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 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 Jast may refer to: *Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) project was merged with the Common Affordable Lightweight Fighter (CALF) project to make the Joint Strike Fighter program. * JAST USA *Jast, a member of the Cult of Skaro in ''Doctor Who ...

, turning their fan translation into the official English version of the game. Sekai Project began publishing games on Steam in 2014; their first title was '' World End Economica episode.01'', released in June. Sekai Project has used the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter to fund many of their projects. In November 2014, they launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund an English release of the visual novel '' Clannad''. 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 manga in addition to video games, starting with '' Gate''. Since Steam does not typically allow adult 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 is a Japanese adult visual novel, the first in a series of visual novels by Frontwing, with character designs by Akio Watanabe and Fumio. It was released in February 2011 for Windows, and it was later ported to the PlayStation Portab ...

'', 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 Humble Bundle, Inc. is a digital storefront for video games, which grew out of its original offering of Humble Bundles, collections of games sold at a price determined by the purchaser and with a portion of the price going towards charity and t ...

, 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 is a visual novel developed by Lose, which has also been adapted into the anime series . ''Maitetsu'' was initially released in Japan in 2016, and it was released internationally by Sekai Project on Steam in 2018. Sekai Project also release ...

'' 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 Limited Run Games, Inc. is an American video game distributor based in Apex, North Carolina. The company specializes in the release of digital games on physical media, with the games being sold on their website. The company, founded by Douglas ...

released a physical edition of '' Clannad'' 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