Gunbound World Champion logo for the Philippine service, circa 2006.

The Gunbound Philippine Service, also known as the GPS and Gunbound Philippines, is the first official service for Gunbound in the country. It was published by Digital Media Exchange, Inc. on its Mobius Games portal from 2004 until 2007, when the local service was shut down and player accounts were migrated to the global service. The global service was marketed by Mobius Games from 2007 until 2010.

The game was popular in 2005, as it was one of the few free-to-play live service games in a market dominated by subscription-based games.

The GPS began its open beta on December 1, 2004. It launched commercially on January 24, 2005.

In September 2005, Gregory Kittelson, director of Digital Media Exchange, claimed that, at that time, Gunbound had three times the accounts of Ragnarok Online, and that it had 300 percent more "active subscribers" than all the live service games in the Philippines combined.^[1] It should be noted that "active subscribers" is misleading and may refer to active accounts, as Gunbound was a free-to-play casual game, and the other popular games, Ragnarok Online and Digital Media Exchange's own MU Online, were subscription-based MMORPGs.

A major game update, Gunbound World Champion, was released in May 2006. The update enhanced the graphics and user interface, and introduced new maps and avatars. The "World Champion" update was set to coincide with the Gunbound World Championship 2006.

On May 31, 2007, GPS was shut down in preparation for a merger with the Gunbound International Service (GIS), a service handled directly by the game's South Korean developer, Softnyx. The merge was completed on June 1.^[2]

Mobius Games continued to market the GIS server and sold Softnyx credits until September 5, 2010, when Mobius Games ceased support for all Softnyx titles. The GIS would continue to operate until 2019, when it was silently shut down. A sequel called "New Gunbound" was also announced in 2019, although it never launched.

The game had an international tournament in 2006 called Gunbound World Championship 2006. The playoffs were held in Suwon, South Korea, on September 23, 2006. A team from the Philippines participated in the tournament and placed fifth.

The Philippine service, which peaked from 2005 to 2006, was widely popular. It inspired the term "SS" in Filipino gaming lingo when referring to a player's ultimate ability.

1. The real winner in online gaming. September 19, 2005. Rose de la Cruz. Philstar.com. Retrieved on 2025-10-01.
2. Are you ready for this? -- GPS - GIS Merger, Test your skills against the best in the world. May 29, 2007 at 12:45 PM. Iccaro. Mobius Games forums. Retrieved on 2023-09-23.