A few years ago, I attended Black Desert Online’s Heidel Ball, one of the yearly events that Pearl Abyss holds to make major announcements for the game. An unexpected surprise at that event was meeting the then-CEO of Pearl Abyss America, Jeonghee “JJ” Jin. It was just a quick hello, but I remember how cool it was to learn that Pearl Abyss, one of my favorite game studios, was helmed by a potential role model for my daughter. One of my top priorities is ensuring my daughter grows up surrounded by examples of strong, inspiring women!
But a lot has happened since that Heidel Ball, including the fact that JJ is no longer CEO of Pearl Abyss America – she’s now the newly installed CEO of NC America.
In this special edition of Four Winds, I got a chance to interview JJ to get to know her better, discuss her vision and mission for NC America, suss out her plans on navigating the company through some challenging times in today’s MMO landscape, and get some insight on some upcoming releases that the company’s cooking up – including Blade & Soul NEO, which begins its marketing ramp-up this afternoon.
Getting to know JJ
The last time I met JJ, it was super brief, so I kicked off our interview by asking her about herself, her experience in the industry, and (of course) the games she plays.
To start with, JJ isn’t a newbie to the industry. She been at this for 19 years now, working for various companies across both Korea and the US. Before taking on her current role as CEO of NCsoft/NC America, she spent about six and a half years at Pearl Abyss. Before that, she was at Kakao. (For those BDO historians out there, Kakao used to publish BDO before Pearl Abyss started self-publishing, so that’s the connection there.) Altogether, she was involved with Black Desert Online for about eight years. Considering how much BDO grew and changed to be more digestible for the US market over the last few years, I’m pretty sure she had a hand in helping it grow into what it is today. That’s also enough time to really get to know the ins and outs of Korean MMO development, the business around it, and the essential strategies to help the game thrive in our market.
All of this is to say that it’s no surprise NCsoft wanted her to helm NC America; the eastern and western markets couldn’t be more different. In Korea, PC gaming is practically synonymous with PC bangs, while over here in the US, we’re all about gaming from the comfort of our own homes. That’s already a pretty massive cultural divide. Having someone who’s fluent in both markets’ quirks and needs is absolutely critical if NC America wants to revitalized its position here (and it does).
I also wanted to know some games she played. Like many of us, she’s very busy and gaming time is at a minimum. I know can relate. She told me that she’s been putting time into playing some NCsoft titles when she has time, naturally, but her all-time favorite is actually Diablo 2. That caught me off guard, but it makes sense because Diablo 2 was and still is huge in Korea.
Awakening ‘the sleeping giant of the west’
I then moved on to inquire about her vision and mission for NC America. She started with a brief history of NCsoft, explaining that it’s a first-generation online game company that was founded in 1997 and released games such as Aion, Lineage, Blade & Soul, and Guild Wars. MMORPG fans are well-acquainted with that chronology, of course. She continued with the challenges that NCsoft had gone through the last couple of years, from weathering a tumultuous mobile industry and getting Throne & Liberty to a global market to staying true to its MMORPG roots. Here’s what she told me:
“I believe NCSOFT has huge opportunities to grow outside of Korea. NCSOFT is the very first Korean game company who established a US-based studio, back in 2000. For various reasons, NCSOFT has
experienced both ups and downs in the West. We had good days, we had bad days, just like other companies. Unfortunately, most recent several years haven’t been great for us. And now we want to
revamp and revise the business – I was brought in to do that. To me, NCSOFT is like a sleeping giant in the West. We plan to take advantage of NC’s development power and abilities to shows its games to the bigger, broader audience.
“The sleeping giant in the west.” That’s such a cool way to see something. So her mission is essentially to awaken NCsoft here in the west. She wants to use its assets and development power to really get NCsoft back on track specifically by increasing exposure to western audiences. She concluded by saying that she feels “confident that [NCsoft] can do way better than [it is] doing now and eventually create a good brand [in the US].
Growing NC America
When I asked JJ about NC’s specific growth strategies, she started off by explaining NC America’s current status – relevant as the company has undergone a transformation in the last few years, including a big restructure back in 2023.
“NC America is currently the only western publishing entity under NCSOFT. We started out small. We have about 35 people, and most of [our] teams are working here in Irvine. I’m planning to grow our capabilities and the business size quickly for the next couple of years and we want to stay nimble, fun, and community-focused as we grow.”
Along with growing the team, JJ told me she feels that the studio needs to prove itself. She couldn’t get too into it, but she did mention that NC America’s main focus is to do better with its current live-service titles as well as launching new projects successfully, all playing on the company’s existing strengths.
And if you’re wondering, yes, even in the middle of this industry downturn, that means the company is currently hiring more people. In particular, NCsoft is trying to expand its studio to better handle the live service titles including Lineage 2, Blade & Soul, and Aion. She also mentioned that there are new projects brewing up in NC America (whether that means the previously leaked Guild Wars 3 or something else, we don’t know). Her personal goal is to create a “great workplace for gamers” with a “creative, fun, and collaborative working culture at NC America.”
The current buzzy game JJ wanted to discuss was Blade & Soul NEO, which released in Korea last autumn and is now en route to the west as revealed earlier today. In reference to Throne & Liberty, the Amazon-pubbed NCsoft MMORPG that we called our GOTY, she told me she wants to continue to the company’s “winning streak” with the new Blade & Soul effort and additional unnamed games coming out over the course of 2025.
Are we ever getting WildStar or Tabula Rasa back?
Finally, I had to note that NCsoft won our own Studio of the Year award last year because of its decision to license the long-sunsetted City of Heroes to players. Obviously, that move won NC America a blast of goodwill from MMO gamers and set a precedent for sunsetted titles. Naturally, I had to ask about a few more sunsetted NCsoft MMOs that the company might be willing to do that for, specifically WildStar and Tabula Rasa.
JJ acknowledged that she also loved WildStar as a gamer, but of course, it was sunsetted years ago, and she’s been at the helm only since 2024. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to say anything on the subject of a revival; NCsoft controls the IP of both titles, not NC America, and it would take significant internal discussions between the groups before anything like that could even be entertained. In other words, it’s almost definitely not happening – but they do know there’s interest and how much it would boost NC America’s profile with core MMORPG gamers. Either way, I had to ask – it was a perfect opportunity to at least give her a pulse-check and show that there are people interested in seeing these games return, particularly WildStar.
We ended our conversation there, but I know this won’t be our last. Thanks so much to JJ and the NC America team for chatting with us!
The four wind tiles in Mahjong open all sorts of winning combinations for players of this ancient game – and the “Asian” MMO subgenre is just as varied as the many rulesets in Mahjong. Join Massively OP’s Carlo Lacsina here in our Four Winds column as he covers the diverse assembly of MMOs imported from the East!
