The Man Behind One of the World’s Most-Played Shooters Was Just Hit With a Record $1.9 Billion Divorce Bill

Kwon Hyuk-bin built Smilegate into a intimately held gaming empire powered by CrossFire and Lost Ark, a institution helium inactive owns outright and seldom talks astir successful public. On 9/9/2026, a Seoul tribunal ordered him to wage a 2.55 trillion won divorcement settlement, astir $1.9 billion, including handing implicit 35% of Smilegate to Lee Hwa-jin. Reported by Bloomberg, the determination stands arsenic South Korea’s largest ever spot part payout, much than doubling the erstwhile record. For a laminitis whose wealthiness was pegged astatine $3 cardinal days earlier, the verdict turns a backstage breakup into a high-stakes reshuffle of 1 of Korea’s biggest crippled companies.

Some tech fortunes are built quietly, past exposed each astatine once. That is what happened this period astir Smilegate, the privately held South Korean crippled steadfast with a existent footprint among US players acknowledgment to planetary PC hits. Bloomberg reported that a Seoul tribunal conscionable attached a startling terms tag to that empire, and it centers connected ownership itself.

A tribunal bid that rewrites a headdress table

On September 9, 2026, the Seoul Family Court ordered Kwon Hyuk-bin, Smilegate’s founder, to wage a $1.9 billion divorcement settlement. The ruling includes transferring 35% of Smilegate’s shares to his ex-wife, Lee Hwa-jin. Local sum characterized it arsenic the largest spot part payout ever recorded successful South Korea, and the colony much than doubled the country’s anterior divorcement grant record.

For American readers utilized to seeing shareholder fights play retired done nationalist filings, this 1 lands differently: Smilegate is unlisted, and earlier the bid Kwon owned 100% of it. That makes the court-mandated stock transportation not conscionable a currency figure, but a forced reshaping of power successful a institution that has mostly operated extracurricular the spotlight.

The concern down CrossFire and Lost Ark

Kwon founded Smilegate successful June 2002, and the institution is headquartered successful Pangyo, Seongnam, extracurricular Seoul. It sits down the shooter CrossFire and the role-playing rubric Lost Ark, and it has built a dependable licensing instrumentality astir them. According to The Korea Times, CrossFire has generated $14.7 billion successful cumulative planetary sales.

The aforesaid study says Smilegate receives much than $378 cardinal a twelvemonth successful royalties from publishing partnerships, including with Tencent. It is besides described arsenic Korea’s fifth-largest crippled institution by sales, portion Kwon is known for seldom making nationalist appearances extracurricular foundation events.

A matrimony timeline that turned into a multiyear case

Kwon and Lee joined successful 2001, a twelvemonth earlier Smilegate was founded. Lee filed for divorcement successful 2022 aft much than 20 years of marriage, and she sought a 50% stake, arguing she helped concern the institution aboriginal on. The lawsuit stretched crossed aggregate hearings, including 1 connected May 27, 2026 wherever Lee appeared successful person.

The tribunal yet recognized that Smilegate’s founding and maturation were not solely attributable to Kwon, portion Kwon’s broadside argued Lee was neither a co-founder nor progressive successful management. Game World Observer aboriginal reported the effect arsenic 35% of the company’s shares, and Kwon could inactive situation the size of the spot division.

What changes erstwhile the laminitis nary longer owns it all

Just days earlier the ruling, Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index estimated Kwon’s luck astatine $3 billion, and noted helium is 52 years old. When a founder’s wealthiness is truthful concentrated successful backstage equity, a court-ordered transportation of this standard tin change not lone idiosyncratic finances but besides however a institution negotiates partnerships, succession planning, and interior governance.

For Smilegate, the contiguous information is elemental and enormous: a workplace built nether single-owner power is present acceptable to beryllium divided by judicial order, with 35% moving retired of the founder’s hands.