Video games
The franchises and houses of Asian gaming
From 1978’s Space Invaders to Honor of Kings, from the Akihabara arcade to the Seoul PC bang: the sagas that shaped the medium, and the Japanese, Chinese and Korean studios that build them.
16 entries
JapanFromSoftware (フロム・ソフトウェア)The studio that created an entire genre by refusing to explain anything to the player.ChinamiHoYo / HoYoverse (米哈游)Three Shanghai students, an otaku motto and the first Chinese game to conquer Japan.JapanSony Interactive Entertainment / PlayStationBorn of a falling-out with Nintendo, the console that swung gaming towards the CD and the adult player.JapanAtlus (アトラス)The studio of niche RPGs turned global, from Shin Megami Tensei to Persona.JapanBandai NamcoThe Japanese entertainment, video game and toy group.JapanCapcomThe Japanese publisher of Street Fighter, Resident Evil and Monster Hunter.JapanGame Freak (ゲームフリーク)A fanzine turned studio, and six years of work to give birth to Pokémon.JapanKonamiThe Japanese publisher of Metal Gear, Castlevania and Pro Evolution Soccer.KoreaKrafton (크래프톤)The publisher of PUBG, the game that invented the battle royale as a mass genre.KoreaNCSoft (엔씨소프트)Lineage, the MMORPG that made Korean PC bangs a national institution.ChinaNetEase Games (网易游戏)China's second publisher, long the compulsory gateway for Western games into China.KoreaNexon (넥슨)The inventor of free-to-play with microtransactions, five years before the West thought of it.JapanNintendoFrom 1889 hanafuda cards to a global video game empire.JapanSegaThe Japanese console maker and publisher, long a rival of Nintendo.JapanSquare Enix (スクウェア・エニックス)The merger of the two houses that invented the Japanese RPG, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.ChinaTencent (video games)The Chinese giant, the world's largest video game publisher by revenue.