Kim Chang-han, the PUBG Producer Who Runs Krafton
Kim Chang-han is the chief executive of Krafton, the Seoul game publisher behind PUBG: Battlegrounds. Krafton nominated him as CEO in March 2020, after three years at the head of PUBG Corporation, the studio that built the battle royale game.
| Role | Chief Executive Officer |
|---|---|
| Company | Krafton, Inc. |
| Headquarters | Seoul, South Korea |
| Industry | Media and Entertainment |
| In role since | 2020 |
| Born | 1974, Seoul, South Korea |
| Education | Master’s degree and doctorate in computer science, KAIST |
| Company website | krafton.com |
From Game Studio Engineer to Krafton CEO
Kim studied computer science at KAIST, where he also completed a master’s degree and a doctorate. He spent his early career on the technical side of game development.
- 2000: began work in development, planning and technology roles at several game studios, including head of the technology team at Imagic and CTO at Nextplay
- Ginno Games: CTO and development producer at the MMO studio he founded, which was sold to Bluehole in a deal that closed in March 2015
- 2015: executive producer at Bluehole Ginno Games, overseeing the development of PUBG
- 2017: CEO of PUBG Corporation, now PUBG Studios
- 2020: CEO of Krafton
What Krafton Makes and Sells
Krafton was set up in November 2018 as a holding company for the game studios of Bluehole, which Chang Byung-gyu founded in Seoul in 2007. The company held its initial public offering in August 2021. Its catalogue centres on PUBG: Battlegrounds for PC and consoles, Battlegrounds Mobile and BGMI in India, along with newer titles such as inZOI and MIMESIS, each of which sold more than one million copies in its early weeks.
For 2025 Krafton posted revenue of 3.33 trillion won, up 22.8 percent on 2024, and operating profit of 1.05 trillion won. The Battlegrounds PC business passed 1 trillion won in annual revenue in that year.
Krafton’s Shareholder Plans and Kim’s Share Purchase
Krafton plans to return at least 1 trillion won to shareholders over 2026 to 2028, through an annual cash dividend of 100 billion won and share buybacks of more than 700 billion won. The company is also working on a plan it calls PUBG 2.0 and aims to cut development costs for new titles by about 40 percent with AI tools. In March 2026 Kim bought 21,144 Krafton shares on the open market for about 4.95 billion won.
