Sekai Project is an American

video game publisher A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that have been developed either internally by the publisher or externally by a video game developer. They often finance the development, sometimes by paying a video game developer ...

. They are best known for licensing and translating Japanese

visual novel A , often abbreviated as VN, is a form of digital semi-interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with and used in the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with sta ...

s into English, but they have also published

manga Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is use ...

and other non-visual novel video games.

History

Sekai Project originated in 2007 as a fan translation group translating the visual novel '' School Days''. They later partnered with publisher JAST USA, turning their fan translation into the official English version of the game. Sekai Project began publishing games on

Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporizat ...

in 2014; their first title was '' World End Economica episode.01'', released in June. Sekai Project has used the crowdfunding platform

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, K ...

to fund many of their projects. In November 2014, they launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund an English release of the visual novel ''

Clannad Clannad () is an Irish band formed in 1970 in Gweedore, County Donegal by siblings Ciarán, Pól, and Moya Brennan and their twin uncles Noel and Pádraig Duggan. They have adopted various musical styles throughout their history, including ...

''. The campaign exceeded its goal of US$140,000 and ended up raising over US$500,000. In July 2015, Sekai Project announced that they would be localizing

in addition to video games, starting with ''

Gate A gate or gateway is a point of entry to or from a space enclosed by walls. The word derived from old Norse "gat" meaning road or path; But other terms include '' yett and port''. The concept originally referred to the gap or hole in the wal ...

''. Since

does not typically allow

adult An adult is a human or other animal that has reached full growth. In human context, the term ''adult'' has meanings associated with social and legal concepts. In contrast to a "minor", a legal adult is a person who has attained the age of ...

games to be sold on their platform, Sekai Project releases their adult titles through their partner company Denpasoft. For titles like '' The Fruit of Grisaia'', an all ages version is available on Steam, while the adult version is sold directly through the Denpasoft website. In 2017, the company partnered with Humble Bundle, an online marketplace where games are sold based on what other users paid for them. As is usual for the Humble Bundle site, users were also able to donate a portion of their payment to the charity of their choice. In June 2018, Sekai Project provided a censored version of the adult game '' Maitetsu'' to Fakku to distribute, contrary to what Sekai Project had promised them and their customers. In August 2018, Sekai Project laid off some or all of their permanent staff in their Los Angeles office. In a statement to the press, they said most of the staff let go were marketing, but one of their employees posted to Twitter claiming that every employee in the LA office was laid off. Most of the translation and programming work for the company is freelance work that is done remotely. This has continued since the layoffs.

Sekai Games

In 2018, Sekai Project opened Sekai Games, a console focused division within the company structure. Since then, Sekai Games has handled all publishing and marketing for their console releases. On April 14, 2020, Sekai Games and Limited Run Games released a physical edition of ''

'' for Nintendo Switch. In 2021, Sekai Games announced they were going to begin publishing games on Xbox Series X and S, having previously only published games on Nintendo and Sony consoles.

Works

Published games

Upcoming games

Other releases

Notes

References

External links

*
Sekai Games website
* {{vndb, 162, producer Companies based in Los Angeles Video game companies of the United States Video game publishers Video game companies established in 2007