NCsoft Corporation
㈜엔씨소프트
 |
| Type |
Public (KRX: 036570) |
| Founded |
March 11, 1997 |
| Headquarters |
 Seoul, South Korea (HQ)
 Seattle, Washington (Western HQ), USA
(Subsidiary Companies)
 Osaka, Japan
 Shanghai, China
 Brighton, England
Austin, Texas, USA
Mountain View, California, USA
Orange County, California, USA
 Bangkok, Thailand |
| Key people |
T.J. Kim, CEO |
| Industry |
Video games
Entertainment |
| Products |
Lineage
Exteel
Guild Wars
Aion
City of Heroes |
| Employees |
appx 3,000 |
| Website |
http://www.ncsoft.net |
NCsoft (KRX: 036570) is a South Korea based online computer game company, which produced and published massively multiplayer online role-playing games including Lineage, Exteel, Guild Wars and Aion.
History
NCsoft was originally founded in March 1997 by T.J. Kim, a business software developer and author of the Korean word processor Hangul. One of the company's first products was NC HTML Editor. In September 1998, NCsoft launched its first and most popular game, Lineage. Lineage was the first MMORPG to exceed the record of 100,000 concurrent users for the first time in Korea in December 2000. The success of this game helped the company expand to locations in Taiwan, China, Japan, Europe and the United States.
In April 2001 the company created a US subsidiary under the name NC Interactive (based in Austin, Texas) after acquiring Destination Games, headed by Richard Garriott and Robert Garriott. NCsoft programmer Jake Song also moved to Austin in order to stimulate development. NC Interactive published and developed MMORPGs and became the North American headquarters for (which had been established in May 2000 and operating from a small office in California).
On the same day, April 28, 2004, NCsoft's North American operation launched two major MMORPGs, Lineage II and City of Heroes. To date, NCsoft is the only MMORPG publisher to launch two products of this scale on the same day.
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 established Lineage II service for Europe as well.
On April 28, 2005 the company launched Guild Wars, a MMORPG with no subscription model. Expansions followed: Guild Wars Factions, Guild Wars Nightfall and Guild Wars Eye of the North. On April 24, 2009 NCsoft announced that Guild Wars had sold more than six million units[1].
It was announced at E3 2007 that NCsoft had become an exclusive third party Sony developer, and will be developing exclusive games for the Playstation Network.[2]
On September 10th, 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.[3]
Controversies
Stolen 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 damaged cost may exceed $1billion USD. [4]
Worlds.com patent lawsuit
On Dec 24, 2008, NCsoft was targeted in a patent infringement case over its entire series of MMO software titles.[5] Worlds.com has filed suit in Texas claiming NCsoft has infringed on its patent for a "system and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space," and are pushing for an injunction to stop all games covered in the suit along with seeking unspecified damages. While only NCsoft has been named in the suit, many sources have observed that the patent (if upheld in this case) could be used to draw royalties from basically every MMO currently running.[6] Worlds.com CEO Thom Kidrin has recently stated that if they win their suit against NCsoft that his company fully intends to pursue other companies such as Activision Blizzard (for World of Warcraft) and Linden Lab (for Second Life).[7][8] An NCsoft representative is quoted as saying,"We can't comment on potential litigation except to say that NCsoft takes all legal action seriously -- even if the company believes a lawsuit has no merit. We intend to defend ourselves vigorously."
Richard Garriott Termination
Richard Garriott, lead developer of Tabula Rasa, is currently suing NCsoft for $24,000,000 USD.[9] Garriott is suing for damages relative to his termination from the parent company NC Soft.[10] Garriott's allegation states that NC Soft terminated his employment, then fraudulently reported his termination as willful resignation in order to preserve the right to terminate Garriot's stock options unless he exercised them himself within 90 days of termination, forcing Garriott into a decision to purchase stock with which a loss was incurred worth dozens of millions in profit for Mr. Garriott. Additionally, the news of the termination was issued while Mr. Garriot was confined to quarantine from his space flight, which was originally intended to be a publicity move to further promote the game and increase revenue.
NCsoft's Business Model
NCsoft has been accused for being too short term with their products. Due to the lack of loyalty to existing customer base, the profit making giant has been losing support by their existing customer base, share holders and their own employees. [11][12]
Customer Satisfaction
NCsoft and RightNow Technologies were both recognized in 2006 with the "Beagle Research 'Whiz Kids' Award for Innovative Embedded Customer Service Solution."[13] for NCsoft's integration of RightNow's customer support software.
According to the Better Business Bureau, in the last 36 months, 67 complaints have been filed against NCsoft. NCsoft currently has a score of "F" due to delays in responding to the complaints.[14] By comparison Electronic Arts had 908 complaints with a score of "A"[15] and Sony Online Entertainment had 1001 with a score of "A"[16] in the same time period. Good response time to complaints helps increase a company's score. NCsoft is not an accredited member of the Better Business Bureau. Better Business Bureau accredited businesses must pay a fee for accreditation review/monitoring and for support of Better Business Bureau services to the public. Accreditation is not required to gain a favorable score, but scores are affected by a company's response to complaints.
Development Studios
NCsoft is a developer and publisher of online computer games. NCsoft West, the arm of NCsoft with operating responsibility for North America, Europe, South America and Australia/New Zealand, houses its publishing headquarters in Seattle, Washington. The company also owns development studios on the United States West Coast:
- ArenaNet (Bellevue, Washington) – ArenaNet is the creator of one of the most successful MMORPG franchises in the world, Guild Wars.
- Carbine Studios (Aliso Viejo, California) – Carbine Studios was founded in 2005 and is working on an unannounced title.
- Game Production Studio (Seattle, Washington) – The NCsoft Game Production Studio brings products from the NCsoft development teams in Seoul to the West, including Lineage, Lineage II, Exteel and Aion.
- Paragon Studios (Mountain View, California) – Formerly called NCsoft NorCal, Paragon Studios develop the popular City of Heroes franchise.
Titles
References
External links
