K2 Network, Inc. was an American producer and publisher of video games based in

Irvine, California Irvine () is a master-planned city in South Orange County, California, United States, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Irvine Company started developing the area in the 1960s and the city was formally incorporated on December 28, 197 ...

. It pioneered the use of the

free-to-play Free-to-play (F2P or FtP) video games are games that give players access to a significant portion of their content without paying or do not require paying to continue playing. Free-to-play is distinct from traditional commercial software, which ...

(or " freemium") business model among North American and European

MMO game A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players, often hundreds or thousands, on the same server. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent open world, although there are ...

publishers in 2004. On July 5, 2012, the company merged with Reloaded Games, and the merged entity ceased its K2 Network branded operations.

History

K2 Network was founded in 2001 on the belief that "the community experience of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG’s) will become one of the most significant forms of entertainment in the 21st century." The company initially licensed games created by Korean development studios, and localized and serviced those games in North America, South America and Europe via its portal GamersFirst.com. In 2007, the company raised $16m USD in a Series-B financing round led by

Intel Capital Intel Capital is a division of Intel Corporation, set up to manage corporate venture capital, global investment, mergers and acquisitions. Intel Capital makes equity investments in a range of technology startups and companies offering hardware, s ...

Licensed MMOs

K2 Network's licensed titles included '' Knight Online World'' for which it acquired the Western territory rights in 2003 and began publishing operations in 2004, ceasing operations in May 2012. The game grew quickly to more than 40,000 concurrent players and proved especially popular in Turkey where K2 Network monetized the game using its network of ESN code resellers. K2 Network also licensed and published ''

MU Online ''MU Online'' ( ko, 뮤 온라인) is an Isometric medieval fantasy MMORPG, produced by Webzen, a Korean gaming company. Introduced in 2001 it is still being supported and updated in 2022. Gameplay MU Online was created in December 2001 by the ...

'', ''

War Rock ''War Rock'' ( ko, 워록) is a Multiplayer video game, multiplayer first-person shooter made by the South Korean company, Dream Execution. The game is distributed as a free-to-play, a common form of freeware Software license agreement, EULA and ...

'' and '' Sword 2''.

Creation of Studio Subsidiary Reloaded Productions

In November 2010, K2 Network's subsidiary Reloaded Productions purchased the rights to '' APB: All Points Bulletin'' from

Realtime Worlds Realtime Worlds Ltd. was a British video game developer based in Dundee, Scotland. The company was founded by David Jones in 2002. After developing '' Crackdown'' (2007) and '' APB: All Points Bulletin'' (2009), Realtime Worlds filed for admin ...

during the latter company's administration proceedings for a fraction of the game's original 60 million GBP development cost, aiming to convert the game from a traditional subscription based business model as designed by Realtime Worlds, to a game called '' APB: Reloaded'' using the company's free-to-play model. In June 2011, Reloaded Productions acquired '' Fallen Earth'' from Icarus Studios planning to repeat the subscription-to-freemium business model conversion. On March 16, 2015, Reloaded Productions purchased the rights to '' Hawken''.

References

{{Reflist Defunct video game companies of the United States Video game publishers Companies based in Irvine, California