Krafton Pearl Abyss

Krafton Pearl Abyss (: 크래프톤펄어비스 - Keulaepeuton Peol-Eobiseu) is a South Korean video game corporation, based in Gwacheon, South Korea, mostly owned by Vuori. They are a world-leading publisher and developer of mobile, casual and strategy titles as well as MMORPGs.

Krafton Pearl Abyss also holds an annual convention under the name NCCon, which has been open to the public since its foundation as PDXCon in 2017.

They have development studios around the world, with their mobile division NC Plarium residing in Israel, their publishing division En Masse residing in Venice Beach, and Keywords Studios residing in Dublin.

Their portfolio includes games and franchises such as Black Desert Online, Sniper Elite, World of Tanks/World of War, War Thunder, Raid: Shadow Legends, Clash of Clans, Eve Online and Guild Wars 2; and the portfolio is a huge part of their successes in Europe, the Americas and Asia-Pacific. They are also helping build the eSports scene within Africa.

Their rivals include Daybreak Game Company, Crescent Industries/Eclipse Game Studios and MGM Interactive. KPA owns most of THQ, Atari, Acclaim and Majesco's former franchises that aren't owned by Atari SA.

History
Krafton Pearl Abyss was formed in June 3, 2020, out of a merger between South Korean video game publishers ,, and , American video game developer , Belarusian video game publisher , Swedish game publisher  and Russian video game publishers  and , under Styhon Games & Interactive Ventures. With these, Styhon Games also integrated Gameforge and newly-acquired studios FunPlus, IGG (I Got Games), Rebellion Developments, BlitWorks, Demiurge Studios, Platinum Games, Nixxes Software, Phoenix Labs, Hardsuit Labs, Abstraction Games, Grinding Gear Games and Klei Entertainment.

During the Vivendi-Vuori merger, KPA received Gameloft studios in Vietnam, Indonesia and Ukraine, during OWL Ventures's acquisition of Gameloft. In return, KPA sold PUBG Corporation, Jam City's Burbank studio, and their golf assets (which include Golf Digest and the PGA Tour international media licensing rights).

For an additional 1% stake in the company, Vuori and Tencent negotiated merging most of Tencent Games's overseas operations to bypass sanctions on Tencent by both the United States and India. They sold off Riot Games and Tencent's stake in Epic Games to The Eclipse Group later in 2020.

Their 50% stake in ownership of Kakao eventually resulted in Kakao's merger into Krafton Pearl Abyss, with its former shareholders gaining B stock in Vuori afterwards. This also made way for Kakao Games's merger into KPA and its then-upcoming service NC Core, and Vuori acquired Kakao's 4% stake in the company.

They acquired PDXCon from their then-sister company on November 30, 2020. They arranged to hold one more PDXCon in 2021, before rebranding to NCCon.

As Styhon Battersea (Styhon Entertainment's parent company) and Vivendi started merger into Vuori, while SoftBank Group became part of OWL Ventures, KPA officially merged with Styhon Games to become the gaming division of Vuori.

In September 2020, Krafton Pearl Abyss had its first project cancellation with Eox, which was set to launch a multimedia franchise. The fate of Eox Party and the Eox TV show are left in limbo. The project was soon picked back up by Studio Watson Games.

In October 2020, Krafton Pearl Abyss acquired 70% of Netmarble, turning it into a private partnership between KPA (70%), Bang Joon-hyuk (25%) and the National Pension Service (5%). That same month, through The Eclipse Group's acquisition of, KPA received the Demonware studios and technology. Oliver Watson acquired the rest of CJ Group through his company Illustrious that month as well, inheriting its 6% stake, with the food division going to The Eclipse Group.

During Vuori/Illustrious's acquisition of the Egmont Group, also in October, Nordisk Games was split into three: Star Stable and the KoGaMa platform were sold to KPA (who acquired Raw Fury from them earlier), while Flashbulb and Multiverse ApS (developers of KoGaMa) were sold to The Eclipse Group, and the Nordisk Games label (with Nordisk Film) stayed with Illustrious. The KoGaMa platform's development was soon moved into NC Plarium.

In November, Krafton Pearl Abyss arranged a deal with MGM Interactive to acquire its units MGM Interactive Publishing and 2K Games. That month as well, KPA finished the acquisition of, which started in August under Tencent Games, until its overseas operations were merged into KPA.

The same month, Krafton Pearl Abyss announced that they're just finishing up on acquisitions of, , and. During this, Vuori sold 12% each in the company to both OWL Ventures (who already inherited the 6% stake from CJ Group) and The Eclipse Group. The acquisitions are set to complete on December 31, 2020. As part of the deal, Eclipse also acquired Supercell - including the Helsinki studio and the IPs. The other studios remained in NC Plarium. Also in November, KPA sold Snapshot Games and NC Plarium Zrt (which was renamed back to ) to Embracer Group, now owned by Landshade Media.

In December 2020, KPA entered board games publishing by establishing a board games division within NC En Masse. It will also absorb Rebellion Unplugged and White Wolf Publishing to form board games divisions within NC UK and the newly established NC Nordic.

Before January 1, 2021, Gung-Ho, Sumo, PPH and Zynga shareholders sold and absorbed Gung-Ho Online Entertainment, Sumo Digital, Pole To Win and Zynga respectively into KPA, with Illustrious receiving 3% stake on the venture (through Hoot Telecom/SoftBank, who owned a stake in Gung-Ho) and the shareholders getting minor stakes in KPA's parent company Vuori.

In December 2020, KPA acquired a 20% stake in, buying out shares owned by minor investors, mostly foreign investors, soon resulting on its acquisition of (including the rest of the CJ E&M group, as well as ) on January 3, 2021. It was integrated into NC Entertainment, with acquiring around a half from Tencent's 13% share. At the same time, was sold to Oliver Watson (of OWL Ventures).

On January 2, 2021, Krafton Pearl Abyss acquired Keywords Studios, from which some studios became the basis for Pearl Abyss's new studio Redshirt; Bohemia Interactive, which became part of Paradox; and Asmodee, which became the basis for NC En Masse's board games division.

In February 2021, KPA acquired all IPs owned by Throwback Entertainment, Liquid Media Group, Bam! Entertainment, Crave Games, XS Games, Equity Games Productions AG, Evolved Games, Empire Interactive/Zoo Digital Publishing/indiePub and Arush Entertainment/HIP Interactive, as well as most of Acclaim Entertainment's IPs not owned by the first two companies. They also acquired all patents and IPs previously owned by.

After the launch of NC Core, KPA intends to retire the En Masse brand from the video game industry, in order to clear up confusion as well as have En Masse become a label solely dedicated to board games.

Marketing
Krafton Pearl Abyss is one of the few gaming companies to stand out, when it comes to press conferences and game announcements. NCSoft's first conference at NCCon (then-called PDXCon) was taken to a new direction, similar to Devolver Digital's "Big Fancy Press Conferences", though it is much more controlled in terms of graphic violence and gore. The presenter of NC's press conferences in NCCon is KPA's CEO, Cho Mee-Kyong.

Problems during formation
During its formation, which was finished around December 31, 2020, their revenue, after paying for development staffs, services used for moving locations, server maintenance and setups, was exactly $0. After the formation, they became profitable again.

Cross-studio events
After the formation of Krafton Pearl Abyss, they started holding an annual company-wide multi-sport event in Seoul, nicknamed "Kraftolympics" which was streamed on their Twitch channel KraftonPearl. Team California, consisting of employees from NC En Masse, Rumble Games, Jam City and the NC Plarium studios from Palo Alto, San Mateo, Oxnard and San Diego, won the most medals during the first Kraftolympics.

Linux support
Krafton Pearl Abyss has dedicated itself to, amongst other things, developing Linux versions for all of its current and upcoming games.

Strategic partnerships

 * During its formation,  arranged a deal with KPA to distribute most of the latter's PC games within South Korea; some Krafton Pearl Abyss games will still be published through NC Korea. However, after January 2021, Kakao Games was fully absorbed into KPA.
 * Since the formation, KPA and their sister company Styhon Web Services have worked closely together, as SWS reserved some servers in their locations exclusively to KPA's titles under a special agreement.
 * Krafton Pearl Abyss acquired a minority stake in in April 1, 2021, starting a working relationship between the two companies which would see free memberships for NC Krafton titles bundled as part of deals offered by KT's carrier services.
 * NC Asia Pacific co-distributes titles with inside Mainland China; in exchange, NC Plarium sometimes releases titles by Tencent's in-house studios (,, Tencent Boston,  and NExT Studios) internationally.
 * NC Entertainment and announced a partnership, which would see two KPA properties get adapted into webseries.
 * KPA and  currently run a partnership, which would see KPA be responsible for marketing and supporting WayForward's titles, with the option to buy the studio after 2 ½ years.
 * KPA also entered a partnership with recently.
 * Since 2021, (A Pearl Abyss Studio) and NC Aspyr both work closely with DigiPen's international campus in Singapore on a program to foster local talent for video game development, a la.
 * KPA licensed some IPs from for more games to be released in the mid-2020s.
 * Athlon Games is a publishing partner of, in turn owned by Oliver Watson.

Studios
The company is divided into three internal divisions: North Division (located in Stockholm), West Division (located in Anyang) and East Division (located in Seongnam), with their publishing division NC En Masse, their sports management division KPA Sports and work-for-hire division Keywords Studios being the fourth, fifth and sixth respectively.

NC En Masse
NC En Masse is an American video game and board game publisher founded and owned by Krafton Pearl Abyss. They are headquartered in, with satellite offices in Austin, and Seattle. They release and maintains all Rebellion and Krafton Pearl Abyss titles in North America, mainly the United States.

NC En Masse was formed, when, during the merger of Krafton Pearl Abyss, the following were merged into one: En Masse Entertainment, NC West, Pearl Abyss America,, Zynga ATX, GungHo Online Entertainment America, Aspyr Publishing, WeMade Entertainment USA and PUBG Global Publishing. The new company retained the offices, except for the Manhattan Beach (Pearl Abyss), El Segundo (GungHo) and Santa Monica (PUBG) offices, as the staff from those offices were moved into the new headquarters in Venice Beach.

They also work to help independent designer/developers be financially and creatively successful in a highly challenging video game and board game markets. Their services include a full suite of publishing support, including brand marketing, community, social, public relations, creative, production, legal, distribution and other general business support; with studios such as Redshirt providing the help needed. As of 2020, they plan on changing the strategy to get more game developers to develop games for NC Core.

NC En Masse also serves as a holding company for KPA's international distribution operations, such as NC Southeast Asia (which currently runs Garena and Playpark), NC Germany (Gameforge), NC UK and NC Japan. While the non-US video game related operations owned by En Masse is branded as just NC, the board game publishing operations bear the En Masse name.

Offices and locations


 * NC En Masse Amusement Games LLC - Baltimore and Chicago; a publisher focused on indie titles, formed out of a merger between, and , the latter two of which saw the move of equipment and employees into a new studio; is a spiritual successor to Midway Amusement Games LLC
 * NC En Masse Las Vegas LLC - their office and network operation/secure data center in Las Vegas, Nevada; merger between Jam City Las Vegas and Machine Zone's Las Vegas studio
 * NC En Masse CS LLC - a customer services office in Aliso Veijo, California; merger between and NC West's Aliso Veijo office
 * - San Antonio; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * Toyetico - brand for toys and collectibles
 * Piko Studios - an experimental game development company focused on games developed for "retro" consoles such as Sega Genesis and Neo Geo, with studios located in Sheffield, Southampton and Toronto; merger between Big Evil Corporation, Bitmap Bureau Ltd and Songbird Productions
 * NC En Masse Board Games LLC - Roseville, Minnesota and Hunt Valley, Maryland; merger between Asmodee North America, Z-Man Games and Alliance Game Distributors; also distributes board games from other publishers
 * Fantasy Flight Games - Roseville, Minnesota
 * Plaid Hat Games - Addison, Texas
 * Catan Studio - Charlottesville, Virginia
 * Atomic Mass Games - Seattle, Washington
 * NC Asia Pacific - formerly PUBG Corporation's Shanghai office
 * NC Southeast Asia - Singapore, also publishes in Singapore and Malaysia; born out of a merger between SEA Group, Pearl Abyss SEA, Garena, GungHo Online Entertainment Asia Pacific Pte.Ltd., IGG (I Got Games) and Asiasoft divisions AS Online Sdn Bhd, Asiasoft Online Pte Ltd and PT Asiasoft
 * NC Taiwan - Taipei, also publishes in Macao and Hong Kong; integrated with XPEC's publishing operations, FunPlus Taipei, Pearl Abyss Taiwan Corp and Gravity Communications
 * NC En Masse Asia - formerly Go Kids
 * NC Gamania - joint venture with Gamania Online Entertainment, also based in Taipei; formerly GungHo Gamania
 * NC Thailand - Bangkok; merger between Gravity Game Tech, IGG Thailand and Asiasoft Corporation PCL
 * NC Vietnam - Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi; merger between IGG Vietnam, Asiasoft Co Ltd, PTW Vietnam, Pit Crew Vietnam, and Trilight Cove's Vietnam operations
 * NC Indonesia - Jakarta; merger between Gravity Game Link, IGG Indonesia and Asiasoft's Indonesian operations
 * NC Indochina - publishes in Burma and Cambodia; formerly Trilight Cove Enterprises
 * NC Hong Kong - merger between IGG Hong Kong, Bigben Interactive (HK) Limited/Nacon (HK) Limited and Pearl Abyss HK Limited
 * NC Philippines - Makati City; merger between, FunPlus Philippines and Asiasoft's Philippines operations
 * NC Korea - Seoul; merger between Nettention (Pearl Abyss) and Gravity's publishing and maintenance operations
 * NC Japan - headquartered in Tokyo; joint venture with SB Creative, integrated with PUBG Corporation's and Pearl Abyss's Japanese operations, RAD Game Tools's Japanese sales office, CrossFunction Co Ltd, Poletowin Pitcrew Holdings, FunPlus Tokyo
 * NC Japan (Chiyoda Office) - merger between Gung-Ho Online Entertainment and Pit Crew Co Ltd
 * NC Japan Network Services - Sapporo, Kitakyushu, Nagoya, Ogaki, Hachinohe and Sendai; merger between Pit Crew Co Ltd and Pit Crew Core Ops.
 * DATE Interactive Co Ltd (branded as NC Data East) - established with the acquisition of all Data East and Technos Japan IPs and franchises, as well as all rights to the Neo Geo game library, from Tactron Corporation,, ,  and ; also acquired rights to the library and also most of the FM Towns, NEC/Turbo, Amstrad, Sinclair, ColecoVision, Vectrex, 3DO, N-Gage and Casio game libraries
 * NC Australia - East Melbourne; formerly Madman Interactive
 * - Taylors Beach; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * NC New Zealand - Auckland; formerly Ninja Kiwi's publishing operations
 * NC India - Bangalore and Gurugram; merger between FunPlus India and Zynga India, also works as a large-scale infrastructure/backend development office
 * NC Turkey - Istanbul; formerly IGG Turkey
 * NC Europe SAS - Paris; merger between IGG France, Asmodee Digital, Asmodee,, Bigben Group, and Gravity Europe SAS
 * NC En Masse France - Buc; merger between Space Cowboys, Days of Wonder, Ystari and Zygomatic
 * Edge Entertainment - Saint-Jean; formerly part of Asmodee
 * NC UK - headquartered in Oxford, with offices in Cambridge and London; formed out of a merger between NC Europe, Jagex's publishing operations, IGG UK, and Rebellion Developments's publishing operations
 * NC En Masse UK - Alton (Hampshire) and Oxford; formed out of a merger between Asmodee UK and Rebellion Unplugged
 * - Nottingham, UK; formed out of a merger between Games Workshop Group plc and its divisions Citadel Miniatures and Forge World
 * NC Ireland - Dublin; formerly Zynga Ireland
 * NC Nordic - Stockholm; newly-established with integration of and Paradox Interactive's publishing operations
 * NC En Masse Nordic - Stockholm and Hvidovre; merger between White Wolf Publishing and Asmodee Nordics
 * NC Western Europe - Helmond and Hilversum, Netherlands & Waterloo, Belgium; merger between Pearl Abyss EU BV and Bigben Interactive Nederland BV/Bigben Interactive Belgium SA
 * NC En Masse Netherlands - Helmond; formerly Enigma Netherlands
 * NC En Masse Belgium & Luxembourg - Kortenberg and Frasnes-lez-Anvaing; merger between Asmodee Belgium and Pearl Games
 * NC En Masse France - Guyancourt; formerly Asmodee France
 * NC Iberia - Barcelona and Madrid; merger between Bigben Interactive Espana/Nacon Gaming Espana and FunPlus Barcelona
 * NC En Masse Iberia - Madrid; formerly Asmodee Spain
 * NC Southern Europe - Rome and Milan; merger between IGG Italy and Bigben Interactive Italia
 * NC En Masse Italy - Corregio (RE); formerly Asmodee Italy
 * NC Greece - Athens; formerly Atari Hellas EURL
 * NC Germany - headquartered in Munich, with offices in Karlsruhe, Düren, Bergheim and Berlin; formed out of a merger between ProSieben.Sat1 Games, Gaijin Europe, Gameforge, IGG Germany,, Bigben Interactive GmbH and Wargaming Mobile/Wargaming Berlin
 * NC En Masse Germany - Ingelheim, Essen and Ratingen; merger between Asmodee Germany, ADC Blackfire Entertainment GmbH and Look Out Games
 * NC Russia, CEE & CIS - 90/10 joint venture with Mail.ru Group, headquartered in Moscow, with locations in Ostrów Wielkopolski, Riga, Budapest, Prague, Krakow and Nicosia; formed out of a merger between IGG Russia, Techland Publishing, FunPlus Moscow, Gravity CIS Inc, Gaijin Entertainment LLP (Latvia), Gaijin Distribution Kft (Hungary), Bohemia Incubator, and Gaijin Network (Nicosia)
 * NC En Masse Russia, CEE & CIS - Prague and Bucharest; formerly ADC Blackfire Entertainment
 * Rebel - Gdansk
 * NC Canada - Toronto
 * NC En Masse Canada - Rigaud; formerly Asmodee Canada
 * NC South America - Buenos Aires, handles the Latin American and Carribean distribution of KPA games; formerly Level Up! Games's Latin American operations
 * NC En Masse South America - Santiago; formerly Skyship Distribuidores
 * NC Brazil - Sao Paulo; merger between Level Up! Games Brazil, IGG Brazil and PUBG Corporation's Sao Paulo office
 * NC En Masse Brazil - formerly Galápagos Jogos
 * NC Africa - Johannesburg; formed out of a merger between Koodoo and Gamefinity

Paradox Interactive (North Division)

 * Paradox Interactive - Stockholm
 * Paradox Development Studio - Stockholm, Sweden
 * Paradox Arctic - Umeå, Sweden
 * Paradox Malmö - Sweden
 * Paradox Tinto - Barcelona
 * Triumph Studios - Delft, Netherlands
 * Harebrained Schemes - Seattle, Washington
 * Sharkmob - Malmö; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * - Prague, Brno, Amsterdam, Mnisek and Pattaya; not to be confused with Bohemia Interactive Simulations
 * Gaijin Entertainment - Moscow; integrated with Nival's Moscow studio

Pearl Abyss (West Division)
Peal Abyss is a division focused on Black Desert Online, EVE Online, World of War, Path of Exile and mostly single-player focused/narrative games, as well as work-for-hire game co-development. It consists of development groups Pearl Abyss & Rebellion and solo development studios Funcom, Recursive Studio, Good Science Studio & PlatinumGames.
 * Pearl Abyss - Anyang
 * - Reykjavik, London and Shanghai
 * Pearl Abyss Capital - South Korea; investment and management consulting
 * Pearl Abyss Iceland hf - investment and management consulting
 * RedFox Games - San Jose, unknown stake acquired by Pearl Abyss in June 2017
 * Frostburn Studios - Kalamazoo, Michigan; formerly part of Garena
 * Grinding Gear Games - Auckland; 80/20 joint venture with the company founders
 * Pearl Abyss Canada - Vancouver; acquired by Garena as, merged with Virtuos's Vancouver office, IGG Canada, Descriptive Video Works and , integrated with ex-, , , Z2 Vancouver/Big Sandwich Games and employees, and integrated into KPA in 2020
 * AudioMotion Studios - motion capture studio in Oxford; acquired by Rebellion in 2003, integrated into KPA in 2020
 * - Lyon; integrated with Kylotonn's Lyon studio into KPA in 2020
 * - Middlesbrough; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * Pearl Abyss Australia Pty Ltd - Sydney and Melbourne; merger between Intuitive Game Studios (ex-),, , and Wargaming Sydney/BigWorld, intergrated with former employees of Blue Tongue Entertainment, THQ Studio Australia, Pandemic Studios, Melbourne House, 2K Australia, Defiant Development and Redtribe
 * Pearl Abyss Kiyv - Ukraine; formerly
 * NorHo Audio (A Pearl Abyss Studio) - located in North Hollywood, legally known under the name KPA Game Audio LLC; formed out of a merger between , Binari Sonori America and Descriptive Video Works USA
 * Airship Images - Blackpool; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * Another World Studios - Los Angeles; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * Concept Brothers Oy - Helsinki; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * - Frankfurt; acquired by Focus Home Interactive, in turn integrated into KPA in 2020
 * Pearl Abyss Frankfurt - formerly Das Werk's Frankfurt studio
 * Rmory - Memmingen; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * Streamline - Kuala Lumpur, with additional studios in Tokyo and Las Vegas; merger between PTW Kuala Lumpur, Base FX Kuala Lumpur, Streamline Media Group, Allpixels and
 * - Richardson; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * - Santa Monica; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * Pearl Abyss Finland - Turku; formerly Rival Games Ltd.
 * - Ostrów Wielkopolski, Wrocław and Warsaw; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * - Warsaw; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * Nival (A Pearl Abyss Studio) - St. Petersburg; merger between, , and Playgendary's, Gaijin Entertainment's & Sperasoft's studios in St. Petersburg
 * Pearl Abyss India - Hyderabad; merger between PTW Hyderabad and Griptonite Games's art and development outsourcing studio in Hyderabad
 * Pearl Abyss Baltimore - formerly PTW Baltimore
 * Pearl Abyss Hangzhou - a co-development studio consisting of ex- employees, established in 2020
 * Pearl Abyss Abu Dhabi - founded in collaboration with at twofour54 in 2020; they will work with nearby universities and colleges in training future game developers as a co-development studio
 * 4DMax - a 3D scanning company for VFX, located in Surrey; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * - Limassol, Yekaterinburg and Munich; integrated with Nival Limassol studio and Das Werk Munich
 * - Taipei, Kaohsiung and Suzhou; integrated with PTW Taipei into KPA in 2020
 * SummerTimeStudio - Ginowan; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * Pearl Abyss Boston - acquired Standing Stone Games (ex-) and integrated with former (ex-) employees in 2020
 * - Chicago; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * Pearl Abyss Redmond - established with the team from Microsoft in 2020
 * Tabletop Towns (A Pearl Abyss Studio) - headquartered in Paris; formed out of a merger between, , EKO Software and , integrated with former employees
 * Big Bad Wolf - Bordeaux
 * Rogue Factor - Montreal
 * - headquartered in Singapore, with additional studios in Shanghai, Chengdu, Xi'an and Paris, with offices in Seoul; integrated with Sparx's studios in Shanghai, Chengdu, Xian & offices in Paris, and their parent company Virtuos Holdings Pte Ltd, and PTW Shanghai, into KPA in 2020
 * Black Shamrock - Dublin; integrated with Virtuos's development center & Sparx's studio, both in Dublin
 * - Ho Chi Minh City; integrated with Virtuos's development center in Ho Chi Minh City
 * Virtuos India - Bangalore; formerly PTW Bangalore, integrated into KPA in 2020
 * Massive Black - San Francisco; integrated with Virtuos's San Francisco office and PTW San Francisco
 * - Sheffield; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * Sumo Leamington Spa - integrated with Electric Square's Leamington Spa studio
 * Lab42 - Leamington Spa
 * Sumo India - Pune; integrated with Lakshya's Pune studio
 * Sumo North West - Warrington; formed by ex- employees
 * Sumo Newcastle - formerly CCP Games's Newcastle studio
 * Sumo Nottingham
 * - Brighton
 * Red Kite Games - Yorkshire
 * Atomhawk - Newcastle and Vancouver
 * Redshirt (A Pearl Abyss Studio) - a technical and creative services provider to the global video games industry, headquartered in Montreal; born out of a merger between Keywords Functionality QA, Keywords Player Support and Keywords Localization QA, with VMC Consulting Montreal, Babel Media Montreal, PTW Montreal, Game On (audio production and motion capture studio), Fire Without Smokes Montreal,, Player Research Montreal, Enzyme (St-Jérôme) and Syllabes Studio
 * Redshirt Brighton - merger between Studio Gobo (Hove), Electric Square, Player Research and The Trailer Farm
 * Redshirt Quebec City - merger between Alchemic Dream (Shawinigan), VOLTA Creation and Sunny Side Up Creative
 * Redshirt Paris - merger between Synthesis Paris, DuneSound, Asrec, La Marque Rose and Around the Word
 * Redshirt Angoulême - formerly Piste Rouge's Angoulême studio
 * Redshirt Clichy - formerly Piste Rouge's Clichy studio
 * Redshirt London - merger between ICHI Worldwide London, PTW London, Spov, Liquid Violet, Fire Without Smokes and CORD Worldwide
 * Redshirt New Delhi - formerly Babel Media India, Exigent Game Art and Lakshya
 * Redshirt Hamburg - merger between Das Werk Hamburg and Synthesis Hamburg
 * Pearl Abyss Slovakia - acquired the now-closed Bratislava studio of in 2020
 * Pearl Abyss Zagreb - acquired 's co-development studio in 2020
 * Pearl Abyss Scotland - formerly PTW Glasgow
 * Pearl Abyss Bucharest - formerly PTW Bucharest
 * Pearl Abyss Naju - formerly PTW Naju
 * Pearl Abyss Novato - testing/QA studio in Novato, California
 * Pearl Abyss Las Vegas - testing/QA studio
 * SIDE - London, Los Angeles and Shanghai
 * Synthesis - Milan and Madrid; integrated with Binari Sonori's Cinisello Balsamo studio; formerly owned by Keywords Studios
 * - Seoul; integrated with IGG Korea, PTW Seoul and  into KPA in 2020
 * Gravity Mobile - formerly Supercell Seoul
 * - Chicago; moved from Skokie to Chicago and integrated into KPA in 2020
 * Pearl Abyss Mexico - Monterrey; formerly CGBot's Mexico studio
 * - Austin; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * Wargaming - Minsk, Nicosia and Guildford; integrated with IGG Minsk and Playgendary Minsk
 * Pearl Abyss Fareham - founded in October 2003 as Living Pixel Games, sold to Vivendi Universal Games in 2005, renamed Travelship Studios, sold to THQ in 2007, then to Crytek and renamed Crytek Fareham in 2011,, acquired by Starbreeze Studios in 2013, then named to Starbreeze UK, then spun off under the Travelship name in 2018 due to financial difficulties, before being acquired by KPA in 2020
 * - Oslo, with an additional studio in Durham (North Carolina)
 * - Osaka
 * PlatinumGames Tokyo
 * Recursive Studio - Copenhagen
 * Good Science Studio - Kirkland
 * Rebellion Developments - Oxford, Liverpool and Warwick; the Oxford studio is integrated with
 * - Chiyoda; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * Rebellion North - Wakefield; integrated with Exient's Leamington Spa studio
 * Rebellion Malta - Valletta; formerly Exient's Malta studio
 * Rebellion North - Wakefield; integrated with Exient's Leamington Spa studio
 * Rebellion Malta - Valletta; formerly Exient's Malta studio

NC Krafton (East Division)
NC Krafton itself is formed out of a merger between NCSoft and Krafton Game Union, with the brand styling adapted from Krafton. It consists out of NC, NC Plarium, NC Entertainment, NC VR, PUBG Corporation, eight development studios and six support studios. They also own NCVR, Inc, the development team behind NCVR.

NC Plarium
NC Plarium is NC Krafton's mobile and casual games division, dedicated to games for iOS, iPadOS and Android games. Founded as in 2009, they develop mobile games, casual games and MMORPGs, as well as content related to Krafton Pearl Abyss's intellectual property for apps such as Facebook Messenger, WeGame and Line. Their games include Raid Shadow Legends, World of Warships Blitz and QuizUp.

During the formation of Krafton Pearl Abyss, Plarium - then owned by Styhon Games - absorbed Machine Zone, Miniclip SA, Wargaming Mobile, Gaijin Arts, Glu, Zen Studios and Jam City.

They are headquartered in, with its own development studios in Cedar Falls and Kiyv. They also own subsidiaries Rumble Games, Lillith Studios, Jam City and Griptonite Games; with multiple international development and localization branches, and the Glu platform.

The company includes the following:
 * NC Plarium - headquartered in Herzliya, with additional studios in Cedar Falls (formerly of Jam City) and Kiyv (of the original Plarium)
 * NC Plarium Ltd. - Vancouver; formerly This Game Studio
 * NC Plarium Toronto - merger between Glu Toronto/Blammo Games, Zynga Toronto/Five Mobile, and Jam City Toronto
 * OOO NC Plarium - merger between Gaijin Arts (Gaijin's mobile division), Plarium Krasnodar and Wargaming Moscow; headquartered in Moscow, with an additional studio in Krasnodar with support teams in Voronezh and Sevastopol.
 * OOD NC Plarium - Sofia; formerly
 * NC Plarium GmbH - Berlin; merger between Jam City Berlin and Wargaming Mobile/Wargaming Berlin
 * NC Plarium AB - Stockholm; formerly FunPlus Stockholm, integrated with Star Stable Entertainment AB
 * - Malmö; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * TOV NC Plarium - headquartered in Kharkiv, with support teams in Lviv, Sevastopol and Odesa; formed out of Plarium's studios in Ukraine, integrated with Gameloft Khrakiv and Lviv
 * NC Plarium Sàrl - Neuchâtel; formerly
 * NC Plarium SRL - Buenos Aires; formerly Jam City Buenos Aires
 * NC Plarium Ltda - Bogota; formerly Jam City Bogota/Brainz; which develops World War Doh among other projects
 * NC Plarium Oy - Helsinki; acquired as Small Giant Games by Zynga in 2018, integrated into KPA in 2020
 * NC Plarium SSC - Singapore (Singapore subsidiary company); formerly IGG Singapore
 * NC Plarium G.K. - Tokyo; formerly Supercell Tokyo
 * NC Plarium UK - Leeds; acquired and moved from Pontefract to Leeds in 2020
 * NC Plarium Thailand - Bangkok; formerly FunPlus Bangkok
 * NC Plarium Philippines - Manila; formerly IGG Philippines
 * NC Plarium Indonesia - Yogyakarta; formerly Gameloft Indonesia
 * NC Plarium Vietnam - Hanoi and Saigon; formed out of Gameloft's studios in Vietnam
 * NC Plarium Chicago LLC - a support studio in Chicago, Illinois; formed out of a merger between,  and Zynga Chicago
 * NC Plarium Michigan LLC - Portage; formerly Plarium Michigan Studio
 * NC Plarium San Mateo LLC - merger between Machine Zone's Palo Alto headquarters/studio and its subsidiaries Epic Action LLC and Epic War LLC (who work on Mobile Strike and Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire respectively), Ncubate Games,, , Glu's San Mateo/Burlingame studios, , Paradox Tectonic and Iron Tiger Studios
 * NC Plarium San Diego LLC - merger between Jam City San Diego, Exigent Game Art USA, Zynga San Diego, and, integrated with former /Concrete Games/ employees
 * NC Plarium Orlando LLC - merger between War Drum Studios and Iron Galaxy Orlando; integrated into KPA and moved from Gainesville to Orlando in 2020
 * NC Plarium Oxnard LLC - formerly, integrated into KPA and moved from Ventura to Oxnard in 2020
 * - San Francisco; integrated with Rumble Games (Plarium), Supercell San Francisco, Glu's San Francisco studio/HQ, Zynga's HQ, IGG San Francisco, Additing Games LLC, FunPlus San Francisco and the Jam City San Francisco/TinyCo assets
 * Lillith Studios - Shanghai, with additional studios in Shenzen, Beijing and Fuzhou; merger between, Supercell Shanghai, IGG Shenzen/Fuzhou studios and FunPlus Beijing/Shanghai studios
 * XII Braves - Singapore and Jakarta; integrated with Gameloft Jakarta into KPA in 2020
 * - Auckland and Dundee; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * - headquartered in Los Angeles

NC Entertainment
NC Entertainment (formerly Gravity Game Arise) is a division of NC Krafton, founded to exploit the intellectual properties owned by NC Krafton and Pearl Abyss divisions in such fields as animation production and film development. It expanded into original content on January 2020, with the acquisition of CJ ENM's units by parent company Krafton Pearl Abyss.

They're headquartered in Mapo-gu, Seoul, with additional offices in Tokyo, and Rebellion Film Studios in Oxford, England. The group of companies includes:
 * NC Entertainment - located in Mapo-gu, Seoul
 * NC Entertainment K.K. - located in Tokyo; former main headquarters
 * NC Entertainment Ltd - located in Rebellion Film Studios in Oxford
 * NC Entertainment Development Ltd - film development
 * Rebellion Productions - 50/50 joint venture with Rebellion Developments
 * Rebellion VFX

Private Division
Private Division is a division of KPA, responsible for assets acquired from Take-Two Interactive and Leyou in February 2021.
 * MGM Interactive Publishing - New York City; formerly ​Private Division​
 * Intercept Games - Seattle
 * Playdots - New York City
 * ​Socialpoint​ - Barcelona
 * ​2K​ - Novato; integrated with the 2K Games sublabel
 * 2K Play - sublabel; to be discontinued due to Cat Daddy's merger into new NC studio in Kirkland
 * 2K Sports - sublabel
 * ​Visual Concepts​ - Novato, with additional studios in Seoul, Budapest, Shanghai, Los Angeles, and in Orange County
 * 2K Chengdu - China
 * 2K Vegas - Las Vegas
 * ​31st Union​ - Silicon Valley, with an additional studio in Spain
 * Cloud Chamber - San Francisco, with an additional studio in Montreal
 * ​Firaxis Games​ - Hunt Valley
 * ​Hangar 13​ - Novato, with additional studios in Prague, Brno and Brighton
 * Radius Maxima - London (UK); integrated into KPA in 2021 as a holding company for ex-Leyou assets
 * - London (Ontario) and Toronto
 * - London (UK)
 * Athlon Games - Burbank
 * Kingmaker - Beijing
 * Radiance Games - Guangzhou

KPA Sports
KPA Sports is an internal sports management, event agency, production, consulting and marketing division, specialised in the sporting preparation of professional sports teams and athletes, as well as the organisation and implementation of sports events and brand activation measures. They are headquartered inside KPA's headquarters in Gwacheon.

Their holdings include: They also have offices in: Their Silver Spring office (formerly owned by Discovery Golf) was closed down during the sale of KPA Sports's golf assets. In December 2020, their offices in Unterföhring (formerly 7Sports), Cologne (MMP Event), Leucerne (TEAM Marketing), Neuilly-sur-Seine (M6 Foot SAS) and Hamburg (Match IQ) were closed, while operations were merged into a new office in Amsterdam.
 * - South Korean baseball team, formerly owned by NCSoft
 * - e-sports team, formerly owned by FunPlus
 * DAZN Group
 * ​SuperSport​
 * - minority stake
 * WWE - minority stake
 * Los Angeles (formerly Mandalay Sports Entertainment and Independent Sports & Entertainment/Relativity Sports),
 * Randburg, South Africa (established through intergation of MultiChoice Group's sports assets),
 * New York City (formerly Match IQ's overseas operations),
 * Amsterdam, the Netherlands (new EMEA office),
 * Sydney, Australia (formerly Beyond Action)

Keywords Studios
Keywords Studios is an international technical and creative services provider to the global video games industry, established in 1998, and headquartered in Dublin. They also have offices in Rio de Janeiro, Portland, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Singapore, New Delhi, Pune, Rome, Barcelona, Taipei, Shanghai, Beijing and Manila.

The studios owned by Keywords Studios are:
 * Keywords Art Services:
 * Mindwalk Studios - Beijing; integrated with XPEC's Beijing studio
 * Liquid Development - Portland (OR)
 * RedHot Gameart - Shanghai with satellite studios in Chengdu, Dalian and Zhengzhou, with another in Yogyakarta (Indonesia); integrated with Exigent Game Art's and XPEC's Shanghai studios
 * ICHI Worldwide - Los Angeles
 * Keywords Game Development:
 * GameSim - Orlando
 * GetSocial - The Hague
 * D3T - Chesire
 * Sperasoft - San Jose (CA), Krakow (Poland) and Volgograd (Russia)
 * Snowed In Studios - Ottawa
 * Wizcorp - Tokyo
 * Yokozuna Data - Tokyo
 * Heavy Iron Studios - Los Angeles
 * Coconut Lizard - Gateshead
 * Keywords Audio Services:
 * Sound Lab - Burbank
 * Binari Sonori - Rome
 * LOLA - Mexico City
 * Maximal Studio - Sao Paulo
 * TV+Synchron - Berlin
 * Laced Records - London
 * Keywords Localization - with Binari Sinori:
 * Reverb Localization - Rio de Janiero
 * KantanMT - Dublin
 * Maverick Media - London
 * Keywords Embedded Services - Redmond, Munchen, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Slough, Indianapolis, Las Cruces, Loveland (CO) and Burbank; formerly called VMC, also offers services such as Functionality QA, Player Support and Localization QA​​​​​​

Kakao
Kakao is a social media company entirely owned by KPA.

Before Kakao's merger into KPA, they were a minor shareholder in KPA, while KPA held 50% of stakes in the company. During the merger of Tencent Games overseas operations into KPA, Tencent's stake in Kakao was also integrated into KPA, with the stake they inherited from WeMade before its merger into KPA. They also acquired stakes in Kakao from non-domestic institutions and foreign investors, as well as 0.03% from domestic institutions and treasury stocks, in exchange for Vuori's B stock.

Afterwards, its services Kakao Navi, Kakao Metro, Kakao Map, Kakao Place, Kakao Hairshop and Kakao Bus merged to form a new service called Kakao Maps; while Kakao Style, Daum Shopping, KakaoTalk Gift, Kakao Makers, ShoppingHow and related assets all merged to form KakaoShop. Kakao Japan Corporation, Kakao Investments and Kakao Ventures would be merged into Vuori, KPA's parent company.

Their products include, KakaoTalk Cheez (camera app), , KakaoMail, Kakao Maps, Kakao Driver (Uber-like service), , and Piccoma TV, KakaoShop, Brunch (Medium-like blogging platform), Kakao Together (crowdfunding website), Kakao Farmer (tangerine delivery service), ,  and. They also own 1boon, Melon (with sub-services Melon Ticket and Melon Aztalk),, (with Daum Webtoon, Daum Mail, Daum Cafe, Daum News and Daum Search), Kakao TV, Agit,  (with subsidiaries Kakao Insurance,  and KakaoPay Securities), and the consumer blockchain payment platform Klaytn.

Ventures, investments and other holdings
Following the merger of Tencent Games's overseas operations into KPA, they inherited Tencent Games's stakes in Milkytea, Shanda Network and Ourpalm, as well as minority shares in  and the 20% stake in. Aside from the shares held with or inherited from Tencent; they also hold 70% share in, around 12% of stakes in ​SK Group and a minority stake in .

Tencent and Krafton Pearl Abyss formerly had minority shares in Naver Corporation (before they got acquired by Nami Holdings, in turn a Eclipse company) and Activision Blizzard (before being acquired by Oliver Watson). Game developers 4:33 Creative Lab, Pati Games, Xishanju (a division of Kingsoft), Frontier Developments and Robot Entertainment, all of which KPA has minority stakes in, are set to be acquired by Eclipse Group as well. Their minority stakes in Ubisoft were bought out by Illustrious, along with the rest of shares, including those owned by the Guillemot family.

Their real estate holdings include:

They also own the following companies that do not belong in the KPA divisions:
 * NC Nippon Complex - Tokyo; under construction, will include recording studios, a data center and a motion capture studio, as well as the offices of NC Japan, as well as NC Entertainment KK, Yokozuna Data, Wizcorp, and the Tokyo studios of Streamline, NC Game Arts and PlatinumGames
 * Rebellion Film Studios - Oxford

KPA Visual Arts
KPA Visual Arts is a CGI animation studio based in Seattle, formed out of a merger between Lakshya Digital (a Keywords studio)/Keywords Seattle and FXVille in October 2020. It is dedicated towards creating video game cinematics and full-length feature films, similar to.

In December 2020, they opened studios in Budapest, through acquiring, and in London, employing animators from Axis Animation and Passion Pictures.

KPA External Development Group
During the formation of KPA, the External Development Group was formed to outsource full titles, sometimes even certain assets, to external development studios (outside of Keywords Studios and the Pearl Abyss division). They re-hired former employees of (THQ) External Development Group, especially their managers Kevin Chu and Shiraz Akmal.

They're headquartered in Shanghai, with a satellite office in Burbank, California.

NC Core
NC (colloqually known as NC Core) is a full-fledged video game digital distribution service, online gaming, social gaming and digital rights management platform by Krafton Pearl Abyss. Internally referred to as the Unified Gaming Platform Project and formerly codenamed NC GG, NC will launch in the summer of 2021, after all games are finished being migrated into the platform. It will be available for iOS, iPadOS, Android, macOS, Windows and Linux.

NC Core will also feature the NC Arcade section for remakes and revivals of retro games, with most of the library consisting of the ones done by DATE Interactive (NC Data East), Piko Interactive (and its Piko Studios arm) and their close partners, and Intellivision Entertainment.

History
Inherited from the Plarium, Gaijin Entertainment, Wargaming, Feral and Machine Zone acquisitions, the MZ platform, Gaijin inCubator, Unified Premium Account/Wargaming.net, the Feral Store and Plarium Play, as well as the En Masse launcher, Gameforge, Playpark and Garena, along with Glu Mobile's technology assets, are in process of combining into one new gaming service. NCSoft's Purple will also serve as part of the platform, giving access to mobile games to PC players; same goes with Garena+, which will provide the social gaming elements, and Gaijin.Net & Asiasoft Passports, which will provide better authorization amongst other game service features.

NC Dragon
NC Dragon is a suite of middleware for cross-platform games, created as a cross-studio collaboration within KPA, with internet features development support from NC En Masse. It's meant to compete with,  and. It's compatible with the NC Core platform and Krake's data servers.

The main motivation behind the creation of NC Dragon is the concept of a common engine across studios, similar to Frostbite. The development team also seek to make the game engine easy for use when transitioning from developing on Unreal and CryEngine.

It's currently compatible with, , , , , , , , , , , , and , with upcoming versions planned to support  and .

Components
The middleware suite also uses Krake technology.
 * NC Dragon Puppeteer - a combination of the animation engine,  modeling software, and the  motion capture suite, with some features brought over from Granny 3D
 * NC Dragon Foley - a re-build of sound effects engine, combined with
 * NC Dragon Engine - a combination of, , , , Evolution, MAGE, Real Virtuality/Enforce, Torus, Silk Engine, PlatinumEngine and Dakor Engine; with the following addons:
 * the lighting technology (now called Tatsu)
 * the technology for virtual worlds and MMORPGs,
 * physics engine,
 * the Coherent Labs UI technology,
 * Umbra's occulsion culling and additional technologies,
 * the Telemetry performance visualization system,
 * InstaLOD 3D processing technology,
 * Oodle data compression,
 * 's Matchmaking+, and State Engine netcode framework,
 * vegetation rendering and
 * the Kythera AI technology
 * NC Dragon Coder - an IDE, which is a rebuild of
 * NC Dragon Project - a cloud storage system for project and profile synchronization, integrated with rebuilds of:
 * the content management system for localization (as the "NC Dragon Localization" add-on)
 * the workflow pipeline system
 * the revision control
 * the application lifetime management system

Development team
NC Dragon's development team is housed inside:

Games using NC Dragon
It is confirmed that most KPA studios will immediately start using NC Dragon, once their current projects have finished. First games to use NC Dragon technology are Shadowrun (2026), Evolve Deluxe, an untitled Pirates of the Carribean video game project and a Nebula Starlight MMO.

NCVR
In August 2020, NC Krafton acquired and the consumer assets of  to form a new company in Shanghai called NCVR, in order to start development on their own virtual reality system. They hope to release it in the mid-2020s. They're also working on "quirky" motion controllers in collaboration with Swedish consumer electronics company.

Glu
The new Glu website (operated by NC Plarium under NC Plarium Sàrl, Ninja Kiwi and Rumble Games) is a free browser game platform. The new Glu was formed out of a merger between the Glu, PlayFirst, GluPlay, CrowdStar, Addicting Games, Shockwave, Ninja Kiwi and Miniclip brands and related technology assets.

Other events

 * League of Legends:

Films
Krafton Pearl Abyss produces films through NC Entertainment, which specializes in film adaptations and co-productions.
 * Frantic Royale Mayhem (TBA) - co-production with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (ex-) and ; distributed by in the US & Canada, and by  outside North America
 * Unannounced project (TBA) - co-production with KPA Visual Arts

Series
NC Entertainment also produces TV series.
 * Eox (TBA) - co-production with A Murder of Crows and MGM Television (ex-)
 * Project D2N (TBA) - co-production with Chiller Entertainment
 * Skylar (TBA) - co-production with Pretzel Lake

Acquisition of CD Projekt Red
In March 2021, Krafton Pearl Abyss finished acqusition of a majority stake in the Polish game developer CD Projekt Red. Mee-Kyong recounted: "As we both share the same values, [DRM-free games, creative control], we subsequently ended up in a deal which would see us financially support every [CD Projekt Red] title from then on, with no exceptions, in exchange of a majority equity stake."

Parent company Vuori's CEO Kasperi Salovaara and The Eclipse Group's CEO Issac Davis later expressed their mixed feelings about the deal, with both of them explaining in a Twitter thread how "while [Kasperi is pretty much] happy about [the deal], [he does not] feel like the studio would be fairly secure under Mee-Kyong". Kasperi and Issac both promise to take action to spin off the studio, should anything happen to them such as internal conflicts.

The deal also received mixed to negative backlash from fans, targeting Mee-Kyong and KPA, with Red's earlier dedication to independence being brought up and fears about KPA becoming a juggernaut in the video game industry. The backlash also targeted Salovaara for a brief time, as he was notorious in acquiring big companies in the media industry. However, he later explained on Twitter: "like 93% of the time [sic] I'm not entirely responsible for acquisitions in my company. [He does] bring up some potential partners, while the others do the rest. It's kind of a way of resolving conflicts for example."