NCSOFT

History

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. In 2004, NCSOFT launched two MMORPGs, Lineage II and City of Heroes.

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.

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.

On July 8, 2011, NCSOFT started talks with SK Telecom to acquire Ntreev Soft Co., Ltd. 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.

In 2011, NCSOFT purchased Hotdog Studio, a mobile game studio based in Seoul that produces phone and smartphone titles such as Dark Shrine.

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. Nexon sold all of its shares of NCSOFT in October 2015.

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.

Current

Former

Customer satisfaction

NCSOFT and RightNow Technologies were both recognized in 2006 with the "Beagle Research 'Whiz Kids' Award for Innovative Embedded Customer Service Solution." for NCSOFT's integration of RightNow's customer support software.

Corporate social responsibility

NCSOFT founded NCSOFT Cultural Foundation in 2012, which develops software for the handicapped and runs diverse social contribution programmes.

Stolen source code

On April 27, 2007, Seoul Metropolitan Police said that seven former employees of NCSOFT are suspected of selling the Lineage III source code to a major Japanese game company. According to NCSOFT, the potential damages may exceed US$1 billion.

Worlds.com patent lawsuit

Worlds.com CEO Thom Kidrin claimed the idea of a "scalable virtual world with thousands of users" is patented by his organization and targeted NCSOFT for patent infringement in 2008, in what he says will be the first of many lawsuits against MMO developers. On April 23, 2010, the Worlds.com case settled, but the terms of the settlement were kept confidential. On July 22, 2010, Worlds.com requested the case be reopened.

Richard Garriott termination

Richard Garriott, lead developer of Tabula Rasa, sued NCSOFT for US$24 million in damages concerning his termination from the company. Garriott asserted in his suit that he was forced out of the company and was made to sell his 400,000 shares in NCSOFT's stock, costing him millions of dollars. In addition, he claimed that the company was guilty of fraud by forging his resignation announcement. On July 30, 2010, a jury in a Texas federal court awarded him US$28 million in damages. NCSOFT appealed the ruling. Garriott again prevailed on appeal and NCSOFT was required to pay an additional US$4 million, bringing the total damages awarded to Garriott to US$32 million.

Closure of Paragon Studios and City of Heroes

On August 31, 2012, NCSOFT liquidated Paragon Studios and announced the closure of City of Heroes. Over 21,000 players signed an online petition contesting the shut-down and many used social media to promote their criticisms.

Titles not available in English

In addition, NCSOFT is also the developer and maintainer of a variety of web-based board games in Asian markets.