Is it Curtains for the Visions of Mana Development Team?

General news News 08/30/2024

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It seems that a studio under one of China’s tech giants may soon be closing its doors, which does not bode well for the company in question, nor for the state of the gaming industry…

Bloomberg reports that NetEase Games has essentially let go of everyone but a few people at its Tokyo-based Ouka Studios. This team recently sold Visions of Mana to Square Enix. According to Takashi Mochizuki, one of the site’s editors, Ouka has been downsizing since the spring, so it took NetEase about six months to essentially wipe out the studio, as the few people left are now only tasked with publishing the last few games.

Seeing reactions to the story in English, I can add one thing that is in the Japanese version of the same story: NetEase has been cutting staff at Ouka for a while, since this spring at least.https://t.co/NxoCMo0bTZ

— Takashi Mochizuki (@6d6f636869) August 30, 2024

The studio was founded in 2020, and in 2022 Ouka said they had three projects in development. One was an action RPG with an adventure featuring unique allies, another was a new style of fighting game based on a popular series, and there was an original co-op action game with large opponents. In response, a NetEase spokesperson told Bloomberg that they have nothing to announce and that they are seeing progress in the Japanese studios they have invested in. Examples include Nagoshi Studio (led by Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi), Grasshopper Manufacture (led by Suda51, or Goichi Suda), and Gptrack50 (led by Hiroyuki Kobayashi, formerly a veteran producer at Capcom).

According to Bloomberg, NetEase’s rival Tencent (another major Chinese player) is also considering reducing its investment in Japan after pulling out of funding several games. In other words, the Chinese economy may be in such a mess that they may start to suffer from shortages themselves. Tencent, by the way, told Bloomberg in a statement that it remains committed to partner studios and business development in Japan.

This essentially confirms the closure of Ouka Studios. It is only a matter of time before we hear about it officially, as Bloomberg is not an unreliable source.

Source: Gematsu, Bloomberg

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Angyal Anikó

Anikó, our news editor and communication manager, is more interested in the business side of the gaming industry. She worked at banks, and she has a vast knowledge of business life. Still, she likes puzzle and story-oriented games, like Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments, which is her favourite title. She also played The Sims 3, but after accidentally killing a whole sim family, swore not to play it again. (For our office address, email and phone number check out our IMPRESSUM)