The corporation started as a small business in Shinsa-dong, Kangnam-ku, Seoul, South Korea and has expanded to an international corporate interest with several subsidiary divisions. On 8 February 2005, Gravity Corporation made their IPO and traded $108 million US dollars on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol GRVY, making it the first Korean game company to be listed on the NASDAQ.[2][3]
The company has had a rather turbulent history initially involving internal political conflicts between CEO Hakyu Kim (who eventually left the company), and company president Jung Ryool Kim (who later assumed control as CEO), but has since stabilised and expanded operations to all of north and south-east Asia through supervised partnerships with native corporate entities. However, while Gravity Corporation's flagship product Ragnarok Online is considered a success in Asia, operations are not as well developed in Europe and the United States in comparison to similar products marketed and developed there.
Jung Ryool Kim, diverted approximately $6 million in company funds to himself between 2002 and 2004, which eventually led to an investigation, settlement, and corrections of financial statements for those years.[4][5][6] On 30 August 2005, Jung Ryool Kim, the controlling shareholder, sold his 52% stake and set plans to quit as a director. The buyers of his shares were Ezer and Techno Groove (which later merged into Asian Groove) of Japan, a pair of technology ventures controlled by Il Young Ryu and Taizo and Masayoshi Son. After becoming the new majority shareholder, on 13 September 2005, Il Young Ryu was named by Gravity as its new chairman and joint chief executive. EZER subsequently returned Techno Groove's investment of 9.9 billion yen to Asian Groove, which gave up any interest in Gravity. On 19 October 2007, EZER sold their interest in Gravity to Son Assets Management or SAM.[7][8][9][10]
On 22 May 2006, Gravity announced it had invested $9 Million in US game developer Perpetual Entertainment. Consequently, Gravity received a position on Perpetual's board of directors. Gravity also received "priority rights for future access to contents and other intellectual property rights of Perpetual Entertainment."[11] On 21 November 2007, Gravity announced they had lost their investment after Perpetual cancelled its development of the MMORPG Gods and Heroes.[12]
On 5 December 2007, Gravity announced they had formed a new US-based game developer, L5 Games. L5 is a subsidiary of Gravity Interactive, Inc. and is based in San Mateo, California. The company was composed of former Blizzard Entertainment employees, and went into liquidation in 2008.[13]
Gravity faced litigation in 2006 when two US based hedge funds complained that majority shareholders and officers had violated their fiduciary obligations. In 2007, Gravity agreed to settle for $10 million, but continued to deny any wrongdoing.[15]
Titles
The following are games that have been published and/or are currently being developed by Gravity.
On 14 January 2008, the company announced an exclusive seven-year deal with 20th Century Fox licensing and merchandising to develop and publish "Ice Age Online", an online game based on Fox's Ice Age motion picture franchise, but development was halted in 2009.[17]
ROSE Online, or Rush On Seven Episodes Online (Korean: 로즈 온라인) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game which was created by Korean company Triggersoft and published by Gravity Corp. Triggersoft stopped developing the game in 2007, and the rights of ROSE Online were sold to several different companies which now develop and publish their own versions of the game. For instance, Gravity Interactive, Inc. develops and publishes its version of the game for 3 North American and 40 European countries.[18]
