Krafton Pearl Abyss

Krafton Pearl Abyss (: 크래프톤펄어비스 - Keulaepeuton Peol-Eobiseu) is a South Korean video game corporation, based in Gwacheon, South Korea, and mostly owned by Styhon Entertainment through Styhon Games. 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 satellite studios in the United States, Canada, Europe, New Zealand, Japan and Russia, 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, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Sniper Elite, World of Tanks/World of War War Thunder, Raid: Shadow Legends, 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, , and Tencent's own studios  and.

History
Krafton Pearl Abyss was born in November 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.

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.

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 and Zynga shareholders sold and absorbed Gung-Ho Online Entertainment and Zynga respectively into KPA, with SoftBank receiving 3% stake on the venture and the shareholders getting minor stakes in Styhon's parent company Salovaara Ventures Group.

On January 2, 2021, Krafton Pearl Abyss acquired Keyword Studios, from which some studios became the basis for Pearl Abyss's new studio Redshirt.

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

 * In December 2020,  arranged a deal with Styhon Games & Interactive Ventures to distribute most of KPA's PC games within South Korea; some Krafton Pearl Abyss games will still be published through NC Korea.
 * 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.
 * On January 1, 2021, NC Entertainment and announced a partnership, which would see two KPA properties get adapted into webseries.

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, Las Vegas, Buena Park and Seattle, a network operation/secure data center also in Las Vegas, and a customer service office in Aliso Veijo. 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, Jam City Las Vegas, GungHo Online Entertainment America, Machine Zone Las Vegas, Aspyr Publishing 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.

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.

International offices

 * 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 FunPlus Taipei, Pearl Abyss Taiwan Corp and Gravity Communications
 * 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; merger between IGG Vietnam, Asiasoft Co Ltd 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 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, with an additional office in Chiyoda; integrated with PUBG Corporation's and Pearl Abyss's Japanese operations, RAD Game Tools's Japanese sales office, FunPlus Tokyo and Gung-Ho Online Entertainment
 * NC Australia - East Melbourne; formerly Madman Interactive
 * 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 and Gravity Europe SAS
 * 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 UK Board Games - formerly Rebellion Unplugged
 * NC Ireland - Dublin; formerly Zynga Ireland
 * NC Nordic - Stockholm; newly-established with integration of some publishing operations of Paradox Interactive
 * NC Nordic Board Games - formerly White Wolf Publishing
 * NC Western Europe - Netherlands; formerly Pearl Abyss EU BV
 * NC Iberia - Barcelona; formerly FunPlus Barcelona
 * NC Southern Europe - Rome; formerly IGG Italy
 * NC Germany - headquartered in Munich, with offices in Karlsruhe and Berlin; formed out of a merger between ProSieben.Sat1 Games, Gaijin Europe, Gameforge, IGG Germany and Wargaming Mobile/Wargaming Berlin
 * NC Russia, CEE & CIS - 90/10 joint venture with Mail.ru Group, headquartered in Moscow, with locations in Riga, Budapest and Nicosia; formed out of a merger between IGG Russia, FunPlus Moscow, Gravity CIS Inc, Gaijin Entertainment LLP (Latvia), Gaijin Distribution Kft (Hungary) and Gaijin Network (Nicosia)
 * NC Africa - Johannesburg; formed out of a merger between Koodoo and Gamefinity
 * NC South America - Buenos Aires, handles the Latin American and Carribean distribution of KPA games; formerly Level Up! Games's Latin American operations
 * NC Brazil - Sao Paulo; merger between Level Up! Games Brazil, IGG Brazil and PUBG Corporation's Sao Paulo office

Paradox Interactive (North Division)

 * Paradox Interactive - Stockholm
 * Paradox Development Studio - Stockholm, Sweden
 * Paradox Arctic - Umeå, Sweden
 * Paradox Malmö - Sweden
 * Triumph Studios - Delft, Netherlands
 * Harebrained Schemes - Seattle, Washington
 * Gaijin Entertainment - Moscow; integrated with Nival's Moscow studio
 * Dagor Technologies - Moscow

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. It consists of development groups Pearl Abyss & Rebellion and the solo development 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
 * Grinding Gear Games - Auckland; 80/20 joint venture with the company founders
 * Pearl Abyss Canada - Vancouver; acquired by Garena as, merged with IGG Canada and  and integrated into KPA in 2020
 * AudioMotion Studios - motion capture studio in Oxford; acquired by Rebellion in 2003, integrated into KPA in 2020
 * Pearl Abyss Australia Pty Ltd - Sydney and Melbourne; merger between Intuitive Game Studios (ex-),,  and Wargaming Sydney/BigWorld
 * Pearl Abyss Kiyv - Ukraine; formerly
 * NorHo Audio (A Pearl Abyss Studio) - North Hollywood; formed out of a merger between , Binari Sonori America and Descriptive Video Works USA
 * Nival (A Pearl Abyss Studio) - St. Petersburg; merger between, , and Gaijin Entertainment's & Sperasoft's studios in St. Petersburg
 * Nival Limassol - Cyprus
 * 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, 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 London - merger between ICHI Worldwide London, Spov, Liquid Violet, Fire Without Smokes and CORD Worldwide
 * Redshirt New Delhi - formerly Babel Media New Delhi
 * Synthesis - Milan, Madrid and Hamburg; formerly owned by Keywords Studios
 * - Seoul; integrated with IGG Korea and  into KPA in 2020
 * Pearl Abyss USA - Kirkland; formerly RAD Game Tools
 * Pearl Abyss Mexico - Monterrey; formerly CGBot's Mexico studio
 * - London; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * Wargaming - Minsk and Guildford; integrated with IGG Minsk
 * - Osaka
 * PlatinumGames Tokyo
 * 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 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, PUBG Corporation, eight development studios and six support studios.

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 ApS - Copenhagen; formerly Wargaming Copenhagen
 * NC Plarium AB - Stockholm; formerly FunPlus Stockholm
 * TOV NC Plarium - headquartered in Kharkiv, with support teams in Lviv, Sevastopol and Odesa; formed out of Plarium's studios in Ukraine
 * NC Plarium Sàrl - Neuchâtel; formerly
 * NC Plarium Zrt - Budapest; 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 Thailand - Bangkok; formerly FunPlus Bangkok
 * NC Plarium Philippines - Manila; formerly IGG Philippines
 * 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),, , Glu's San Mateo/Burlingame studios, , Paradox Tectonic and Iron Tiger Studios
 * NC Plarium San Diego LLC - merger between Jam City San Diego, Zynga San Diego, and
 * NC Plarium Orlando LLC - formerly War Drum Studios; 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), 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, IGG Shenzen/Fuzhou studios and FunPlus Beijing/Shanghai studios
 * - Kirkland, with an art and development outsourcing studio in Hyderabad
 * XII Braves - Singapore and Jakarta; integrated into KPA in 2020
 * - headquartered in Los Angeles, with an additional studio in Burbank

NC Entertainment
NC Entertainment (formerly Gravity Game Arise) is a division of NC Krafton, dedicated to exploiting the intellectual properties owned by NC Krafton and Pearl Abyss divisions in such fields as animation production and film development.

They're headquartered in Tokyo, with additional offices in Rebellion Film Studios in Oxford, England. The group of companies includes:
 * NC Entertainment K.K. - located in Tokyo
 * NC Entertainment Ltd - located in Rebellion Film Studios in Oxford
 * Rebellion Productions - 50/50 joint venture with Rebellion Developments
 * Rebellion Film Studios
 * Rebellion VFX

PUBG Corporation
In addition to these studios, NC Krafton also owns PUBG Corporation, with offices in Seoul, South Korea and Madison, Wisconsin, United States.
 * PUBG Corporation
 * PUBG MadGlory - New York
 * Striking Distance Studios - California
 * PlayerUnknown Productions - Amsterdam

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.

They also have offices in Silver Spring (formerly Discovery Golf), Los Angeles (formerly Mandalay Sports Entertainment and Independent Sports & Entertainment/Relativity Sports), Randburg, South Africa (established through intergation of MultiChoice Group's sports assets), Hamburg, Germany and New York City (formerly Match IQ), Unterföhring, Germany (formerly 7Sports), Cologne, Germany (formerly MMP Event), Leucerne, Switzerland (formerly TEAM Marketing), Sydney, Australia (formerly Beyond Action), and Neuilly-sur-Seine, France (formerly M6 Foot SAS). Their holdings include:
 * - South Korean baseball team, formerly owned by NCSoft
 * DAZN Group
 * ​SuperSport​
 * Golf World - online brand
 * 12-year deal to license the PGA TOUR's international media rights
 * exclusive content partnership with Tiger Woods
 * - minority stake
 * WWE - minority stake
 * WWE - minority stake

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, Seattle, 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
 * Liquid Development - Portland (OR)
 * Lakshya - New Delhi, Pune and Seattle
 * RedHot Gameart - Shanghai with satellite studios in Chengdu, Dalian and Zhengzhou, with another in Yogyakarta (Indonesia)
 * 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
 * Electric Square - Leamington Spa
 * Yokozuna Data - Tokyo
 * Keywords Audio Services:
 * Sound Lab - Burbank
 * Binari Sonori - Cinisello Balsamo and Rome
 * Descriptive Video Works - Vancouver
 * LOLA - Mexico City
 * Maximal Studio - Sao Paulo
 * TV+Synchron - Berlin
 * Laced Records - London
 * Keywords Localization - with Binari Sinori and Synthesis:
 * Reverb Localization - Rio de Janiero
 * KantanMT - Dublin
 * 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​​​​​​

Ventures and investments
Aside from their internal studios and technologies, Krafton Pearl Abyss also own minority shares in, , , , ,  and ; Tencent is also a shareholder in the companies. They also inherited Tencent Games's stakes in 4:33 Creative Lab, Milkytea, Shanda Network, Pocket Gems, Pati Games and Chinese game developers Ourpalm & Xishanju.

Aside from shares held with or inherited from Tencent; they also hold around 25% of stakes in ​SK Group and minority stakes in Korean companies  and Naver Corporation.

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.

History
Inherited from the Plarium, Gaijin Entertainment, Wargaming and Machine Zone acquisitions, the MZ platform, Gaijin inCubator, Unified Premium Account/Wargaming.net 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 Tek
NC Tek is a suite of middleware created by NC Krafton, Paradox Interactive and Pearl Abyss, with internet features development support from NC En Masse. It's compatible with NC Core and consists of the Granny 3D and Euphoria animation engines, Miles Sound System,, Oodle data compression, Telemetry performance visualization system, XLOC content management system for localization, FMOD sound effects engine, SpeedTree vegetation middleware, Faceware motion capture suite, the BigWorld technology for virtual worlds and MMORPGs, and the Gamebryo and Dakor Engine game engines.

The middleware suite will use Styhon Web Services technology.

NC Tek's development team is housed inside:


 * Pearl Abyss Australia Pty Ltd, in Sydney and Melbourne
 * NC Boss Alien, in Brighton
 * Gravity, in Seoul
 * NC Plarium San Mateo LLC
 * NC Plarium San Diego LLC
 * NC Game Arts, in Charlotte
 * NC Aspyr, in Austin
 * Pearl Abyss USA, in Kirkland
 * Dakor Technologies, in Moscow, and
 * NaturalMotion, in London

Glu
The new Glu website (operated by NC Plarium under NC Plarium Sàrl 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 and Miniclip brands and related technology assets.

Other events

 * League of Legends: