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; they also sold PlatinumGames to Illustrious, and Piko Interactive with all of their ex-Data East/Acclaim IPs to Crescent Games, the games division of the Eclipse Group.
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. However, assets related to Sumo Group, FunPlus/IGG, Gaijin Entertainment, Bohemia Interactive, Nacon and Asmodee, with most of NC En Masse's publishing operations, among others, were shortly afterwards sold to Landshade Media for USD $15 billion. Due to Asmodee's sale, KPA intends to retire the En Masse brand entirely. Before, they intended to retire the brand, after the launch of NC Core, 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.
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. The same day, Cho Mee-Kyong announced to sell off CD Projekt Red to its management; he also sold off the rest of the Take-Two Interactive assets to Landshade Media (which owned Rockstar Games already), and Leyou back to Tencent Games.
In February 2021, KPA acquired all patents and IPs previously owned by . That month, KPA finished divesting of NC Jagex and Keywords Studios to Pureband, and some people (specifically employees formerly employed by Aspyr Media) with the Aspyr trademarks from NC Aspyr into Pureband's Embracer subdivision Saber Interactive. NC Aspyr is set to rebrand in the near future.
By March 2021, NC Game Arts hired many of the former SIE Japan Studio employees.
By August 2021, Krafton Pearl Abyss sold off major parts of itself: NC Nixxes to Sony Interactive Entertainment, NC Virtual Reality's Amsterdam studio to Embracer Group, the Speedtree development team to Unity Technologies, the Demonware studios from Dragon Labs back to Activision and the Helsinki studio (formerly Umbra Software) to Amazon Robotics, NC En Masse Las Vegas LLC (network operation/secure data center) with the Mobile Strike/Final Fantasy XV Mobile team and the MZ Platform to AppLovin. As of result, the Tatsu lighting system and ex-Road Hog Engine components within the NC Dragon engine are now developed by a different development team, as the ex-Geomerics team were laid off (and subsequently joined Silicon Studio and Jagex) and Flying Wild Hog chose to use Unreal Engine in its future games.
In December 2021, NC Game Arts bought the Austin and Singapore offices from then-NC Aspyr, and centralized its Japanese operations into Chiyoda City, resulting in the closures of about 26 offices around the Tokyo and Osaka metropolitan areas. The same month, they sold Grasshopper Manufacture to NetBase Games, Addicting Games LLC's assets to Enthusiast Gaming, Game On to People Can Fly, Glu's assets to EA, and Zynga's assets to Take-Two Interactive. 
In January 2022, Pearl Abyss Hangzhou - a co-development studio consisting of ex- employees, established in 2020 - closed down due to the crackdown on video game developers by the Chinese government. Miniclip and Blockchain Entertainment Lab became part of KPA's sister company Pureband FTP, VR & Mobile, and Keywords Studios spun off into being KPA's other sister company.
==Company==
===Corporate governance===
===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.
==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, , 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 CS LLC - a customer services office in Aliso Veijo, California; fka 
* NC Australia - East Melbourne; formerly Madman Interactive
** - Taylors Beach; integrated into KPA in 2020
***
*NC Germany - Munich and Berlin; formed out of a merger between Nexon Europe GmbH (sold off by Nexon earlier) and ProSieben.Sat1 Games
*NC Canada - Toronto
*NC Africa - Johannesburg; formed out of a merger between Koodoo and Gamefinity
===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 Recursive Studio, The Collective and Good Science Studio.
*Anyang division fka Pearl Abyss
**
** - Lyon; integrated into KPA in 2020
**Pearl Abyss Frankfurt - formerly Das Werk's Frankfurt studio
**Pearl Abyss Munich - formerly Das Werk Munich
**Redshirt (A Pearl Abyss Studio) - a technical and creative services provider to the global video games industry, headquartered in Montreal; formerly 
***Redshirt Angoulême - formerly Piste Rouge's Angoulême studio
***Redshirt Paris - formerly Piste Rouge's Clichy studio
***Redshirt Hamburg - formerly Das Werk Hamburg
**
**Pearl Abyss Novato - testing/QA studio in Novato, California
**Pearl Abyss Las Vegas - testing/QA studio
** - Seoul; integrated with  into KPA in 2020
**
**
*Recursive Studio - Copenhagen
*Good Science Studio - Kirkland
*The Collective - San Diego and Lyon
===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.
Logo	Name 	Location(s)	Notes
 	NC (sometimes NC Krafton)	 	The main publishing brand worldwide, outside of North America. Houses internal teams Team Aion, Team L, Team Bloodlust, Team L2Live, Project G Team and Team TL.
Formerly called .
 	NC Abstraction  	 	One of two support studios acquired for porting Krafton Pearl Abyss games for console platforms. Merger between  and Abstraction Games.
 	NC Arenanet 	 	Formerly called .
 	NC Blit 	 	One of two support studios acquired for porting Krafton Pearl Abyss games for console and mobile platforms. Formerly called .
 	NC Bluehole 	 	Formerly called and briefly Krafton Bluehole.
 	NC Klei 	 	Formerly called .
 	NC Yager 	 	The Irvine studio was founded with former Double Helix Games/Amazon Game Studios employees in order to develop Breakaway.
Formed out of a merger between Das Werk Berlin and .
 	NC RedSahara 	 	A support studio for Krafton Pearl Abyss games and also for NC Plarium games. Merger between Rising Wings, Ntreev Soft, NeoCyon and Krafton Red Sahara.
 	NC Game Arts 	 	Formed out of a merger between Virtuos Tokyo, , , Pole To Win Networks, Qbist, Entalize, MSPO Corporation, QaaS Co Ltd, SuperTrick Games, GungHo Online Entertainment's other internal teams, operations and affiliates, , , , , , Japan Art Media (JAM), , ZEX Co Ltd, , , , , Asobism, , , , Mikage LLC, IGG Japan, consulting companies Shantery and E-Smile, outsourcing studio Leverages Inc, and QA company Digital Hearts; integrated with former employees from SIE Japan Studio, , Omiya Soft, , Black Bandit Q Limted, Jackalope Art Factory, Y'sK Inc. and .
Kofu and Nagoya studios were formerly part of QaaS Ltd.
The Singapore studio was formed out of a merger between PTW Singapore and General Arcade. They were formerly part of NC Aspyr until 2021.
 	NC Boss Alien 	 	Racing game developer, formerly known as Playrise Digital. It also formerly included and a middleware development team consisting of the Birmingham offices of before the Zynga asset sale to Take-Two Interactive around 2022. Renaming is in process.
 	NC Stunlock 	 	Formerly called Stunlock Studios; integrated into KPA in 2020.
 	NC Virtual Reality 	 	
NC Krafton's virtual reality division, formed out of a merger between Groove Jones and Subvrsive.
A studio in Amsterdam, formerly Force Field, was sold to Embracer Group in August 2021. A studio in Austin, formerly Subvrsive, was moved under then-NC Aspyr the same month.
 	NC Immortal 	 	Formed out of former employees of , 7 Studios, , , , , and . Later in 2021, they hired former Nexon M & Iron Tiger Studios development staff and formed a mobile division.
 	NC Hivemind 	 	The Annecy studio was initially announced separately, but NC Hivemind merged with the studio shortly afterwards. The Sofia studio was formerly known as Coherent Labs's video game unit Coherent Hivemind.
TBA 	Unnamed Paris studio 	 	Announced during KPA's Q2 2021 financial results presentation.
TBA 	NC Polar 	 	Announced during KPA's Q2 2021 financial results presentation.
 	NC Dragon Labs 	 	The development team behind the NC Dragon Engine. Formed out of a merger between Coherent Labs, The Forge Interactive, Dakor Technologies and Perforce; and formerly included Demonware, InstaLOD, Geomerics, Moon Collider (Kythera), NaturalMotion and Umbra Software.
===== Former studios =====
	NC Jagex 		Formerly called . Rebranded back to Jagex and moved to Pureband in February 2021.
	NC Nixxes 		A support studio for Krafton Pearl Abyss games and for the AAA game industry. Formerly called . Sold to Sony Interactive Entertainment in 2021.
	NC Demiurge		A support studio for Krafton Pearl Abyss games and for the AAA game industry. Formerly called . Sold to Saber Interactive in 2021.
	NC Zynga 		Social casino and casual games developer. Formerly called , integrated with Rollic and Peak Games. Zynga assets were sold between December 2021 and January 2022 to Take-Two Interactive.
	NC Aspyr 		A support studio for Krafton Pearl Abyss games, the AAA game industry and also NC Plarium games.
The London studio was formerly called . The Dallas studio was formerly called BonusXP.
 merged into the studio as well but was later spun off into Pureband's division Embracer Group as part of Saber Interactive in February 2021. The Bluepoint Games team, also formerly part of the studio, sold to Sony Interactive Entertainment around mid-2021. They sold their Austin and Singapore studios in December 2021.
====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 Gaijin Arts and Jam City. They are headquartered in , . They also own subsidiaries Rumble Games, Lillith Studios and Jam City.
====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
===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:
* - South Korean baseball team, formerly owned by NCSoft
* - e-sports team, formerly owned by FunPlus
*DAZN Group
*​SuperSport​
* - minority stake
They also have offices in:
*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)
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.
===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:
*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
They also own the following companies that do not belong in the KPA divisions:
====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. In August 2021, they acquired Das Werk's offices in Dusseldorf and Cologne.
====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. 
==Products and events==
===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 and owned by their close partners Crescent Games (through subsidiaries like Ziggurat), , and Intellivision Entertainment.
====History====
Inherited from the Plarium, Gaijin Entertainment, Wargaming, and Feral acquisitions, 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====
*NC Dragon Puppeteer - a re-build of the animation engine (with features largely based on the former  modeling software and the motion capture suite)
*NC Dragon Foley - a re-build of sound effects engine
*NC Dragon Engine - a combination of , C-Engine, , Evolution, Enfusion, Torus, Silk Engine, PlatinumEngine, Dakor Engine, and the remainings of , Diesel Engine, and Road Hog Engine; with the following addons:
**the technology for virtual worlds and MMORPGs,
** physics engine,
**the Coherent Labs UI technology,
**the Kai AI technology (based on the Kythera AI technology)
**the Tatsu lighting technology (formerly and based on Geomerics' Enlighten)
**Teapot occulsion culling and 3D processing technology (heavily modified version of Umbra's occlusion culling, InstaLOD's 3D processing and additional technologies),
**Dragon Net Engine framework (heavily modified version of 's Matchmaking+, and State Engine netcode framework),
**Dragon Nature (heavily modified vegetation rendering)
*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
The middleware suite also uses Krake technology.
====Development team====
NC Dragon's development team is housed inside:
*NC Dragon Labs
*NC Boss Alien, in Brighton
*Gravity, in Seoul
*Redshirt, in Montreal
*Streamline, in Kuala Lumpur	
*NC Plarium San Diego LLC
*NC Game Arts, in Boulder, Austin and Charlotte
*Good Science Studio, in Kirkland
*Pearl Abyss Australia Pty Ltd, in Sydney and Melbourne
*NC Plarium San Mateo LLC
===== External partners =====
* 4A Games, in Sliema and Kiyv
* Bohemia Interactive, in Prague
* Spiders, in Paris
*Keywords Studios
* Techland, in Ostrów Wielkopolski
*Digital Extremes, in London (Ontario)
* PlatinumGames, in Tokyo
* Starbreeze Studios (until 2021)
* Flying Wild Hog, in Cracow and Rzeszów (until 2021)
*Konami, in Tokyo (until 2021)
====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.
===NCCon===
===Other events===
*League of Legends:
**
**
==Titles==
===Online games===
Name 	Status 	Release Date 	Notes
 	Active 	Dec 20, 2017 	Tencent published the mobile versions, while Microsoft published the Xbox One version. Developed by PUBG Corporation. Still published through NC, after PUBG Corporation's sale to OWL Ventures's MGM Entertainment.
 	Active; publishes the game in North America	May 1, 2012 (NA)	Developed by NC Bluehole and published through NC En Masse.
 	Active 	Jan 4, 2001 	Developed by NC Jagex.
KoGaMA 	Active 	Sep 17, 2011 	A game making-focused sandbox MMO. Originally developed by Multiverse ApS (later acquired by Crescent Games) and now developed by NC Plarium.
Breakaway 	Upcoming 	Mar 15, 2022 	A revival of the MOBA developed by Amazon, developed by NC Studios (mainly by NC Yager) using the new NC Dragon game engine.
Frantic Royale Mayhem	Upcoming 	Q2 2022 	
A team-based multiplayer action-adventure shooter game with a surrealistic/cartoonish aesthetic, similar to , and . Developed by Rebellion Malta with additional work by Rebellion North, Rebellion Warwick, Grasshopper Manufacture, Pearl Abyss and Keywords Studios.
MRP 	Upcoming 	Q4 2021 	A successor to franchises PGR, Metropolis Street Racer & Blur, the and franchises, and 's games Pure and Split/Second. Developed by NC Boss Alien with additional work by and Sumo Digital.
Incognito 	Upcoming 	Q1 2021 	A spy adventure game where the player works for an intelligence agency. The player's mission is to spy on people, but you might not know that the other players are spying on them too. Developed by a team of 15 people within NC Game Arts Nagoya.
Bionic Wars 	Upcoming 	Q4 2021 	
A cinematic science fiction-action game that includes mechanical combat and stealth elements, similar to franchise,  and , and is to be set in Dubai during 2080s. Developed by Pearl Abyss Abu Dhabi, Redmond, India, Mexico, Canada, Australia and Kiyv.
===Upcoming non-online games===
Name 	Release Date	Notes
Weiv 	May 3, 2021 	A music-based video game, developed by a team of 8 people within both NC Klei and NC Game Arts studios; the and mobile ports developed by NC Abstraction and NC Blit respectively.
Eox 	Q1 2022 	Krafton Pearl Abyss's answer to , , and . Developed by NC Game Arts and NC Yager, with additional work by NC Studios, Pearl Abyss, Keywords Studios and external partners The Imaginarium Studios.
Eox: Ragtag 	Q2 2022 	A companion game taking place within the Eox universe, which is a partial revival of Visceral Games's cancelled projects Jamaica and its successor , developed by NC Immortal with additional work by NC Yager.
Eox Party 	Q1 2022 	A humoristic take on party games, taking place within the Eox universe, but is not canon. Developed by NC Game Arts Sapporo.
Skylar 	Q1 2022 	A psychological thriller-action/science fiction game, which follows Skylar Henjin, a bullied control freak who, one day, acquires supernatural and enchanced abilities and becomes the anti-hero, while the CIA hunts her down. Developed by Pearl Abyss Slovakia and published by (for Xbox Series X and Xbox One) and NC (for PC through NC Core).
Moving Mountains 	Q1 2022 	A satirical JRPG about a girl, Erin, and her guardian angel/dead boyfriend, Awero. Developed by a team of 7 people within NC Game Arts Osaka.
Just Another Day in the Good Old Alternative Universe	Q1 2022 	A take on an alternate dimension version of a 3D platformer, with gesture recognition, "alternative physics", time machine elements (such as cloning), gates (similar to portals from the Portal franchise) and gravity switching. Developed by a team of 18 people in NC Game Arts Osaka.
Project D2N 	Q1 2022 	A horror game based around a remote island, with an abandoned factory, both full of mysteries. Developed by a team of 20 people within both NC Game Arts Osaka and Nagoya studios.
Eternal Stranger 	Q1 2022 	An emotional adventure game, inspired by games such as Ori and the Blind Forest, Limbo, Gris, Braid and the Studio Ghibli films. Developed by NC Game Arts Kofu.
Yoostar 3 	Q1 2022 	The third installment in the Yoostar franchise. Developed by an undisclosed developer with the assistance of KPA External Development Group.
===Board games===
===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
==Criticism==
===Failed acquisition of CD Projekt Red===
In November 2020, 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."
On January 2, 2021, Cho Mee-Kyong announced that KPA will sell CDPR to its management. Several reasons to the sale include Kasperi Salovaara's continuous objection, creative and management disputes, as well as the initial reception of the video game Cyberpunk 2077. "[The sale] was doomed from the start" Kasperi commented in an interview.
==See also==
*Studio Watson
*Crescent Industries
Category:Video game companies
Category:South Korean
Category:Styhon Entertainment
Category:Krafton Pearl Abyss
Category:Ootwar's ideas