South Korean game publisher Smilegate announced that it would merge its management system from three key entities: Smilegate Holdings, Smilegate Entertainment, and Smilegate RPG. These subsidiaries will be rolled up into a new integrated corporation system called Smilegate Holdings, Inc, effective Jan. 1 2026. Smilegate CEO of Smilegate, Seong Junho, will lead the new integrated corporation.
“Through this corporate integration, we have established a foundation to unite all capabilities and resources under a clear vision and business strategy, moving forward in one direction,” Seong said.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. It’s not clear how this restructuring will affect the esports ecosystem for Smilegate’s iconic esports title, CrossFire.
On Dec. 14, Smilegate and its Chinese distributor hosted CrossFire’s biggest annual esports event – CrossFire Stars (CFS) at Chengdu Financial City Arena, featuring $1.43 million USD in total prize money and 16 international teams.Teams included four from China: All Gamers (AG), Baisha Gaming, Evolution Power, and XROCK; three from Vietnam: Team Falcons, Twisted Minds, and Virtus.pro; three from Brazil: Team Liquid, NAVI, and AI Qadsiah; and two from the Philippines: Team Stallions and EVOS ARc. Chengdu-based esports team AG won the overall competition, taking home $500,000 in prize money.
The CFS 2025 is the fourth large-scale international esports event hosted in Chengdu in the past month, following CS2’s Intel Extreme Masters, the League of Legends World Championship Grand Final, Dota 2’s BLAST Slam V.
Regarding the sponsorship and partnership, the 2025 CFS had three global sponsors: gaming chair brand Morphlng, display brand ANTGAMER, and hardware brand GIGABYTE.
It should be noted that Smilegate stated that all information regarding CFS and CrossFire esports, including professional players’ personal information, gaming data, images and prize money payment details, will be transferred from Smilegate Entertainment to Smilegate Holdings Inc.
“The purpose of this personal data transfer is to finalize the merger procedure, based on the legitimate interests of the merged company and Smilegate Holdings to integrate internal organizations and enhance management efficiency,” Smilegate stated in its announcement. “We will only transfer the data strictly necessary for the aforementioned purpose, and the data will only be provided to the authorized department within Smilegate Holdings, ensuring it will not be used for any other purpose.”