Forum:Russia RO (ruRO) Shutting Down/@comment-ZeroTigress-20160324204522

So I was doing some digging around and apparently found the real reason why Gravity CIS bit the dust.

"your CIS/Russia website provides a map for Gravity Worldwide which, under Online Games, indicates operations relating to Syria. Syria and Sudan are designated by the U.S. Department of States as state sponsors of terrorism, and are subject to U.S. economic sanctions and export controls." Source: SEC Report

Seems it wasn't only international security issues that was a factor in its shutdown.

"We entered into a license agreement with Sento Enterprises Limited on May 2, 2005, which granted Sento Enterprises Limited a right to service Ragnarok Online in 14 countries, including Syria (but not Sudan). On November 4th, 2005, such license agreement was amended to exclude Syria from the service territories and it was before Sento Enterprises initiated its game service of Ragnarok Online in Syria.

...

Gravity CIS/Russia website, had a map that showed Syria as a service territory, However, Gravity’s games are not offered in Syria. Although Gravity CIS had been our distributor from October 2006 to June 2010, we had not allowed Gravity CIS to service our game(s) in Syria by any of agreements or arrangements. Also, we have not entered into any kind of license agreement with Gravity RUS, either. Moreover, Gravity RUS/CIS ceased to be our subsidiaries in August 2012."

Source: SEC Report

So that explains when Gravity CIS was removed from GRAVITY's list of subsidiaries. Basically Gravity CIS broke their contract agreement with GRAVITY and offered services to areas that they weren't supposed to. I guess GRAVITY got so fed up with it that they basically severed ties with Gravity CIS and let them do whatever they want. Although I would think they would force Gravity CIS to assume their former name of Mados Inc. so they wouldn't be associated with anything they do, but GRAVITY isn't quite known for thinking things through.