Gaijinworks is an American video game publishing company founded by Victor Ireland in July 2006. The company was established shortly after the dissolution of Working Designs in December 2005 of which Ireland was president. Containing the Japanese word '' gaijin'', or "foreigner", Gaijinworks would carry on the former company's legacy of localizing "niche" Japanese games for American audiences while working closely with the original developers. Although the company was initially inactive for the first three years of its existence, the first localization project was announced in March 2009 as

Hudson Soft was a Japanese video game company that released numerous games for video game consoles, home computers and mobile phones, mainly from the 1980s to the 2000s. It was headquartered in the Midtown Tower in Tokyo Midtown, Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo ...

's ''

Miami Law ''Miami Law'', known in Japan and Europe as , is an adventure video game developed by Hudson Soft for the Nintendo DS handheld system. Though produced by a Japanese company, the title was initially released in North America on June 9, 2009 and i ...

'' for the

Nintendo DS The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens working in tan ...

Company history

In December 2005, Victor Ireland, president of video game publisher Working Designs announced via the company's website that they would be closing their doors due to internal conflicts with Sony Computer Entertainment and an inability to secure the approval rights to release games on Sony's

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

console such as ''

Bōken Jidai Katsugeki Goemon is a '' Goemon'' game released for the PlayStation 2 on December 21, 2000. This is the third game in the series set in a 3D world, following '' Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon'' and '' Ganbare Goemon: Kuru Nara Koi! Ayashige Ikka no Kuroi Kage''. ...

''. The announcement was made one year since the company released their last game in North America, ''

Growlanser Generations ''Growlanser Generations'' is both a collection of '' Growlanser II'' and '' Growlanser III'' and the sole North American release of both games. The North American localizations of both games were produced by Working Designs. This is also the las ...

'', in December 2004, which Ireland claimed "wounded s after the company was forced by Sony to package two previously separate projects together, which doubled production costs and halved profit for the title. Ireland stated that he was not ready to leave the game industry, however, and began negotiations with Microsoft to work with the other former members of his staff to localize

role-playing video game A role-playing video game (commonly referred to as simply a role-playing game or RPG, as well as a computer role-playing game or CRPG) is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (or several party members) immers ...

s for their Xbox 360 console. Seven months later in July 2006, Ireland announced that he had begun a new company called "Gaijinworks", that would carry on the legacy of Working Designs and would once again have himself as head translator. Although he had announced that "game related news" would follow the following summer, with the official website going live the following late summer or fall, information on the company's activities remained elusive along with a three-year period of inactivity. The silence was broken in January 2009, when Ireland told

1UP.com ''1Up.com'' was an American entertainment website that focused on video games. Launched in 2003, ''1Up.com'' provided its own original features, news stories, game reviews, and video interviews, and also featured comprehensive PC-focused conten ...

that "game related news" would be coming from the company in the following months, though it would not be one of the "main" games they were known for. In March 2009, Gaijinworks had announced their first localization project since the company began,

's crime-based adventure game ''

'' for the

. Ireland worked closely with Hudson's design team on the project, including taking them on a tour of an American city to aid in development. Gaijinworks has since partnered with Sunsoft to release Blaster Master on the North American Virtual Console service as well as the WiiWare remake Blaster Master: Overdrive. After this short partnership Gaijinworks has partnered with MonkeyPaw Games to release Vanguard Bandits on the PlayStation Store as part of the

PSone Classics These are articles listing games previously released for the original PlayStation that were later made available for download from the PlayStation Store for play on the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation TV, PlayS ...

line. Gaijinworks also digitally released other PS1 classics that were also originally published by Working Designs such as

Arc the Lad Collection ''Arc the Lad Collection'' is a compilation of the ''Arc the Lad'' RPGs for the PlayStation. The games were localized by Working Designs. Plans to localize the games had been fostered by Working Designs since the late 1990s, but the compilation wa ...

and

Alundra , released in Europe as ''The Adventures of Alundra'', is an action-adventure video game developed by Matrix Software for the PlayStation, originally released in 1997. The game's protagonist is a young man named Alundra, who learns that he has ...

. Victor Ireland has also mentioned on various occasions that he is working towards adding both Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete to the

PlayStation Network PlayStation Network (PSN) is a digital media entertainment service provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Launched in November 2006, PSN was originally conceived for the PlayStation video game consoles, but soon extended to encompass smartp ...

Works published

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official website
Video game companies established in 2006 2006 establishments in California Video game companies of the United States Video game publishers Companies based in Shasta County, California Redding, California Working Designs