Curated category
Video game development companies
- HexaDriveHexaDrive is a Japanese independent video game developer operating out of Osaka, and its origin story begins with a single programmer walking away from one…
- NeoBards EntertainmentOn the 15th of February 2017, NeoBards Entertainment opened its doors in Hong Kong. The company emerged from a team of veterans who had previously worked…
- M2 (game developer)M2 is a Japanese video game developer and publisher whose work touches nearly every major classic gaming franchise you can name.
- Ubisoft TorontoUbisoft Toronto opened its doors in September 2010, born from an unusual promise: unlike every other Ubisoft studio in the world, it would be allowed to lead…
- SegaSega is a Japanese video game company whose history reads like a map of the entire industry's evolution. It began not with video games at all, but with slot…
- Polygon MagicPolygon Magic is a Japanese video game developer with a catalogue spanning arcade cabinets, home consoles, handheld systems, mobile social platforms, and…
- Team SilentTeam Silent no longer exists, and according to an artist who worked on Silent Hill: Homecoming, its own creator ended it.
- DimpsDimps, a Japanese video game developer based in Osaka, built its reputation on some of the most beloved franchises in gaming history.
- System SacomSystem Sacom, whose full name is System Sacom Sales Corp., sells electronic devices from an office in Tokyo. Selling hardware is only its current chapter.
- Double Helix GamesDouble Helix Games arrived on the map not through a founding story but through a collision of two older ones. On the 9th of October 2007, Foundation 9…
- Sony Interactive EntertainmentSony Interactive Entertainment began as a joint venture between Sony and Sony Music Entertainment Japan, founded in Tokyo in 1993 to do something neither…
- Team NinjaTeam Ninja was born out of a financial crisis. In the mid-1990s, the Japanese gaming company Tecmo was struggling to stay solvent, and management made a…
- Kojima ProductionsKojima Productions exists twice. Once as a name inside Konami, and once as a name on the door of an independent studio in Shinagawa, Tokyo.
- TencentTencent is a Chinese multinational technology conglomerate headquartered in Shenzhen, and it sits behind products used by more than a billion people every…
- Koei TecmoKoei Tecmo is one of Japan's most storied video game holding companies, born from a merger that almost did not happen. In August 2008, a rival corporation…
- NintendoNintendo was founded on the 23rd of September 1889, not as a game company, but as a playing card business. Craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi set up shop in…
- Square (video game company)Square, the Japanese video game developer known internationally as SquareSoft, began its life in September 1983 not in a gleaming tech campus but in a former…
- Bloober TeamBloober Team's name appeared on the title screen of Silent Hill 2 in 2024, one of the most beloved and scrutinized survival horror games ever made.
- Screen Burn (company)Jon McKellan and Omar Khan established No Code on the 19th of August 2015 in Glasgow, Scotland. McKellan had previously directed DLC packs for Alien…
- Yuke'sYuke's Co. Ltd. began life in Osaka in 1993 with a name borrowed from a high school nickname. Founder Yukinori Taniguchi established the company on the 26th…
- Kadokawa ShotenKadokawa Shoten no longer exists as its own company. On the 1st of October 2013, it became an internal division of Kadokawa Corporation.
- Silicon KnightsSilicon Knights filed for bankruptcy on the 16th of May 2014, the final act of a studio that had once been handpicked by Nintendo itself.
- Nihon FalcomNihon Falcom takes its name from a science fiction film. The founders wanted to evoke the Millennium Falcon, but changed the final "n" to an "m" to match the…
- Square EnixSquare Enix was born from the union of two companies that had long watched each other across Japan's video game landscape.
- Annapurna InteractiveAnnapurna Interactive has published nine games since 2017, and they share almost nothing in common. Its catalog includes What Remains of Edith Finch, Donut…
- Kuju (company)Kuju made games that had almost nothing in common with each other. Its catalogue ranged from Art Academy on the Nintendo DS to The Lord of the Rings…
- SNKSNK began not as a video game company but as Shin Nihon Kikaku, a small Japanese firm founded in 1973 by Eikichi Kawasaki.
- Good Smile CompanyGood Smile Company sells some of the most recognizable figurines in the world, yet the company began not as a toy manufacturer but as an event management and…
- KonamiKonami began life on the 21st of March 1969 as a jukebox rental and repair shop in Toyonaka, Osaka. Three men started it together, two of whom had met while…
- Xbox Game StudiosXbox Game Studios began with Bill Gates being talked out of games. In Microsoft's earliest years, the company published titles like Olympic Decathlon.
- NamcoNamco started with two hand-cranked rocking horses on a department store rooftop in Yokohama. Masaya Nakamura, the son of a shotgun repair business owner…
- Media MoleculeMedia Molecule is a British video game studio built on a paradox: a company that wanted to make world-class games with as few people as possible.
- Climax StudiosKarl Jeffery established Images Software Ltd. on the 3rd of February 1988 in Portsmouth, England. The new company began its life by developing and porting…
- CapcomCapcom sits behind some of the most recognizable titles in video game history. Resident Evil, Street Fighter, Monster Hunter, Mega Man, Devil May Cry, and…
- Electronic ArtsElectronic Arts began with a meeting in February 1982, when Trip Hawkins walked into the offices of Sequoia Capital and pitched a company he was calling…
- Eidos InteractiveEidos Interactive began not in a boardroom but in a family living room at Christmas 1983, when a young advertising account executive named Dominic Wheatley…
- Blizzard EntertainmentBlizzard Entertainment started life in February 1991 with three UCLA graduates, a borrowed $10,000 from a grandmother, and a business park office near the…
- TaitoTaito began not as a video game company but as a vodka distillery in postwar Tokyo, founded by a Ukrainian refugee with roots in Shanghai.
- Origin SystemsOrigin Systems, Inc. was founded on the 3rd of March 1983 in a garage in Houston, Texas. The founders were Richard Garriott, his brother Robert, their father…
- Behaviour InteractiveBehaviour Interactive, the Montreal studio behind one of the most-played horror games on the planet, began not as a powerhouse but as a tiny Quebec City…
- ZyngaZynga, the company named after a bulldog, reached ten million daily players in just six weeks after launching FarmVille on Facebook in June 2009.
- Hudson SoftHudson Soft was born not from a love of games, but from a love of trains. On the 18th of May 1973, brothers Yuji and Hiroshi Kudo registered their new…
- FromSoftwareFromSoftware, Inc. began life not in the world of dragons and darkness, but in the far more prosaic territory of business software.
- ASCII CorporationASCII Corporation was a Japanese publishing company based in Chiyoda, Tokyo, and its story begins with an unusual origin: it started not as a publisher, but…