IN CONVERSATION WITH: JEONGHEE “JJ” JIN
Matt Broughton spoke with CEO of NC America at NCSOFT, Jeonghee “JJ” Jin, about her extensive industry background, a 2025 full of growth, and a VERY exciting 2026 to come
M
att: Can you tell us a little about your own background in the industry? Jeonghee “JJ” Jin: In my 25-year career,
I’ve spent 20 years of them in games. I was born and raised in Korea and my first job out of school was in market research and consulting (data analysis and go-to-market strategies). I then moved to NHN, one of the largest internet service and videogame companies in Korea. That was my first official videogame job. After NHN, I moved to the US and went to business
school. After my MBA, I didn’t go back to Korea. I joined Trion Worlds as the Business Development Director, launching its flagship MMORPG Rift in the US, Korea, China, Taiwan and other countries. I also worked on ArcheAge. After Trion, I moved to a startup called nWay in San Francisco and worked on ChronoBlade and a Power Ranger game. Shortly after, I joined Kakao Games in 2016 to set up its US subsidiary Kakao Games USA for Black Desert Online. I moved to Pearl Abyss and spent six and half years there working on western business strategy and corporate development. During my time at Pearl Abyss, I served as a board member for CCP Games, the creators of Eve Online.
44 | MCV/DEVELOP February/March 2026 I joined NCSOFT in August 2024 as the CEO of NC
America, company’s western publishing studio, and now I’m also serving as COO for Arenanet/NCWest.
Matt: How was last year for NCSOFT? What were the big ‘moments’ for the company in 2025? JJ: 2025 was a transitional growth year for us. When I joined, I wanted to see how much we improve our “legacy” titles Lineage 2, Aion, and Blade & Soul. As soon as Korea launched Blade & Soul NEO in October 2024, we decided to bring to the West. My team made it happen in February 2025. The launch was smooth and lots of players enjoyed its nostalgic story and combat, though unfortunately its monetization model was criticized. We also opened up a new server for Lineage 2 in April and a new Wolf class. Aion also opened a new server Ascend in August and welcomed many returning players. In September, we launched Blade & Soul Heroes, a new Blade & Soul spin-off game. Our parent company NCSOFT launched AION 2
in November in Korea and Taiwan, receiving a very positive response, and now my team at NC America is working on the global release for AION 2 for later this year. We will share more details very, very soon!
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