Trade in 2011. That 12 months, the company generated greater than $830 million in product sales. Nexon now has 45 video video games.

Kim left the company in 2016. Kim remained a kindly shareholder as CEO of NXC, which owns 47% of Nexon. Kim stepped down from the NXC position in 2021. Alex Iosilevich is chief funding officer of NXC and J.Okay. Lee is CEO of NXC.

In a message to employees, Mahoney acknowledged:

“I am sad to fragment some tragic information.  Our founder and buddy, Jay Kim, handed away the day sooner than these days whereas touring in Hawaii. I acknowledge this comes as a surprising and substandard shock to all folks within the Nexon household.

The sphere acknowledges Jay as a visionary and pioneer in international leisure.  Nonetheless these of us fortunate ample to grasp him as a terrific buddy and mentor will bear in ideas him as a person who impressed others to attain the sphere a good greater state of affairs.  Jay challenged us to innovate, to disregard the skeptics, and to have religion one but some other.  We acknowledge his extraordinarily out of the peculiar spirit and bear in ideas him as a warmth, very good buddy.

Luxuriate in fairly a little bit of of you, I in precise reality really feel a nasty vacancy and personal sense of loss. For greater than 25 years Jay guided and impressed me, making a profoundly apparent affect on my considered each management and friendship.  We first met after we have been each younger, and Nexon become a handful of individuals in a puny room in Gangnam. Since then he has challenged me to judge in any other case regarding the sphere and what’s more than likely.  He become by a methods basically essentially the most distinctive thinker I in precise reality include ever met.

Jay deeply appreciated Nexon and the members in it. He believed that by making Nexon a upright international chief, we would per probability additionally encourage and satisfaction members throughout the sphere. Jay had a huge instinct for hiring expertise and these days Nexon’s management group is united in realizing his imaginative and prescient.

Within the occasions ahead, we will conception a turning into tribute to Jay.  Within the meantime, I am able to judge of no higher tribute than to commit ourselves to being the innovators, the leaders, and the friends that Jay challenged us to be.”

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