Active Gaming Media Inc. (AGM) is a localization company based in

Osaka, Japan is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third-most populous city in Japan, following the special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a populatio ...

. Founded in 2008 by CEO Ibai Ameztoy, the company's main focus lies in providing localization services for video games. AGM has since branched out to provide services such as game

debugging In engineering, debugging is the process of finding the Root cause analysis, root cause, workarounds, and possible fixes for bug (engineering), bugs. For software, debugging tactics can involve interactive debugging, control flow analysis, Logf ...

, marketing, promotion, voice acting, and publishing for games and

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

. Having worked on a number of titles for various platforms including

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE). It is the successor to the PlayStation 2, and both are part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. The PS3 was first released on ...

, PS Vita, PC, as well as online and

mobile games A mobile game is a video game that is typically played on a mobile phone. The term also refers to all games that are played on any portable device, including from mobile phone (feature phone or smartphone), tablet, PDA to handheld game conso ...

, AGM has collaborated with a number of major Japanese video game companies, including

Sony Corporation is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (imaging and sensing), ...

Grasshopper Manufacture is a Japanese video game developer founded on March 30, 1998 by Goichi Suda. They are well known for creating titles such as '' killer7'' and the '' No More Heroes'' series. History The company was founded on March 30, 1998 in Suginami, J ...

and

Capcom is a Japanese video game company. It has created a number of critically acclaimed and List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil'', ''Monster ...

. Notable titles are Demon’s Souls, No More Heroes, Monster Hunter, the survival-horror series

Resident Evil ''Resident Evil'', known as in Japan, is a Japanese horror game series and media franchise created by Capcom. It consists of survival horror, third-person shooter and first-person shooter games, with players typically surviving in environments ...

, and the

Devil May Cry is a science fantasy action-adventure game franchise created by Hideki Kamiya. It is primarily developed and published by Capcom. The series centers on the demon hunter Dante (Devil May Cry), Dante and his efforts to thwart various demon invas ...

series. In May 2011, AGM launched the Japan-based version of the

Playism Playism (stylized as PLAYISM) is a Japanese independent video game publisher operated by Active Gaming Media. Playism started as a digital distribution platform for PC games in May 2011. History Playism was launched by Active Gaming Media in M ...

website, an

indie game An indie video game or indie game (short for independent video game) is a video game created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A ...

distribution platform. With the aim of introducing Western indie games to Japan, Playism started off by distributing localized versions of Machinarium and

SpaceChem ''SpaceChem'' is a puzzle game, puzzle and indie game by Zachtronics Industries, based on principles of automation and chemical bonding. In the game, the player is tasked to produce one or more specific chemical molecules via an assembly line b ...

. Aside from being a distribution platform, Playism offers indie game funding, localization, and publishing services for indie game developers. Along with the English release of Nigoro’s archaeological platformer

La-Mulana ''La-Mulana'' (stylized as ''La•Mʊlana'') is a Platform game#Platform-adventure game, platform-adventure video game, designed to imitate the look and feel of MSX games. Released on June 27, 2006, in Japan for Microsoft Windows, the game was on ...

, Playism launched the English version of th
Playism store
in July 2012. In addition to both paid and free indie games, Playism also offers a pay what you want model for some of its titles. The platform adapts a concept similar to

Steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...

History

*2008 **Established as a

legal entity In law, a legal person is any person or legal entity that can do the things a human person is usually able to do in law – such as enter into contracts, lawsuit, sue and be sued, ownership, own property, and so on. The reason for the term "''le ...

in Tokyo *2009 **

Headquarters Headquarters (often referred to as HQ) notes the location where most or all of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. The term is used in a wide variety of situations, including private sector corporations, non-profits, mil ...

moved to Osaka. *2011 **Acquired ''Tokyo Great Visual'' (Osaka branch), headquarters relocated within Osaka **Launched digital distribution platfor
Playism
in Japan *2012 **Active Gaming Media's CEO Ibai Ameztoy was included on

Gamasutra ''Game Developer'' (known as ''Gamasutra'' until 2021) is a website created in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa TechTarget and acted as the online sister publication to the print maga ...

's 2012 "Power 50" list of influential people in the video game industry. *2016 **Launched the YumeHaven brand, which focuses on the localization of Japanese

visual novel A visual novel (VN) is a form of digital interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with static or animated illustratio ...

s. *2021 **Launched English gaming media website AUTOMATON WEST.

Completed projects

Over the past five years, AGM has translated more than 300 game titles for six different platforms into nine languages.

References

External links

* {{portal, Video games Video game companies of Japan Companies based in Osaka Translation companies Video game companies established in 2008 Japanese companies established in 2008 Video game localization