NCSoft

NCSoft is a South Korean video game developer. The company has produced Lineage, City of Heroes, WildStar, Guild Wars, Aion, Blade & Soul, Exteel and Master X Master. Contents 1 History 2 Subsidiaries 2.1 Current 2.2 Former 3 Customer satisfaction 4 Controversies 4.1 Stolen source code 4.2 Worlds.com patent lawsuit 4.3 Richard Garriott termination 4.4 Closure of Paragon Studios and City of Heroes 5 Games 5.1 Under development 5.2 Available 5.2.1 PC Online 5.2.2 Mobile 5.3 Closed 5.4 Titles not available in English 6 References 7 External links History[edit] NCSoft was founded in March 1997 by T.J. Kim. In September 1998, NCSoft launched its first game Lineage. In April 2001 the company created a US subsidiary under the name NC Interactive (based in Austin, Texas, and would later become NCSoft West) after acquiring Destination Games, headed by Richard Garriott and Robert Garriott.[3] In 2004, NCSoft launched two MMORPGs, Lineage II and City of Heroes.[4] The company formed NCSoft Europe in July 2004 as a wholly owned subsidiary with its main office in Brighton, England. They brought City of Heroes to several European countries on February 4, 2005, and have since established European service for WildStar and Blade & Soul as well.[citation needed] On April 26, 2005, NCSoft published Arenanet's first MMO Guild Wars Prophecies as well as Arenanets follow up campaigns Factions and Nightfall and the expansion Eye of the North. NCSoft also published Guild Wars 2 but stopped being the publisher for Guild Wars 2 in 2015 with the release of Heart of Thorns. On September 10, 2008, NCSoft announced the formation of NCSoft West, a subsidiary which manages NCSoft's other western organizations, and established its headquarters for that subsidiary in Seattle, Washington.[5] On July 8, 2011, NCSoft started talks with SK Telecom to acquire Ntreev Soft Co., Ltd.[6] The talks were expected to last less than a month, but it took seven for NCSoft to complete the acquisition; purchasing 76% of Ntreev's stock for ₩108 billion (US$96.7 million) on February 15, 2012.[7] In 2011, NCSoft purchased Hotdog Studio, a mobile game studio based in Seoul that produces phone and smartphone titles such as Dark Shrine.[8] In June 2012, NCSoft launched Blade & Soul, their first MMORPG since Aion launched in 2006. In 2012 Nexon acquired a 14.7 percent interest in NCSoft for $688 million.[9] Nexon sold all of its shares of NCSoft in October 2015.[citation needed] On November 19, 2015, NCSoft West announced the formation of Iron Tiger studios, a developer based out of San Mateo, California focused on adapting Korean-made mobile titles for the West, as well as developing their own mobile games.[10]