The Biggest Game Dev You've Never Heard Of

simoniker writes "Japan-based game developer Tose has 1,000 employees, and has created 1,100 game SKUs since 1979 (including Final Fantasy GBA versions, though they can't mention it in this interview!), but they're basically unknown, because they're 'game development ninjas', and 'refuse to put [their] names on the game'. Odd stuff."

Comments

Interesting but...

[GundamFan]

This isn't that surprising, large cooperations contract smaller companies to do work under there name all the time. That said, I do find these kind of "How stuff gets made" and "Who makes that?" articles fascinating, thanks for the link.

Am I wrong here

[rolfwind]

But from the interview, it sounds more like they act as subcontractors than actual game developers.

They don't design the house (architect), don't pay for it (home owner), but 9-5 mondays to fridays, look at the specs and build it.

Otherwise, all of their moves, like not insisting on retaining the IP, make no sense.

Re:Am I wrong here

[chrismcdirty]

But would you say that the subcontractors didn't build the house because they weren't involved in the design or purchase? They're still developing the game, but they're given a set of requirements and develop the game according to those requirements. It seems like what every other software developer does.

Scary

[Perseid]

From the article:
We try to act behind the scenes, and we follow our clients' desires, instructions and everything, so our policy is not to have a vision. In our company, we follow the customer's vision.

Programming for these guys must be loads of fun. Yikes.

Re:Scary

[gEvil (beta)]

You see, that's the thing. They program for you! ; )

Re:Scary

[I8TheWorm]

Maybe it's better to have no vision than a completely distorted one? Not that I speak from experience or anything...