WEBTOON Acquires 60% Stake in Game Company RI Games Holdings
WEBTOON has acquired a 60% stake in South Korea-based game company RI Games Holdings to bring webtoon universes into the gaming world. According to Anime News Network's report on August 23, RI Games' portfolio includes games adapted from popular webtoons such as Overgeared, Doom Breaker, and Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint.
This acquisition is one of the most concrete steps in WEBTOON's goal of transforming from merely a digital comic platform into an intellectual property (IP) company. Founded under Naver in 2004 and listed on Nasdaq in 2024, WEBTOON Entertainment had previously adapted works such as Tower of God, The God of High School, and Noblesse into anime, and also produced K-drama and film adaptations of many webtoons. Now it has set its sights on the gaming industry.
The stories underlying RI Games' games are among the most well-known universes in the webtoon world. Overgeared, adapted from Park Saenal's web novel of the same name, tells the story of a character named Grid striving to become a legendary blacksmith in a virtual reality game. Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, born from sing N song's web novel, follows a reader's struggle to survive in the post-apocalyptic world of a novel he knows. Doom Breaker, on the other hand, stands out as an action-packed webtoon with a rebirth theme by Blue-Deep and Kkachi.
While the acquisition price was not disclosed, the move is seen as part of WEBTOON's strategy to bring its extensive IP catalog to games. Especially for fans of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint and Overgeared, this development is a sign that the universes they love will not be limited to comics and animation. WEBTOON's past experience in anime and series adaptations suggests it could achieve similar success on the gaming side.
In the coming period, it is eagerly awaited how RI Games' existing projects will take shape and which new IPs WEBTOON will bring into the gaming world. This partnership has been recorded as another sign that the boundaries between the webtoon and gaming industries are increasingly thinning.
