CJ E&M, the biggest music and entertainment business firm in Korea, said Monday that it would not pull out of the computer games business.

“CJ E&M is currently looking into ways to enhance its competitiveness in the rapidly changing game market, and will not give up on operating its games business CJ E&M Games,” the company said in a statement.

The CJ’s games business unit, however, must either buy all the shares of its subsidiaries including ANIPARK Co. and SEED9, or sell its shares of the subsidiaries in compliance with antitrust rules.

The antitrust law in Korea stipulates that a sub-subsidiary of the holding company should not obtain more than half the shares in another firm and is required to wholly own or sell it.

CJ E&M Games is a sub-subsidiary CJ Group, which owns CJ E&M.

CJ E&M Games, developer of online baseball game “MaguMagu” and its mobile edition, and online board game Netmarble, raked in 196.8 billion won ($184.4 million) in revenue in the first half of this year, and expected to earn more than double last year’s revenue of 212.1 billion won.

“The decision to wholly buy the subsidiaries or sell some part of the shares has not been made yet,” an official from the game unit of CJ Group said.

As rumors spread of the sale of CJ’s game business unit, CJ E&M’s share price dropped around 14 percent in Monday trading.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)