Nikke’ Joins Ranks Of Korea’s 50 Richest

This story is part of Forbes’ coverage of Korea’s Richest 2025. See the full list here.

The $320 million IPO last July of online games developer Shift Up, Korea’s second-largest listing of 2024, made its founder and chairman Kim Hyung-tae a billionaire.

Though Tencent-backed Shift Up’s shares have fallen more than a third since and Kim’s net worth has shrunk to $725 million, that still earns him a debut spot in the ranks of the country’s wealthiest.

A former video game artist, Kim designed Blade & Soul, a top-selling game of fellow listee Kim Taek-jin’s NCSoft, where he worked for eight years. He started Shift Up in 2013 and nine years later launched his own blockbuster title, Goddess of Victory: Nikke, a third-person shooter and role-playing game with anime-style graphics.

Another global hit was Stellar Blade. Launched last year, it achieved the highest user score (9.2) for a Sony PlayStation 5 game on review aggregator Metacritic.

In 2024, Shift Up’s revenue rose by a third to 224 billion won ($152 million), while net income increased 39% to 148 billion won. Next up is a Chinese version of Goddess of Victory: Nikke, which has already garnered 5 million preregistrations.