Gravity Corporation

Gravity Corporation is a South Korean videogame corporation primarily known for the development of the Massively multiplayer online role-playing game Ragnarok Online. The corporation started as a small business in Shinsa-dong, Kangnam-ku, Seoul, South Korea and has expanded to an international corporate interest with a semi-independant subsidiary division located in Los Angeles, California known as Gravity Interactive LLC which handles the international version of the game (referred to as International Ragnarok Online or iRO ). On 12 February 2005, Gravity Corporation made their IPO and traded $108 million US dollars on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol GRVY.

The company has had a rather turbulent history initially involving internal political conflicts between CEO (Kim Hakkyu, who eventually left the company) and company president Kim Jungryool (who later assumed control as CEO), but has since stablised 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.

The company is currently developing ROSE Online, Requiem, and Ragnarok Online 2. On August 31, 2005, Gravity was acquired by Japanese software company Softbank, for 400 billion won ($389.93 million). On September 12, Nichiei Yanagi assumed the CEO and president positions at Gravity.

=External links=

*[http://www.gravity.co.kr/ Official Gravity Corporation Website] *[http://www.prontera.net/gravity.html The Library of Prontera Official iRO Fansite] – Officially Sanctioned Gravity Corporation Article Section