is a Japanese

video game development Video game development (sometimes shortened to gamedev) is the process of creating a video game. It is a multidisciplinary practice, involving programming, design, art, audio, user interface, and writing. Each of those may be made up of more speci ...

and localization company specializing in

role-playing video game Role-playing video games, also known as CRPG (computer/console role-playing games), comprise a broad video game genre generally defined by a detailed story and character advancement (often through increasing characters' levels or other skills) ...

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 and

adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story, driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based m ...

s. The company was founded in 1984 as Chunsoft Co., Ltd. and merged with Spike in 2012. It is owned by Dwango. It created games such as the first five ''

Dragon Quest previously published as ''Dragon Warrior'' in North America until 2005, is a series of role-playing video games created by Japanese game designer Yuji Horii (Armor Project), character designer Akira Toriyama (Bird Studio), and composer Koi ...

'' installments and the ''

Mystery Dungeon ''Mystery Dungeon'', known in Japan as is a series of roguelike role-playing video games. Most were developed by Chunsoft, now Spike Chunsoft since the merging in 2012, and select games were developed by other companies with Chunsoft's permiss ...

'' franchise as Chunsoft, and the '' Conception'' series as Spike Chunsoft. They also developed titles such as '' The Portopia Serial Murder Case'', the '' Sound Novel'' series (consisting of '' Otogirisō'', '' Kamaitachi no Yoru'', '' Machi'' and '' 428: Shibuya Scramble'') and the '' Zero Escape'' series as Chunsoft. Spike developed ''

Danganronpa is a Japanese video game franchise created by Kazutaka Kodaka and developed and owned by Spike Chunsoft (formerly Spike). The series primarily surrounds various groups of apparent high-school students who are forced into murdering each oth ...

'' before the merger.

History

Chunsoft

Chunsoft was founded by Koichi Nakamura, a video game designer and programmer who had worked with

Enix was a Japanese multimedia publisher who handled and oversaw video games, manga, guidebooks, and merchandise. It was founded in 1975 by Yasuhiro Fukushima as Eidansha Boshu Service Center, initially as a tabloid publisher and later attempting t ...

, including the popular ''

'' franchise until '' Dragon Quest V''. The "Chun" in the company name is from the first

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

Naka ( 中) of the company founder's name; Naka is read as "Chun" in Japanese Mahjong. This name would also appear in Nakamura's first work with Enix, titled '' Door Door'' in 1983. '' Otogirisō'' marked Chunsoft's debut brand. Following that, successive genre-trailblazing titles '' Torneko no Daibōken: Fushigi no Dungeon'', '' Kamaitachi no Yoru'', and '' Shiren the Wanderer'' established the company's good reputation. Nakamura himself had to move away from programming in order to run the company. For a time, the company's products were considered mediocre, but ''3-Nen B-Gumi Kinpachi Sensei: Densetsu no Kyoudan ni Tate!'' was a hit that showed signs of recovery. During the development of '' Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team and Blue Rescue Team'', Kouji Malta, one of the programmers for these two games, and contributed previously on ''

EarthBound ''EarthBound'', originally released in Japan as is a 1994 role-playing video game, role-playing video game developed by Ape, Inc., Ape Inc. and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as the second e ...

'' and '' Shiren the Wanderer 2'', stated the company went through bad business performance, as employees from Chunsoft would leave the company progressively due to this issue. The game's success not only helped giving more popularity in the ''Mystery Dungeon'' franchise, it also helped Chunsoft from avoiding bankruptcy. Later in 2005, it was bought by Dwango and became a

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company (law), company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidia ...

of the company. Before the project,

Sega is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...

were helping Chunsoft in developing and releasing their games for the

Dreamcast The is the final home video game console manufactured by Sega. It was released in Japan on November 27, 1998, in North America on September 9, 1999 and in Europe on October 14, 1999. It was the first sixth-generation video game console, prec ...

. From 2005 to 2010, Sega have made a collaboration with Chunsoft titled "SEGA×CHUN PROJECT". Their goal was to provide support and sales for development funds, such as the Nintendo DS remake of '' Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer'' or '' 428: Shibuya Scramble''.

Spike

Merger

In 2012, Chunsoft merged with its sister company Spike and the new company would be called Spike Chunsoft.志田英邦『ゲーム・マエストロ Vol. 2 プロデューサー/ディレクター編(2)』毎日コミュニケーションズ、2000年、p.16。中村光一インタビュー。

Subsidiary

In 2017, Spike Chunsoft established a North American subsidiary based in Long Beach, California to carry out localization and publishing of its own games, in addition to games by its sister company 5pb./Mages under a newly formed partnership. Their first game under the Mages partnership was the

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

version of ''

Steins;Gate ''Steins;Gate'' is a 2009 science fiction visual novel game developed by 5pb. and Nitroplus. It is the second game in the ''Science Adventure'' series, following ''Chaos;Head''. The story follows a group of students as they discover and develop ...

'', taking over publishing of the game from Mages in 2018; they have since continued publishing further games in the ''

Science Adventure Science Adventure, commonly shortened to SciADV, is a video game series and Multimedia franchise consisting of interconnected science fiction stories created by Mages, initially in collaboration with Nitroplus. The main entries mostly take the ...

'' series, including '' Steins;Gate 0'' and '' Chaos;Child''. On July 16, 2020, NIS America announced that ''Danganronpa'' games on the PlayStation Store will be removed. Spike Chunsoft subsequently announced on July 22, 2020 that they will take on publishing the ''Danganronpa'' series outside of Japan. Similarly, the Nintendo Switch and Microsoft Windows release of '' Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate'' would not be released by Aksys but by their subsidiary.

Works

Chunsoft

Developed

Published only

Spike Chunsoft

This table includes video games published internationally by Spike Chunsoft's American subsidiary Spike Chunsoft, Inc. since its foundation on December 1, 2017. Outside of titles from Spike Chunsoft in Japan, the company publishes titles from Mages (which was also part of Spike Chunsoft's parent company Dwango until July 2019) and from other companies.

Published western third-party games in Japan

Notes

References

External links

* {{Authority control Video game companies of Japan Video game development companies Video game publishers Video game companies established in 1984 Kadokawa Corporation subsidiaries Japanese companies established in 1984 Mystery Dungeon Software companies based in Tokyo