[비즈한국] Black Anchor, a domestic game developer invested in by Webzen, has filed for bankruptcy less than six months after the official release of its new game. Black Anchor had spent six years developing the turn-based strategy RPG ‘Memoris: Forsaken by Light’ (hereinafter ‘Memoris’), but its financial situation deteriorated due to declining revenue and mounting operating losses.
On the 14th, the Seoul Rehabilitation Court announced a simplified bankruptcy ruling for Black Anchor. Simplified bankruptcy is a procedure applied when the assets belonging to the bankruptcy estate are less than 500 million KRW; once bankruptcy is declared, a bankruptcy trustee manages and disposes of the company's assets and distributes them to creditors.
Black Anchor is a game developer established in 2020, led by CEO Jung Geuk-min, who previously developed ‘Chaos Online’ and ‘Chaos Masters’. Its first title, Memoris, was unveiled at the Busan Indie Connect Festival (BIC) in 2020 under the name ‘BEFORE THE DAWN’ and won the gold prize in the production category at the 2021 Global Indie Game Development Contest. It later changed its name to ‘Remore: Infested Kingdom’ and continued development.
Black Anchor released Remore on Steam and the Epic Games Store in October 2023 via Early Access, but subsequently overhauled the game's system. In February, the game was renamed to Memoris, and the official version was finally released on April 28 of this year.
Black Anchor's revenue fell from 449.5 million KRW in 2022 to 200 million KRW in 2023 and 42.5 million KRW in 2024, while operating losses widened from 216.07 million KRW in 2022 to 465.43 million KRW in 2023, and 711.46 million KRW in 2024. The net loss for 2024 also reached 711.77 million KRW.
Webzen signed a publishing contract for Remore with Black Anchor in 2023 and invested 1 billion KRW the year before to acquire a 16.67% stake. At the time, Webzen expanded its partnership by securing publishing rights for the next project Black Anchor would develop. Last year, it made an additional investment of approximately 500 million KRW. As of last June, Webzen held a 25.93% stake in Black Anchor, with an investment book value of 1.5 billion KRW.
It appears that Webzen provided a loan of 200 million KRW to Black Anchor, receiving all copyrights to Memoris as collateral. In addition, prepaid expenses stand at approximately 571.8 million KRW, and accrued interest is approximately 6.3 million KRW.
When asked whether they were aware of Black Anchor's management situation and the possibility of bankruptcy in advance, Webzen replied, "It is difficult to disclose whether we knew in advance." They added, "It is correct that we hold rights to the intellectual property as collateral under the contract. As the bankruptcy process is underway, there is nothing further we can provide beyond what has been announced."