KOG Studios

KOG Co. was founded on May 1, 2000. Their first game, Grand Chase, an action side-scrolling MMORPG, launched in August 2003. After being a large success in South Korea, the game expanded to mainland China and Japan, as well as the Americas in 2006.^[1] It was notable for reaching mass popularity in South America, breaking the record of most played online game in Brazil.^[2] Ntreev Soft began publishing Grand Chase for North America in early 2008. KOG ceased support for the game in 2015, 12 years after its initial release.

In 2010, KOG Studios partnered with Philippine company Level Up! Games, the publisher of Grand Chase in South America, to found Kill3r Combo, a subsidiary company headquartered in Irvine, California, with the objective of bringing KOG's games to North America.^[3] Their first game was Elsword, which began open beta testing in North America on April 27, 2011, and released on July 2, 2014.^{[citation needed]}

In June 2012, KOG Studios purchased LevelUp!’s interest in Kill3rCombo to become the sole owner, and officially changed the company's name to KOG Games Inc.^[4] Since then, KOG Games has been responsible for publishing their games in the Americas.

Although Elsword received some criticism for pay to win systems,^[5] the game was generally well-received, and peaked with 2,500 active players on Steam in August 2013.^{[citation needed]}

KurtzPel Bringer of Chaos was first announced in the South Korean game exhibition G-Star 2017.^[6] It entered worldwide Steam early access on April 30, 2019.^[7]