This localization publisher has gone missing for over three years. What happened to Gaijinworks?

[Shizuka]

Gaijinworks is a localization publisher created by Victor Ireland, after shutting down another localization publisher, Working Designs (Lunar, Arc the Lad, Alundra, Growlanser), in 2005. Since then, they've managed to publish a few PSOne Classics on the PSN Store, until securing a deal to localize Class of Heroes 2 for the PSP.

After that, they made a partnership with Bandai Namco and localized another franchise abandoned by Atlus USA, Summon Night. Summon Night 6 for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita was their latest release, back in late 2017. Ireland made bold claims, saying that they had ongoing talks to localize other great japanese franchises that weren't being given the proper attention in the West, which rightfully grabbed the attention of japanese games fans.




This was their last tweet, less than two months after the release of Summon Night 6.

Their official website hasn't been updated since then.

Class of Heroes 3 for the PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3, a game that was ready for release in the West, never came out.

The publisher's forum is still open, but with no official communication from Ireland since this post in June 2018:

"Wow. I admit I was away MUCH longer than intended after surgery I had to do *right then* at the turn of the year, and then dealing with a long recovery with problems after, but holy cow was one of the members here busy in my absence.

I'm still not 100% yet, but good news is I'll have some CoH3 to show very soon. Ken's been working on converting the PS3 version, adding dual-screen functionality, etc and doing a couple other cool things, too.

Crazy post ratio should be less now, at least."



Most members of that forum have since given up trying to find out what happened to Ireland or the company and with a new generation of consoles, even games like Summon Night 6 will soon be forgotten without any communication from the publisher.

Every time we get to the holidays, I remember that last tweet from their official profile and wonder: what happened to Gaijinworks and Victor Ireland?

*Over three years in a few days. I decided to post this thread now as I keep forgetting to organize my thoughts and make one.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

Wow. I forgot Gaijinworks existed. Did Vic get into some trouble somehow or am I just categorically incapable of thinking of anyone other than Vic Mignogna when I hear that first name nowadays?

 

[Wein Cruz]

Never seemed like Vic actually cared after working designs closed.

I mean, class of heroes is what he backed with gajinworks. I was so disappointed after growing up playing WD games on sega cd and playstation. Their localization of lunar on SCD will always be some of my fondest gaming memories.

 

[nadozza]

Every once in a while my Summon Night 5 box catches my eye on my shelf and I go into a "what happened to GaijinWorks?" rabbit hole. Unfortunately it seems like Vic has just gone completely quiet and nobody has any idea what's going on. Shame too, I liked their work. Seems like their main page is updated to say © 2020 but that may just be automated?

 

[Tohsaka]

They probably either ran out of money or couldn't find anything good to license. Almost every Japanese game that's worth playing these days is either localized by the western division of the parent company or claimed by someone else like Atlus, NISA, etc.

 

[Curler]

I mean, I'd still buy CoH3 on PS3 if it still came out one day :/

I always had wondered if there were shady financial things going on. Not based on any actual proofs, but it was surprising how an operation, even that small, was surviving off only a few game titles, and then just upped and vanished. Not exactly a Phantom Breaker/7Sixty situation, but also weird coming from someone who was known in the niche/collector community, too. I'd like there to be an actual explanation, but vanishing without talking in 3 years is just weird :/

 

[Wereroku]

Last I saw on the forum someone said he was still doing contract translation work but not really anything big.

 

[Stefarno]

I just presumed the money ran out.

For some unknown reason you can still buy the Vita version of Summon Night 6 on the new PSN web store in the UK - I'm not aware of any other games that aren't cross-buy where you can do that.

 

[Seafoam Gaming]

Gaijinworks is a localization publisher created by Victor Ireland, after shutting down another localization publisher, Working Designs (Lunar, Arc the Lad, Alundra, Growlanser), in 2005. Since then, they've managed to publish a few PSOne Classics on the PSN Store, until securing a deal to localize Class of Heroes 2 for the PSP.

After that, they made a partnership with Bandai Namco and localized another franchise abandoned by Atlus USA, Summon Night. Summon Night 6 for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita was their latest release, back in late 2017. Ireland made bold claims, saying that they had ongoing talks to localize other great japanese franchises that weren't being given the proper attention in the West, which rightfully grabbed the attention of japanese games fans.




This was their last tweet, less than two months after the release of Summon Night 6.

Their official website hasn't been updated since then.

Class of Heroes 3 for the PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3, a game that was ready for release in the West, never came out.

The publisher's forum is still open, but with no official communication from Ireland since this post in June 2018:

"Wow. I admit I was away MUCH longer than intended after surgery I had to do *right then* at the turn of the year, and then dealing with a long recovery with problems after, but holy cow was one of the members here busy in my absence.

I'm still not 100% yet, but good news is I'll have some CoH3 to show very soon. Ken's been working on converting the PS3 version, adding dual-screen functionality, etc and doing a couple other cool things, too.

Crazy post ratio should be less now, at least."



Most members of that forum have since given up trying to find out what happened to Ireland or the company and with a new generation of consoles, even games like Summon Night 6 will soon be forgotten without any communication from the publisher.

Every time we get to the holidays, I remember that last tweet from their official profile and wonder: what happened to Gaijinworks and Victor Ireland?

*Over three years in a few days. I decided to post this thread now as I keep forgetting to organize my thoughts and make one.

Click to shrink...

I might as well throw my hat into the speculation ring, since there's another company in the matter that folks here may want to know about: Monkeypaw Games, someone who seems to be linked to Vic Ireland, vanished around the same time as GW, if a bit before hand. I've been looking into where the heck THOSE guys went because, well, they were holding a Tomba plush giveaway to celebrate the US version of Tomba 2 getting a PSN release. I actually won it, gave them my contact info, and got no plush despite many many months of DM reminders sent to them. They totally went MIA. Nobody I know has gotten their plush and the only folks who got theirs were the first who won. They just went fully MIA after the contest ended and then poof, nothing.

Been looking into them since early 2016 wondering where the fuck they went. Their site got hacked and a bunch of random-ass spam blog posts flooded the website, which they fixed briefly and noted on Twitter, and that was their literal last conversation ever, before going into the ether. GaijinWorks vanished shortly after, and lately I learned Vic somehow was the lead at both companies, which would explain why both died, since he went MIA too. I'm not too happy about not getting my plush I won tbh since it's so rare you can't even get it on eBay, and thus, I'm stuck hoping someday they come back and give me my prize. :( Their imports are all still up on PSN though, oddly enough.

The one word I can use to describe Vic Ireland is bizarre. He seems to try and do things as a fan rather than as a business person, which has mostly led to problems more often than not. From Wrecking Designs' godawful translations until the PS2 era, (where they got a lot better and stopped screwing with the difficulty/dialogue) deals and projects getting dropped constantly, (They were to partner with sunsoft to make new games with their IPs and put out their catalogue on VC... Only Blaster Master, Ufouria and the Acrobat games came out of that, despite teasing Gimmick and Silius. And the aforementioned COH3) and going MIA for periods at a time, I just can't understand the man at all. You'd think he'd just work for another company than start another in this competitive landscape, or at least have other staff at his company say ANYTHING about where the hell they went...

 

[Curler]

I've been looking into where the heck THOSE guys went because, well, they were holding a Tomba plush giveaway to celebrate the US version of Tomba 2 getting a PSN release. I actually won it, gave them my contact info, and got no plush despite many many months of DM reminders sent to them. They totally went MIA. Nobody I know has gotten their plush and the only folks who got theirs were the first who won. They just went fully MIA after the contest ended and then poof, nothing.

Click to shrink...

That stinks :/ Even in the (also weird disappearing) 7Sixty situation with Phantom Breaker, they made fight sticks to promote the game at some beta event, and actually gave those out :/ Didn't hear about the Tomba contest, but I wouldn't be happy without getting it... Then again, I'm still waiting for Kickstarter items for 2015, so I guess these things happen :/

 

[JuicyPlayer]

I always wondered if gaijinworks really had a place in the industry? It always seemed like Xseed , Atlus , Nis and others these days would bring any high profile Japanese game over. It's rare these days that a Japanese RPG doesn't come over here.

 

[Mudo]

Always wonder this too .
I bought the Class of Heroes games and Summon Knight 6 !!!

It seems like Vic just disappears years at a time then resurfaced randomly.
I wouldn't say we will never see an announcement from him again but who knows when lol.

Sorta bums me out though because Working Designs, Lunar 1+2 on Sega CD, Albert Odyssey, Magic Knights Rayearth etc were all my hugely formative gaming years. Lunar got me hooked on RPGs. I used to live for any scrap of info on their upcoming games as they would inevitably be delayed a ton. Great memories and Lunar remains one of my favorite series ever.

 

[JT60564]

Isn't it just like, one dude? Probably just drifted on to other things.

 

[salromano]

I'll try reaching out.

On a related note, I got in touch with Monkey Paw Games (similar kinda localization company) about a year ago. Noticed their site was hacked with a bunch of a random spam blog posts, so I sent them a note. Company founder John Greiner responded thanking me for the note. One year later and now the site is gone completely.

 

[Strings]

I'll always be grateful to them for giving Summon Night proper a shot in the West.

 

[Shizuka]

I might as well throw my hat into the speculation ring, since there's another company in the matter that folks here may want to know about: Monkeypaw Games, someone who seems to be linked to Vic Ireland, vanished around the same time as GW, if a bit before hand. I've been looking into where the heck THOSE guys went because, well, they were holding a Tomba plush giveaway to celebrate the US version of Tomba 2 getting a PSN release. I actually won it, gave them my contact info, and got no plush despite many many months of DM reminders sent to them. They totally went MIA. Nobody I know has gotten their plush and the only folks who got theirs were the first who won. They just went fully MIA after the contest ended and then poof, nothing.

Been looking into them since early 2016 wondering where the fuck they went. Their site got hacked and a bunch of random-ass spam blog posts flooded the website, which they fixed briefly and noted on Twitter, and that was their literal last conversation ever, before going into the ether. GaijinWorks vanished shortly after, and lately I learned Vic somehow was the lead at both companies, which would explain why both died, since he went MIA too. I'm not too happy about not getting my plush I won tbh since it's so rare you can't even get it on eBay, and thus, I'm stuck hoping someday they come back and give me my prize. :( Their imports are all still up on PSN though, oddly enough.

The one word I can use to describe Vic Ireland is bizarre. He seems to try and do things as a fan rather than as a business person, which has mostly led to problems more often than not. From Wrecking Designs' godawful translations until the PS2 era, (where they got a lot better and stopped screwing with the difficulty/dialogue) deals and projects getting dropped constantly, (They were to partner with sunsoft to make new games with their IPs and put out their catalogue on VC... Only Blaster Master, Ufouria and the Acrobat games came out of that, despite teasing Gimmick and Silius. And the aforementioned COH3) and going MIA for periods at a time, I just can't understand the man at all. You'd think he'd just work for another company than start another in this competitive landscape, or at least have other staff at his company say ANYTHING about where the hell they went...

Click to shrink...

Oh wow, I feel bad for you. I wonder if the person that won that last Summon Night 6 giveaway got their prize as well. I remember Ireland trying to distance the two companies, saying Monkey Paw wasn't actually his, but that he had a share of the company, but they worked hand in hand with most of their releases.

I always wondered if gaijinworks really had a place in the industry? It always seemed like Xseed , Atlus , Nis and others these days would bring any high profile Japanese game over. It's rare these days that a Japanese RPG doesn't come over here.

Click to shrink...

I mean, it's the same position as a company like acttil is in. Both companies managed to release neglected Bandai Namco titles in the West, except that Gaijinworks signed a higher profile title that could've performed better given the chance. Gaijinworks got Class of Heroes and Summon Night, two franchises dropped by Atlus USA and judging that Atlus USA dropped every other franchise that wasn't Atlus or Sega, they could've signed plenty of games that ended up with NIS America at the end of the day.

I'll try reaching out.

On a related note, I got in touch with Monkey Paw Games (similar kinda localization company) about a year ago. Noticed their site was hacked with a bunch of a random spam blog posts, so I sent them a note. Company founder John Greiner responded thanking me for the note. One year later and now the site is gone completely.

Click to shrink...

Oh, let us know if there's any update! Not that I'm expecting anything at this point, but I'll try to make this thread a hub for information from time to time until we get at least some sort of information or closure.

 

[Seafoam Gaming]

I'll try reaching out.

On a related note, I got in touch with Monkey Paw Games (similar kinda localization company) about a year ago. Noticed their site was hacked with a bunch of a random spam blog posts, so I sent them a note. Company founder John Greiner responded thanking me for the note. One year later and now the site is gone completely.

Click to shrink...

That's the EXACT thing I saw! I tried to use that post as a means to get after them for my giveaway prize but they still are MIA on me. Really annoying...

 

[Hobbun]

He did have surgery back in 2018 (not sure what for), which he has posts in June of that year stating "recovery took longer than anticipated". Had some posts after that and that was the last word he gave.

Still been a long time since he's been around, but at least more recent than a few years. Hope he is doing ok.

 

[LordGorchnik]

I think I'm with the "money just ran out" crew. Ireland after his own personal situation probably has just moved onto other avenues. I hope they do come back to do some more work on the really obscure stuff but wouldn't hold my breath. Especially in 3+ years of game silence.

 

[Curler]

I think I'm with the "money just ran out" crew. Ireland after his own personal situation probably has just moved onto other avenues. I hope they do come back to do some more work on the really obscure stuff but wouldn't hold my breath. Especially in 3+ years of game silence.

Click to shrink...

I'm just surprised they couldn't just make a statement on themselves shuttering, if that was the case. Some sort of communication for those (few) of us that were waiting on CoH3 :/

 

[B.K.]

I was actually thinking about Gaijinworks and Vic a few days ago. I assume that Summon Night 6 bombing was the final nail in the coffin for them.

 

[Dolce]

Never seemed like Vic actually cared after working designs closed.

I mean, class of heroes is what he backed with gajinworks. I was so disappointed after growing up playing WD games on sega cd and playstation. Their localization of lunar on SCD will always be some of my fondest gaming memories.

Click to shrink...

I think he cared, but what was niche in the 90s and what was niche these days is much different. I think he wanted to bring over games that just wouldn't have had attention otherwise. In 2020, with the various localization houses, it's unlikely something like Lunar would end up unlocalized, but games on the scale of Class of Heroes and such definitely would.

 

[Wein Cruz]

I'm sure he cared in some way but it never seemed as if he was putting his all into it.

The entire time gajinworks was releasing the class of heroes games he would stop communicating for long periods of time iirc.

I dunno, the way working designs fell apart is still a sore spot for me so I can't imagine how Vic feels.

 

[DangerMouse]

It seems like Vic just disappears years at a time then resurfaced randomly.
I wouldn't say we will never see an announcement from him again but who knows when lol.

Sorta bums me out though because Working Designs, Lunar 1+2 on Sega CD, Albert Odyssey, Magic Knights Rayearth etc were all my hugely formative gaming years. Lunar got me hooked on RPGs. I used to live for any scrap of info on their upcoming games as they would inevitably be delayed a ton. Great memories and Lunar remains one of my favorite series ever.

Click to shrink...

Yup, loved their games so much.
Really glad we got some Summon Night.

 

[Jintor]

Thread made me look up Carpe Fulgur (the guys who brought over Recettear). Website hasn't been active since 2017 but Andrew Dice (studio head) is recently active on twitter (within the last month), so I presume they might just be heads down on something.

 

[Dolce]

Thread made me look up Carpe Fulgur (the guys who brought over Recettear). Website hasn't been active since 2017 but Andrew Dice (studio head) is recently active on twitter (within the last month), so I presume they might just be heads down on something.

Click to shrink...

Didn't one of the people who worked on that also work on the Trails in the Sky localizations which ended up with a bunch of drama? Am I misremembering?

 

[Chettlar]

I'll try reaching out.

On a related note, I got in touch with Monkey Paw Games (similar kinda localization company) about a year ago. Noticed their site was hacked with a bunch of a random spam blog posts, so I sent them a note. Company founder John Greiner responded thanking me for the note. One year later and now the site is gone completely.

Click to shrink...

Wow. How weird. All he did was just thank you? No like, "yeah shit's been rough lately"?

 

[salromano]

Wow. How weird. All he did was just thank you? No like, "yeah shit's been rough lately"?

Click to shrink...

Yep. I mentioned that they've been quiet and it'd be great to hear from MonkeyPaw again, but that part was ignored.

 

[Kiria]

Didn't one of the people who worked on that also work on the Trails in the Sky localizations which ended up with a bunch of drama? Am I misremembering?

Click to shrink...

yea andrew dice worked on trails in the sky but I don't think saying its had a bunch of drama is fair to them

glad he's in a better state now and looking forward on his future works

 

[Seafoam Gaming]

Didn't one of the people who worked on that also work on the Trails in the Sky localizations which ended up with a bunch of drama? Am I misremembering?

Click to shrink...

iirc one of the translators had a crisis and nearly harmed themselves which led to a lot of personal issues for them to sort out. I hope they're OK now. I do know Nightwolve harassed them after that info came out (to try and make them go through with it) because said translator was working with XSEED, which is of course disgusting and why nobody works with that nutcase anymore.

 

[Chettlar]

Yep. I mentioned that they've been quiet and it'd be great to hear from MonkeyPaw again, but that part was ignored.

Click to shrink...

How strange. Doesn't even seem like something legally sensitive.

 

[GamerJM]

Thread made me look up Carpe Fulgur (the guys who brought over Recettear). Website hasn't been active since 2017 but Andrew Dice (studio head) is recently active on twitter (within the last month), so I presume they might just be heads down on something.

Click to shrink...

Just scrolling through there tweets you can see confirmation that they worked on the last Gundam Extreme vs. game

https://twitter.com/SpaceDrakeCF/status/1288692275573227520/

 

[Teapot Jeffries]

This makes me wish Lunar 1 & 2, either the PS1 or Sega CD versions were ported to PS4/5, Xbox, Switch, or PC. Not those awful port jobs like Lunar Legend.

In a perfect world I'd want Sega CD Lunar 1 with a few bug fixes when it comes to spells and the PS1 Lunar 2 which is almost identical to the Sega CD version but better.

Until then I'll treasure my CIB Sega CD and PS1 Lunar discs and keep ripped copies of them to play on my Series.

It's a shame they're not more widely available, but that seems to be the case with a lot of Japanese publishers and their old back catalogs from the 90s. Lunar was my introduction to RPGs before I even played a Final Fantasy and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

 

[King Kingo]

They made a partnership with Bandai Namco and localized another franchise abandoned by Atlus USA, Summon Night. Summon Night 6 for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita was their latest release, back in late 2017.

Click to shrink...

This sucks, Atlus USA would have done a better job with the dubbing.

 

[Strings]

This sucks, Atlus USA would have done a better job with the dubbing.

Click to shrink...

Atlus wouldn't have released it period. They put out three Summon Night spin-offs (and Eternal Poison) over a decade ago and that was it.

 

[FinFunnels]

I bought Summon Night 6 on PS4 a few years ago, but I haven't gotten around to playing it yet. I didn't even realize they released a Vita version, too.

In the late 2000's there were a number of small publishers popping up that were localizing (or at least importing) really niche Japanese games and it was awesome. Gajinworks, Carpe Fulgar, Rockin' Android, Monkey Paw, etc. I wish things would have gone better for them, because I really enjoyed their output.

 

[sir_crocodile]

This makes me wish Lunar 1 & 2, either the PS1 or Sega CD versions were ported to PS4/5, Xbox, Switch, or PC. Not those awful port jobs like Lunar Legend.

In a perfect world I'd want Sega CD Lunar 1 with a few bug fixes when it comes to spells and the PS1 Lunar 2 which is almost identical to the Sega CD version but better.

Until then I'll treasure my CIB Sega CD and PS1 Lunar discs and keep ripped copies of them to play on my Series.

It's a shame they're not more widely available, but that seems to be the case with a lot of Japanese publishers and their old back catalogs from the 90s. Lunar was my introduction to RPGs before I even played a Final Fantasy and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Click to shrink...

There's translations in progress of the saturn version of Lunar 1 (regular & mpeg) which will at least make it easily legally available to those who really want it. Will still be a technical barrier, but the financial barrier will be a lot lower.

 

[Cheerilee]

iirc one of the translators had a crisis and nearly harmed themselves which led to a lot of personal issues for them to sort out. I hope they're OK now. I do know Nightwolve harassed them after that info came out (to try and make them go through with it) because said translator was working with XSEED, which is of course disgusting and why nobody works with that nutcase anymore.

Click to shrink...

Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time. I googled him and XSEED, because I didn't remember anything about that. It seems that Nightwolve was a programmer who worked with a translator to fan-translate Ys games, and XSEED decided to localize the Ys games, so they contacted the translator and bought the fan translation's script, and Nightwolve got pissed off because he thought that (as project leader) he should have been included in the translation purchase, even though he had no rights to the translation (that belonged to the translator) and the translation was all that XSEED wanted. So Nightwolve declared a life vendetta against XSEED, and called for their deaths, and said people should pirate XSEED games.

It seems that incident happened after Nightwolve fell off my radar, but it reminded me of something that happened before that.

IIRC, when I was looking into playing a Ys fan-translation, Nightwolve claimed to have virused his translation patches, so that they would brick your computer if you weren't using his patch with a 100% authentic not-pirated version of the game (there was significant doubt as to whether he actually did that, or if he was just bullshitting). People complained that you can't do such a thing, since the methods of applying the patches are literally the same thing as piracy, so the chance of false positives is ridiculously high (depending on whatever the hell it was that he did or didn't do), and Nightwolve's attitude was "If you don't like what I code, you can code your own damn translation patch."

So he basically flipped from "I'll virus you if you pirate Ys" to "please pirate Ys", because XSEED took him up on his offer and coded their own damn translation patch.

 

[Dinoegg_96]

Atlus wouldn't have released it period. They put out three Summon Night spin-offs (and Eternal Poison) over a decade ago and that was it.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, it should be obvious why Gaijinworks were the ones who brought Summon Night 5 and 6.

 

[MrWindUpBird]

I might as well throw my hat into the speculation ring, since there's another company in the matter that folks here may want to know about: Monkeypaw Games, someone who seems to be linked to Vic Ireland, vanished around the same time as GW, if a bit before hand. I've been looking into where the heck THOSE guys went because, well, they were holding a Tomba plush giveaway to celebrate the US version of Tomba 2 getting a PSN release. I actually won it, gave them my contact info, and got no plush despite many many months of DM reminders sent to them. They totally went MIA. Nobody I know has gotten their plush and the only folks who got theirs were the first who won. They just went fully MIA after the contest ended and then poof, nothing.

Been looking into them since early 2016 wondering where the fuck they went. Their site got hacked and a bunch of random-ass spam blog posts flooded the website, which they fixed briefly and noted on Twitter, and that was their literal last conversation ever, before going into the ether. GaijinWorks vanished shortly after, and lately I learned Vic somehow was the lead at both companies, which would explain why both died, since he went MIA too. I'm not too happy about not getting my plush I won tbh since it's so rare you can't even get it on eBay, and thus, I'm stuck hoping someday they come back and give me my prize. :( Their imports are all still up on PSN though, oddly enough.

The one word I can use to describe Vic Ireland is bizarre. He seems to try and do things as a fan rather than as a business person, which has mostly led to problems more often than not. From Wrecking Designs' godawful translations until the PS2 era, (where they got a lot better and stopped screwing with the difficulty/dialogue) deals and projects getting dropped constantly, (They were to partner with sunsoft to make new games with their IPs and put out their catalogue on VC... Only Blaster Master, Ufouria and the Acrobat games came out of that, despite teasing Gimmick and Silius. And the aforementioned COH3) and going MIA for periods at a time, I just can't understand the man at all. You'd think he'd just work for another company than start another in this competitive landscape, or at least have other staff at his company say ANYTHING about where the hell they went...

Click to shrink...

Outside of a few unfortunate pop culture references, Working Designs translations were far from bad. They were top tier localizations, especially in the 90's when even the biggest games got some extremely shoddy translations. I can't believe people STILL push this narrative forward of their translations. Not to mention that the only game they really screwed up the difficulty on was Popful Mail.

 

[werezompire]

I always had wondered if there were shady financial things going on. Not based on any actual proofs, but it was surprising how an operation, even that small, was surviving off only a few game titles, and then just upped and vanished. Not exactly a Phantom Breaker/7Sixty situation, but also weird coming from someone who was known in the niche/collector community, too. I'd like there to be an actual explanation, but vanishing without talking in 3 years is just weird :/

Click to shrink...

I really don't think there's anything that sinister. By all accounts, the company was tiny and they were releasing a major game every 2 years, with some smaller titles & back catalog from the WD days to supplement that. Chances are they thought Summon Night 6 was going to be their big break that would lead to a long-term partnership with Bandai-Namco. The game comes out, underperforms, the head of the company has major health problems around the same time, and the whole thing falls apart.

Something worth considering is that Vic has been doing this for over 3 decades which is a really long time in this industry. When faced with a struggling company & personal health problems, it's perfectly understandable that he could decide that he doesn't want the stress of trying to save a struggling company and just calls it quits & retire.

And I agree that Working Designs gets a bad rap for their localizations. Yes, some of their pop culture references haven't aged the best, but 1) that was a far less common thing in their later localizations and 2) the competition was far worse. Playing Lunar: Eternal Blue and having characters with actual personalities & dialogue with jokes was a revelation at a time when games like Breath of Fire 2 & Robotrek were coming out and had localizations that were barely intelligible and riddled with errors.

Oh and since people mentioned Carpe Fulgur, I'm friends with Andrew Dice and he seems to be doing well. As was mentioned earlier, they did some work on a Gundam game that just came out recently.

 

[denpanosekai]

At least they don't owe anyone anything, unlike Dispatch, LRG, etc all this new generation of niche publishers. But a pulse would be tremendous.

This reminds me more of UFO interactive who published Raiden 3, 4, 5 and a few other awesome games but generally feels perpetually in limbo. Agetec similarly petered out with shitty shovelware after giving us so much From greatness in the ps1 ps2 era.

 

[Seafoam Gaming]

Outside of a few unfortunate pop culture references, Working Designs translations were far from bad. They were top tier localizations, especially in the 90's when even the biggest games got some extremely shoddy translations. I can't believe people STILL push this narrative forward of their translations. Not to mention that the only game they really screwed up the difficulty on was Popful Mail.

Click to shrink...

I mean yeah compared to stuff like BOFII and non-squaresoft translations they were a lot better but a lot of that stuff just really doesn't age well with all the references and whatnot. I'm more irritated by WD since they did eff up a lot of the difficulty and wouldn't just leave the games alone: Mainly, their PCE games. Stuff like Cadash was untouched which was good but then you had Exile (playable, just a tiny bit tweaked) and Exile II (nigh unbeatable). There's a reason patches have been made lately to undo their adjustments while retaining their translations. Alundra also has some irritating tweaks done to it and as you mentioned, popful mail. And Lunar 2's save coin system and all caps dialogue.

The PSOne-onward era was a lot better for them as I own Lunar SS Complete and I do not feel much of anything off about that one at all, feels fine to me and seems like a good quality RPG. But it's hard to go back to some of their early games now and not be completely lambasted by the difficulty or whatever else they decided to tweak for reasons.

 

[RROCKMAN]

Oh and since people mentioned Carpe Fulgur, I'm friends with Andrew Dice and he seems to be doing well. As was mentioned earlier, they did some work on a Gundam game that just came out recently.

Click to shrink...

I didn't think we had him to thank for his wonderful job on EXVS

I really appreciate what he managed to do with such a large game

 

[Curler]

At least they don't owe anyone anything, unlike Dispatch, LRG, etc all this new generation of niche publishers. But a pulse would be tremendous.

Click to shrink...

To be fair, this year has kind of been an exception when it comes to releasing stuff. LRG had a ton of stuff put on backlog, but I have steadily been receiving things throughout the year. You get the items still, but maybe not in a quick timeframe at your preference. A LOT of items were backlogged (especially bundled items) with LE items were on hiatus, due to Chinese factories shuttering for a while.

As for Dispatch... yeah, I have no idea what is going on there, with very little communication and despite stuff this year, we really don't know what's going on :/

Physicality Games too also tried recently, but at least were transparent and essentially stopped what they were doing to refund (not that their model couldn't worked well nowadays).

 

[Ekid]

Actually Summon Night 6 went on sale on the PSN in Europe one time in 2019, so they must have been somehow active at the time?

 

[Nairume]

Not to mention that the only game they really screwed up the difficulty on was Popful Mail.

Click to shrink...

That is incredibly not true. Off the top of my head Exile 2 is infamously almost unbeatable due to them screwing up enemy stats, Lunar 2 SCD suffers both out of wack stats and saving requiring Magic XP, and even Vic is on the record in an old ass episode of retronauts as talking about going overboard with Silhouette Mirage due to the rental market.

I'll happily defend the relative quality of their localization work, but they were not great about changing actual gameplay until later on (the Arc games did benefit from WD changing things, fwiw)

 

[Kresnik]

Haha, you read my mind Shiz. I actually wanted to post about Gaijinworks about a week ago, was gonna post in the old thread on this forum about where they want but it came up with a "this post is old and you shouldn't bump it" warning so I didn't.

Real shame that they just disappeared off the face of the earth. They were doing a solid localization every two years or so (CoH2 -> SN5 -> SN6) but as people have already said, seems like SN6 underperformed which may well have made Vic give up. It does seem weird that he hasn't said anything aside from the June 2018 update given that he seems like a proper fan and someone who would respond to the fanbase, but there you go.

I had hoped they'd pick up another couple of niche-y localizations over the last few years (maybe one last hurrah for Vita, although I suppose that's what SN6 was) but never mind. Incidentally I got a copy of SN6 for my birthday earlier this month so I'll probably be checking that out soon.

I hope Vic is okay wherever he is.

 

[heehofiend]

Sorry for the necro, but I don't think it was stated that in mid-August of 2019 a poster on the Gaijinworks forums got in touch with the programmer for Gaijinworks who also worked with Working Designs from 1999 until their closing. The programmer, Ken, confirmed Vic was still alive and well. A few days after this was posted, Ken stated in the thread, "I am happy to talk about projects after they are released, but for pending and/or upcoming projects I feel it's not my place to disclose information. That's all up to Victor. He shares when he's ready." So I think it is possible at least in late 2019 and possibly even now, Gaijinworks in some capacity is working on something.

 

[nosferatu]

I hope this is not considered spam, but i am curious what has happened to Vic. He went years being so vocal in the videogame industry and now years of nothing. Never was a huge fan of the translations, but loved the games he chose to bring over here (Iron Storm was a personal favorite). With all the insiders and employees of the videogame industry that posts here, I would think someone has heard something.