Gala Inc

Gala Inc.
株式会社ガーラ

Global Online Community
Type	Public
Traded as	JASDAQ:
Industry	Video game industry
Founded	September 3, 1993
Headquarters	Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan
Area served	Japan South Korea
Key people	Satoru Kikugawa, Group CEO of Gala Inc.
Products	Flyff Rappelz IL: Soulbringer
Services	gPotato, Mobblo
Number of employees	18 (Gala Inc., as of June, 2011) 453 (Globally, as of March, 2011)
Subsidiaries	Gala Innovative Inc. (U.S.A.) Gala Lab (South Korea) Gala Japan
Website	http://www.gala.jp/

Gala Inc. (株式会社ガーラ, Gala Kabushiki gaisha) is a holding company based in Tokyo, Japan, that administers GALA Group, which is made up of subsidiary companies of Gala Inc. The group of companies embraces three types of business: MMORPG games, web design and data mining. Within the group companies, Gala Lab Corp., established after the merger of Aeonsoft and nFlavor, located in South Korea, develops games for the group's online gaming portal gPotato. GALA Group focuses on developing massively multiplayer online role-playing games. To cover local areas, there are Group companies located in the USA, Japan and South Korea.

GALA Group's games are free-to-play so no annual/monthly payment is required; revenue is generated from a micropayment system. Games and their premium item shops can be accessed by the Group's regional gPotato portal sites.

The majority of GALA Group's business revolves around MMORPG and smartphone games. Within GALA Group, Gala Web Inc.'s main business was in web design, but this company was sold to Tribeck Strategies, Inc. in 2015.

In February 2013, Gala-Net, Gala Networks Europe and Gala-Net Brazil were acquired by Webzen.

Gala Inc. was founded in September 1993 by Satoru Kikugawa to create an IT company with the goal of bringing people together from around the world. While at Keio University, Kikugawa was an avid event planner where he would rent out clubs in Roppongi and students could gather. He called these events "Gala". With the expansion of the internet in the early nineties, Kikugawa, inspired by his university events, founded Gala Inc. with the goal of bringing people together online.

The early business model of Gala Inc. was in homepage creation. One of Gala Inc.'s first website creations was for the All Japan Pro Wrestling site in 1996. The initial business approach was to create home pages free of charge and then share the advertising revenue. Gala Inc. also set up bulletin boards on sites for visitors to share their thoughts. In February 2000, Gala Inc. acquired the company RIS Inc., which was then renamed to Gala Web Inc. While Gala Inc. acts as the headquarters for GALA Group, Gala Web continues to develop websites and systems for clients in Japan. Gala Inc.'s early business model eventually led to Gala's gaming business model, where its games are free and sales are generated from micropayments.