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Stellar Blade developer Shift Up to go public at projected valuation of $2.3 billion

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
shift-up-public.jpg

Although the investment climate in the games industry remains turbulent, a new large public offering is on the way. South Korean developer Shift Up recently applied to be listed on the Korea Stock Exchange.

Shift Up filed an application on March 5, planning to list over 58 million shares on the Korea Stock Exchange. The number of shares scheduled for sale during the upcoming public offering is 7.25 million, with a par value of ₩200 ($0.15) per share.

The IPO will be led by Korea Investment & Securities, NH Investment & Securities, and JP Morgan Securities’ Seoul branch.
shift-up-korea-stock-exchange.png

As reported by GameLook, Shift Up’s valuation approached ₩2 trillion ($1.5 billion) in October 2023. Around the same time, WeMade Entertainment sold 2 million shares it owned in the studio to Tencent’s subsidiary Aceville for $53.9 million.

Korean analysts currently expect Shift Up to reach a valuation of ₩3 trillion ($2.3 billion) after going public. The main reasons are the continued success of Goddess of Victory: Nikke and the upcoming launch of Stellar Blade. According to industry experts, the company could also become a target for investors from Saudi Arabia.
Founded in 2013, Shift Up is a South Korean developer, which first came to the light with the launch of mobile battler Destiny Child. In November 2022, the studio released Goddess of Victory: Nikke, a gacha-based action title. It has surpassed $600 million in player spending on mobile, with Japan, the US, and South Korea being the top three countries by revenue.

Shift Up co-founder CEO Kim Hyung-tae remains the largest shareholder, owning 45% of the studio’s shares. Chinese tech giant Tencent also invested twice in the studio, currently holding a 24% stake in the company.

Stellar Blade, a third-person hack and slash game made in partnership with Sony Interactive Entertainment, is expected to be released for PlayStation 5 on April 26, 2024.
 
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poodaddy

Member
I might buy some shares later on, first comes the proving of their value. If the game sells well and we see that they have an understanding of the demographics they're targeting, then this would be a good studio to support from the ground floor.
 
LOL time to get that dolla huh

Well, I suppose it's won not dolla

As long as they can fund more console games with Nikke money, nobody will complain

Good Investment oportunity, too bad i cant buy shares
I tried to buy shares of Samsung once upon a time and the hoops I needed to jump through to buy something on the Korean stock market I just noped out of there

In general, valuation of American companies are higher than most foreign companies on foreign exchanges anyways so honestly we're not missing much
 
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I tried to buy shares of Samsung once upon a time and the hoops I needed to jump through to buy something on the Korean stock market I just noped out of there

In general, valuation of American companies are higher than most foreign companies on foreign exchanges anyways so honestly we're not missing much
South Korea is a special case, their securities laws are pretty archaic compared to the rest of the world. Despite being very much first world they are still considered an "emerging market" by the industry because of their access restrictions.

Japan is pretty easy to buy the local shares, though they have 100 share minimum purchases which can make some stocks pretty expensive to buy.
 

RickSanchez

Member
aaah ok, i just learned from this post that they are South Korean. That explains a lot. I suppose the South Koreans and the Japanese haven't yet developed hangups about having beautiful curvy women in their games that Western developers are plagued with.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
aaah ok, i just learned from this post that they are South Korean. That explains a lot. I suppose the South Koreans and the Japanese haven't yet developed hangups about having beautiful curvy women in their games that Western developers are plagued with.

Western devs aren't plagued with it either. They are personally deciding to uglify their female characters.
 

RickSanchez

Member
Western devs aren't plagued with it either. They are personally deciding to uglify their female characters.

I'll never understand this mindset of not wanting your main character to be a standard in beauty. And they can even do this while conforming to their DEI rules. Black, Latin, Indian, Asian (and lesbian) women can be beautiful as fuck. Or is 'ugly' one of the underrepresented groups spelled out in their DEI rules ?
 
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Bkdk

Member
if there is one thing worth being a simp for is simp for shift up!

You can try capture some of that money by creating a shitcoin named shift up in crypto too.
 
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Pejo

Member
Well, there goes one of my favorite game devs in the current day landscape.

The optimist in me read that the CEO (and Tencent, the current biggest investor 🤮) will still hold the majority of shares, so in that aspect I guess nothing immediately will change.

The realist in me knows that a profitable company and an unprofitable company means virtually the same thing to seasoned investors. They will control the decisions to an extent to be able to pump, dump, and rebuild the stock as they see fit irrespective to the actual product being made.

I was looking forward to Stellar Blade (still am), and I play Nikke daily, and this does nothing but sadden me. There is literally zero benefit to me as a gamer for this news and we will only see ideologues and bean counters ruin the things that they touch. For fucks sake they were already competing with giants like miHoYo in the global space in monthly revenue on the gacha. I guess "so much money" lost out to "ALL OF THE MONEY".
 
Ugh.....

As opposed to based eastern developers:

https://www.pcinvasion.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Final-Fantasy-7-Rebirth-Tifa-Aerith-Swimsuits.png?fit=1200%2C675
https://wallpapercave.com/wp/wp7238044.jpg
https://www.ungeek.ph/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/resident_evil_2_screenshots_ada_wong_image1.jpg
https://blog.playstation.com/tachyon/2022/09/4fb2e08ada5a2ef6901a4ad9345fefdd9aa05238.jpg
https://images.hdqwalls.com/wallpapers/yorha-2b-nier-automata-ys.jpg
Eastern devs actually support sexy or beautiful girls in their games……..what a novel idea. Western devs have caved to the woke mob and have made the women in their games manly and flat out ugly in most cases. Cant objectify women by putting pretty girls in games now can we? Stupid beyond all reasoning.
 
imagine getting IPO because of asses
dont' give up on your dreams


however, not a fan of them going public because it means their decision making will be more influenced to benefit investors. That means more monetization!! More anti consumer practices!!
 

Aenima

Member
Well, there goes one of my favorite game devs in the current day landscape.

The optimist in me read that the CEO (and Tencent, the current biggest investor 🤮) will still hold the majority of shares, so in that aspect I guess nothing immediately will change.

The realist in me knows that a profitable company and an unprofitable company means virtually the same thing to seasoned investors. They will control the decisions to an extent to be able to pump, dump, and rebuild the stock as they see fit irrespective to the actual product being made.

I was looking forward to Stellar Blade (still am), and I play Nikke daily, and this does nothing but sadden me. There is literally zero benefit to me as a gamer for this news and we will only see ideologues and bean counters ruin the things that they touch. For fucks sake they were already competing with giants like miHoYo in the global space in monthly revenue on the gacha. I guess "so much money" lost out to "ALL OF THE MONEY".
If Level Infinite, that is owned by Tencent, is the publisher of Nikke, and the game is still one of the most lewd gatcha games out there, i dont think anyone will come and take that away. They know why Nikke is printing money. As long the CEO Kim keeps in charge i dont see anything really changing for the worst. Dude is based AF.
 
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Pejo

Member
If Level Infinite, that is owned by Tencent, is the publisher of Nikke, and the game is still one of the most lewd gatcha games out there, i dont think anyone will come and take that away. They know why Nikke is printing money. As long the CEO Kim keeps in charge i dont see anything really changing for the worst. Dude is based AF.
I get what you're saying, but that's not how the mind of investors work. Monetization will undoubtedly get worse at the bare minimum, and "market expansion" type censorship can occur. We saw literally the same thing play out with another Korean gacha dev a few years ago with Epic 7. Pretty much step for step for what's going on here and that game got heavily censored, mostly to be able to release in China. Then, afterwards, they also future-proof censored all new designs so that they wouldn't have to maintain two versions of the game. The only difference is that Nikke makes much more money than Epic 7 does.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
I'll never understand this mindset of not wanting your main character to be a standard in beauty. And they can even do this while conforming to their DEI rules. Black, Latin, Indian, Asian (and lesbian) women can be beautiful as fuck. Or is 'ugly' one of the underrepresented groups spelled out in their DEI rules ?

This is how you know making the lady characters unattractive has nothing to do with DEI. It's not like Beyonce or Jennifer Lopez are super popular (somewhat due to their looks). But I do like when some devs make their female character unattractive, because that too also tells a story.

Like.................
xLg6ADwJoMdlEHBAaK-3gw.jpeg


1621014568258.png
 

Pejo

Member
This is how you know making the lady characters unattractive has nothing to do with DEI. It's not like Beyonce or Jennifer Lopez are super popular (somewhat due to their looks). But I do like when some devs make their female character unattractive, because that too also tells a story.

Like.................
xLg6ADwJoMdlEHBAaK-3gw.jpeg


1621014568258.png
What story does her unattractiveness tell?
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
What story does her unattractiveness tell?

Her experience, wear and tear life has taking on her, overall age when the game starts, etc. Not every character created has to be between the ages of 18-35 and sexy. We all know this happens with men in games. So we shouldn't act surprised with a female character isn't some smoking hot chick.

I don’t.

That's odd.
 
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Pejo

Member
Her experience, wear and tear life has taking on her, overall age when the game starts, etc. Not every character created has to be between the ages of 18-35 and sexy. We all know this happens with men in games. So we shouldn't act surprised with a female character isn't some smoking hot chick.
But then in the game she can jetpack around, jump up and down 40 foot cliffs, and shoot grenades/lasers at frantic speed. Doesn't that clash against her "wear and tear" visual appearance? Seems dissonant with the picture that her character design would indicate. If anything, I think returnal's MC should be a younger, more agile person instead of an old lady.
 

FoxMcChief

Gold Member
This is how you know making the lady characters unattractive has nothing to do with DEI. It's not like Beyonce or Jennifer Lopez are super popular (somewhat due to their looks). But I do like when some devs make their female character unattractive, because that too also tells a story.

Like.................
xLg6ADwJoMdlEHBAaK-3gw.jpeg


1621014568258.png
I really need to give Returnal a second chance.
 

balls of snow

Gold Member
They are Nikke developers. They are making 30-40$ million per month in the gacha.
Thats why Gaass are needed. You can fund 5 Stellar Blades running a season of Gaas. Probably where the industry is headed: Joint parnership with these publishers who have more money than the entire industry but no expertise in making longform singeplayer games.
 
This is how you know making the lady characters unattractive has nothing to do with DEI. It's not like Beyonce or Jennifer Lopez are super popular (somewhat due to their looks). But I do like when some devs make their female character unattractive, because that too also tells a story.

Like.................
xLg6ADwJoMdlEHBAaK-3gw.jpeg


1621014568258.png
She looks exactly like what I’d expect a female astronaut/scientist to look like. So it fits imo.

I think people are largely ok when ugly characters are used when they make sense, those kinds of people exist. But just over doing it or changing established characters is when it’s stupid.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
She looks exactly like what I’d expect a female astronaut/scientist to look like. So it fits imo.

I think people are largely ok when ugly characters are used when they make sense, those kinds of people exist. But just over doing it or changing established characters is when it’s stupid.
To me I don’t have issue, western devs can design their characters however they want….my issue comes from them criticizing Asian devs for designing their characters however they want.

Freedom should work both ways.
 
I'll never understand this mindset of not wanting your main character to be a standard in beauty. And they can even do this while conforming to their DEI rules. Black, Latin, Indian, Asian (and lesbian) women can be beautiful as fuck. Or is 'ugly' one of the underrepresented groups spelled out in their DEI rules ?
A leak from a former ND employee alleges that the reason for fugly women characters in their game is to not alienate transpeople.

Yes...

You heard that right...
 
Because making each female character beautiful is objectifying women, making it like being beautiful is a prerequisite or a standard to being a woman.

Which I agree with.

amy poehler yolo GIF
But games don't make ALL female characters beautiful. Just as all male characters aren't handsome Chris Hemsworths.

Gaming is fantasy and it's escapism. People don't look to games to try to inform their understanding of the wider world and society.

So any argument about games influencing people's perceptions of reality are complete and utter bullshit.

In fact, porn has a bigger impact on people's perception of real world sexual encounters, while also containing far more problematic shit than gaming ever did. And yet it's odd that the purple haired activists aren't going after the porn companies...

Not only are they not, they're actively participating in that mess through shit like OF.
 
i dont think saying selene is ugly or unatractive is a good way to make a point. She just looks like an average real person.

17byngV.jpg
One could argue that video games have even more power to portray an average-looking Joe or Jane as the protagonist, in contrast to Hollywood, because in video games, gameplay, mechanics, and graphics play a major role in the appeal of the medium. In Hollywood, actors are used to bring people to theaters, for example.
 
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