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Koei

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Koei Company, Limited (株式会社コーエー Kabushiki-gaisha Koei) is a Japanese video game publisher and developer founded in 1978. The company has first found success as a video game company for its many historical simulation titles, but has lately gained popularity for their quasi-historical Warriors franchises.

A running trend in all of their games is having one of their characters say, "It is a glorious honor" or "It is an honor" (光栄です, Kōei desu), at one point in the game's script.

Contents

HistoryEdit

Koei was originally an industrial chemical company established on July 25, 1978 by Yoichi Erikawa and Keiko Erikawa. It was established a year after his family's rural dyestuffs business filed for bankruptcy. Yoichi was a student at Keio University. He worked part-time during his late twenties to support the company, at one time being a clerk and working at record store to pursue his interest in music.

For his birthday in 1980, Keiko gave her husband a Sharp MZ as a present. He was delighted by the device and became immersed in programming and computers. Yoichi actively pursued whatever he could to fuel his interests. By December the same year, he decided to reestablished Koei with his wife to be a computer game company. The company's first software was Kawanakajima no Tatakai, a cassette tape historical simulation game surrounding the battles at Kawanakajima. Several other titles were developed as time passed, eventually leading to the company's popularity in Japan. Adult games were produced during this period as well, although Yoichi will embarrassingly admit today that he was perhaps too adventurous by creating them.

The company became popularly known as a historical simulation creator when Nobunaga's Ambition, Genghis Khan, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms were released in quick succession. Yoichi sought to express his interest in global history and created other games to depict his interests at the time. These historical simulations were considered revolutionary at the time of their release for their long, intricate presentations and greatly fueled the company's success.

Aside from historical simulations, Yoichi wanted to include his interests in table-top games and horseback riding. These ideas led to the Mahjong Taikai series and the Winning Post franchise, which enjoyed modest success mainly in Japan. These games doubled as business simulators which appealed to his concept to "entertain and educate" with the company's products. His English Dream titles followed the idea more literally.

The company's interest in merchandise started during the mid 1980's through guidebooks and comics. Yoichi even authored books himself to further explain historical or fantasy subjects with garnered his interest.

In 1994, the first Angelique game was released to the video game market. It is widely known as the first game to be created by women and for women, and it is regarded to have started the Otome game genre. Angelique also started the company's other focus to cater to the female audience, something which most video game company's were not committed to doing at the time. Keiko is a strong believer in marketing towards women, thus leading to the creation of the Neoromance series in Japan.

During the late nineties, developers of the company sought to break the mold of the company's reputation as a simulation creator. They created the sub-division known as Omega Force with the primary objective of creating action titles. They first created two fighting games, an action-adventure game, and a shooting game which had modest success overseas. The team's leap to popularity happened when Dynasty Warriors 2 was released for the PlayStation 2. It was considered ground-breaking for its time and eventually led to the creation of the Warriors franchise. From an international perspective, Koei is best known today for making several of these hack-and-slash titles for collaborative IPs or different historical settings.

On September 4, 2008, Koei announced that it was in talks of purchasing ailing competitor, Tecmo. The merge was agreed in November the same year. On April 1, 2009, companies merged to created Koei-Tecmo Holdings (known as Tecmo-Koei internationally). Another merge with video game company, Gust, was announced to the public on December 7, 2011. Unlike Tecmo, Gust remains a subsidiary company with Koei-Tecmo and was quickly added to the company on December 13th the same year. Koei-Tecmo will now publish all of Gust's IPs, but Gust is still credited independently.

Today, Koei-Tecmo's motto is to provide the "world's No.1 entertainment" (世界No.1のエンターテインメント・コンテンツ). Their current target audience as of late are the casual fans of the video game market by making their products easy to learn and play.

NamesEdit

The company's namesake is derived from the phrase/prayer, "Let success and prosperity shine on this company" (光り栄える会社に).

  • 1978 ~ 1984 = KOEY My Comsystem (光栄マイコンシステム); abbreviated as KOEY
  • 1984 ~ 1998 = KOEI (光栄)
  • 1998 ~ present = Koei (コーエー); for when the single company is credited
  • 2009 ~ present = Koei-Tecmo (コーエーテクモ) or TECMO KOEI (internationally); formal name in press reports

DivisionsEdit

Subsidiary CompaniesEdit

  • Koei-Tecmo Holdings
  • Koei-Tecmo Games
    • Tecmo Koei America Corporation - established 1988, North America; located in California.
    • Tecmo Koei Canada, Inc. - created early 2001; development studio suffered a series of lay offs in 2010
    • Tecmo Koei Europe Limited - created early 2003, Europe; located in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
    • UAB TECMO KOEI Baltija - Lithuania
    • TECMO KOEI SOFTWARE VIETNAM CO - Vietnam
    • TECMO KOEI SINGAPORE Pte. Ltd. - Singapore
    • Tianjin Koei-Tecmo Software Division - Tianjin, China
    • Beijing Koei-Tecmo Software Division - Beijing, China
    • Tecmo-Koei Korea Corporation - discontinued
  • Koei-Tecmo Wave - for recorded media and merchandise
  • CWS Brains
  • Gust
  • TECMO KOEI AMERICA Corporation
  • TECMO KOEI EUROPE LIMITED
  • TECMO KOEI TAIWAN Co., Ltd.
  • Koei-Tecmo Capital
  • Koei-Tecmo Moribu
  • Koei-Tecmo Music
  • Koei-Tecmo Ad

For the Japanese voices, Koei prefers to cast from Aoni Production and they are often credited in many of their newer titles.

Games Developed or Published by KoeiEdit

Koei has built a large base of franchises, and has developed on various consoles and computers. Below is a list of game series developed by Koei.

Historical simsEdit

RekoeitionEdit

These games are a fusion of the simulation and role-playing genre.

War SimulationsEdit

  • Ginkawa Senriku
  • Gotha Ismailia Seneki - publisher
    • Heir of Zendor ~The Legend and the Land~ (Gotha II Tenku no Kishi)
  • Combat
  • Das Boot
  • Invasion of Normandy
  • Battle of Tassafaronga
  • Battle of Ardennes
  • Operation Europe: Path to Victory
  • Teitoku no Ketsudan (PTO: Pacific Theater of Operations in North America)
    • P.T.O.: Pacific Theater of Operations
    • P.T.O. II: Pacific Theater of Operations
    • P.T.O. IV: Pacific Theater of Operations
  • Kurogane no Houkou series (localized as Naval Ops series) - publisher
    • Naval Ops: Commander
    • Naval Ops: Warship Gunner
    • Naval Ops: Warship Gunner 2
    • Kurogane no Houkou 2 Warship Commander
    • Kurogane no Houkou 3 Warship Commander
    • Warship Gunner 2 Portable
  • Boukoku no Aegis 2035: Warship Gunner

Raising simsEdit

Adventure gamesEdit

Strategy gamesEdit

  • Gemfire
    • Royal Blood II ~Denarle Oukokunen Daiki~
  • Celtic Tales: Balor of the Evil Eye
  • Kessen series
  • Dynasty Tactics series

Action gamesEdit

Executive SeriesEdit

Ren'ai gamesEdit

RPGsEdit

Sports gamesEdit

Board gamesEdit

Music gamesEdit

  • Gitaroo-Man (As well as a PlayStation Portable version called Gitaroo Man Lives!)

EdutainmentEdit

Online gamesEdit

Social gamesEdit

Games developed by Tecmo Koei CanadaEdit

Games published by Koei in EuropeEdit

  • Disgaea series
  • La Pucelle: Tactics
  • Atelier Iris series
  • Phantom Brave
  • Makai Kingdom
  • Colosseum: Road to Freedom
  • Persona 3 and Persona 3 FES

Potential MascotsEdit

One of these five characters may potentially become the mascot for Koei-Tecmo's Japanese website. Most of these characters are sponsored by a video game review company, whose logos are spotted underneath each mascot's profile. On the voting website, these mascots are candidates for "mayor of Gamecity" and the voting is part of a pseudo election. Voting is solely available to members of Koei-Tecmo's official fanclub (Japanese website).

PopularityEdit

NINJA GAIDEN 3 downloadable costume
Sake nekoAdded by Sake neko

Voting results are based on fans voting from the website and from votes gathered during the company's Ustream broadcast. These percentages were posted on June 23, 2011.

  1. Nyabraham Linnyahn with Shinobimono - 37.1%
  2. KTG-02 Andoh - 22.5%
  3. Chou Un with Kasumin - 20.8%
  4. Kabuto Kaburo - 15.2%
  5. Koemon with Tec.Momo - 4.4%

Final voting results for the mascots were announced on July 5, 2011:

  1. Nyabraham Linnyahn with Shinobimono - 2,418 votes
  2. KTG-02 Andoh - 1,465 votes
  3. Chou Un with Kasumin - 1,343 votes
  4. Kabuto Kaburo - 957 votes
  5. Koemon with Tec.Momo - 288 votes

Nyabraham Linnyahn is the Gamecity mascot (mayor) for 2011.

See AlsoEdit

External linksEdit

Retrieved from "http://koei.wikia.com/wiki/Koei"

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