Japanese game publisher Nexon has attracted the interest of a number of major tech companies as Amazon, Comcast and EA have all placed bids for a controlling share of the company, as originally reported by South Korea’s Maeil Business Newspaper.
Nexon co-founder Kim Jung Ju in January first revealed plans to sell a controlling stake in the company for an estimated $9 billion.
Originally founded in Seoul in 1994, Nexon moved to Tokyo in 2005 and went public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Dec. 14, 2011, with an IPO that was the largest of the year in Japan and the second-largest for a technology company worldwide in 2011.
Nexon is known for such games as the massively multiplayer role-playing games MapleStory and Mabinogi.
Other bidders for control of the company include South Korean businesses such as game developers Netmarble and tech company Kakao, as well as private-equity funds such as KKR, Bain Capital and MBK Partners.
