KOG Studios

KOG Co. (better known as KOG Studios) is a South Korean video game developer based in Daegu and founded on May 1, 2000. It produces online games mainly for personal computers. KOG gained attention after a huge success of their now-defunct and formerly most popular game, Grand Chase, which created a cult following in Americas, East Asia, and South East Asia ever since. Currently, KOG provided online game services around the world through various local server hosts, including their latest title KurtzPel on mh:awesomegames:Steam.

Why They Suck

 * 1) When it comes to feedback, KOG only listens to Korean community and not anyone else, which often results in various changes that nobody outside of Korea was asked for.
 * 2) Most of their games consist of having Korean servers getting the best treatment ever, filled with exclusive content (Elsword's avatar customization system, Magic Wardrobe, kept as an exclusive feature for Korean servers for a long time, because the dismantling of registered items as custom avatar gave overpowered bonuses) and power-up giveaway events, a thing that never existed in any other server.
 * 3) They shutted down Grand Chase while it enjoyed a huge popularity around the world, despite that server being so popular and profitable it actually gave KOG more than enough money and backbone to be a competitive game developer, and stand proud and firm while all of the "Dungeon and Fighter Killer games" fell down due to not having enough profit. They even rejected Level Up! Games, the Brazilian publisher, offer to buy a license to run a local Grand Chase servers and develop it from there.
 * 4) * The re-release of Grand Chase titled Grand Chase Classic, was a total launch disaster, as the game suffered from technical issues, had poor economy translation from Korean won to Brazilian real, and tons of removed features.
 * 5) They are best known for milking Elsword, while ignoring the rest such as Fighter's Club, Aima Online, and HeroWarz which all flopped pretty quickly, though HeroWarz wasn't developed by KOG, it was developed by A.Storm and KOG handled the game internationally. HeroWarz would go on to get a Chinese-only revival rebranded as Nightmare Breaker.
 * 6) They never released Fighter's Club, a game they have been promising for years. This culminated in a "stealth release" (releasing a game without proper publishing) of a revamped game, Hero: Fighter's Club, which was exclusive to the Korean and Taiwan regions, which flopped shortly after due to the lack of players.
 * 7) While Hero: Fighter's Club actually had a decent gameplay and did not require microtransactions to power up your characters, KOG never gave the game the proper treatment.
 * 8) Despite the "pulling a character from Grand Chase" trick working with Elesis in Elsword, KoG tried to do the same to Aima Online with the character Ronan Erudon, only to see the game close shortly after.
 * 9) Most of their games are filled with power creeps and a pay-to-win content, which end being filled with hackers in the long run, and even selling class advancement items in microtransactions.
 * 10) Another unreleased game, Ultimate Race, that proved somewhat successsful in Thailand, never got a greenlight for a proper international release, despite the high level of quality and positive feedback from Thai players.
 * 11) They even went forth to make characters and classes require microtransactions to play in their F2P MMOs, which has been the case with their most recent release KurtzPel. At one point in Grand Chase, one character, Lime, was only obtainable by paying for her.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) They at least listen to the Korean player base. As of their mobile games, they even went on to expand to more player bases such as Japanese and even global players.
 * 2) Despite the awful management with abysmal level design and huge skill gaps, their games have solid gameplay mechanics.