Overview
GungHo Online Entertainment (ガンホー・オンライン・エンターテイメント, Ganhō Onrain Entāteimento), often shorten to GungHo (ガンホー, Ganhō), as part of the name shows, makes online games.
Although is now famous for its successful smartphone games, it has a surprisingly long history.
History
It was founded in 1998 as ONSale, a merger between OnSale (subsidiary of eCost), a major U.S. auction site, and SoftBank. Initially, the company was involved in the online auction business, but it was unable to compete with Yahoo! Shortly after withdrawing, the company changed its name to its current name, GungHo, and began offering online games.
The company became known as the service provider of Ragnarok Online, a relatively long-established online game in Japan. Although the company was criticized at the time for its sloppy management and balance, it became a huge hit, contributing to the popularization of online games in Japan. 2004 sales reached 4.2 billion yen, and the company showed rapid growth, and was listed on Hercules Nippon New Market in March 2005.
In 2006, the company developed GungHo Games, and in 2007, it established GungHo Works as a subsidiary to enter the consumer game market, but the company was dissolved after only two years due to many not-so-good titles.
The turning point came with the release of Puzzle & Dragons, a smartphone game offered in 2012. The game was a huge hit, with a rapidly growing user base, and at one point the stock price soared tenfold. Since then, the company has become known more and more as the provider of that service.
External Links
English
GungHo Online Entertainment - Wikipedia
Japanese
ガンホー・オンライン・エンターテイメント - Wikipedia
