OK, let's unpack this. We often talk about companies
that, you know, try to do one thing perfectly.
The artisans. Right. The boutique studios. Exactly.
The studios that spend like seven years polishing
the reflection in a single puddle in a game.
But what happens when a company decides to be,
well, a machine, a literal factory of ideas?
It is a really interesting distinction to make.
And today we're looking at a company that. put
that entire ambition right there in their name
idea factory idea factory holdings go ltd yeah
and looking at the stack of sources we have today
which is i mean it's largely built around this
really comprehensive breakdown of their history
their subsidiaries and this absolutely massive
almost overwhelming list of games they've released,
it feels like we're looking at a survivor. A
survivor is definitely the right word. They were
founded in 1994 in the video game industry. Just
surviving for over 30 years is, I mean, that's
incredibly rare. It's an eternity. It is. But
surviving by constant, and I mean constantly,
shifting your entire identity, that's something
else entirely. It's even rarer. It's wild. We're
going to see them go from these really gritty,
hardcore strategy games for the PlayStation 1.
you know, the kinds of games that basically required
a spreadsheet to understand, to becoming the
absolute dominant force in romance games for
women, to then making games about like anime
consoles fighting each other. It's a journey
that on paper just doesn't make any sense. But
it creates this fascinating narrative arc. And
the mission for this deep dive is to really try
and understand that evolution. How does a company
that was founded by refugees from a studio like
Data East. How do they evolve into what Idea
Factory is today? Because they aren't just a
game developer. They're, like you said, a case
study in agility. And for you listening, even
if you've never played a single one of their
games, and let's be honest, some of them are
incredibly, incredibly niche, this is a business
story at its core. It's about finding a niche,
exploiting it until the wheels fall off, and
then finding a completely different niche just
to keep the lights on. It's about survival. Precisely.
It's all about that factory metaphor. They don't
just have ideas. They seem to industrialize them.
They iterate. They reuse assets when they can.
They build these entire ecosystems out of seemingly
nothing. So let's start at the very beginning.
The birth of the factory. October 26, 1994. Right.
Headquarters in Kibashi, Chushu, Tokyo. I mean,
it sounds like a pretty humble beginning. It
does. The source material mentions the key figures
leading the charge today. Shingo Kawana as chairman
and Yoshitori Sato as president. But the origin
story, it really hinges on where these people
came from. The source notes the company was founded
by former employees of Data East. And that detail
is crucial. You really can't understand the DNA
of Idea Factory without looking at Data East.
For those who might not know, Data East was a
major, major player in the arcade era. Right.
They made very distinct, often quirky, sometimes
just plain weird action games. Burger Time. Bad
dudes. Karnoff. Bad dudes. No way. Are you a
bad enough dude to save the president? That's
the same Data East. The very same. They had this
reputation for games that were, you know, maybe
a little rough around the edges, but they had
immense personality. They were memorable. They
really were. But by the mid -90s, the whole industry
was changing so rapidly. The arcade scene was
beginning its slow, painful decline. The home
console market, on the other hand, was just exploding.
The PlayStation 1 was about to launch in Japan
in December of 94. So you have this group of
developers. And they're leaving an established
giant like Data East right on the cusp of the
3D revolution. That feels like a massive gamble.
That's huge. It's like they're leaving a sinking
ship, maybe, but they're jumping onto a tiny
raft in the middle of a hurricane. Massive gamble,
yeah. But it also suggests they wanted creative
control, right? When you look at Data East's
output, it was very arcade -centric. It was all
about quick thrill. Quarter munchers. Exactly,
quarter munchers. Idea Factory, from the very,
very start, seemed to pivot towards something
deeper. Something with more staying power. They
wanted to make games you could really get lost
in for hours. Console gaming, role -playing games,
strategy. And they didn't just set up a single
studio and call it a day. Looking at the corporate
structure that's provided in the source, Idea
Factory isn't just one room where people are
making games. It's a holding company. Yes, and
that structure is absolutely key to their survival.
It's a very mature business approach for what
is, at its heart, a creative field. They've diversified
their risk by creating these specialized subsidiaries.
Okay, so walk me through them. Well, you have
Compile Heart, which is often the one associated
with their more traditional RPGs, especially
the Neptunia series. You have Design Factory,
which is a bit more behind the scenes. And then
perhaps most significantly, you have Automate.
Right. Automate. We are going to spend a lot
of time on automates later because that list
of games in the source is just staggering. But
that's their female oriented branch, correct?
That's the one. It is the engine that drove their
growth for probably an entire decade. And then
more recently, you have Idea Factory International,
which is their bridge to the West. Based in California.
Right. And a relatively new addition from 2022
called Altergear. It's like an octopus. It's
got all these tentacles in every specific nerd
niche you can imagine. If one tentacle gets cut
off, the others just keep feeding the beast.
That is a very fair analogy. Instead of trying
to make one single game that appeals to absolutely
everyone, you know, the blockbuster strategy,
they created these divisions to make very specific
games for very specific groups of people. So
let's rewind to the mid -90s. They've just left
Data East. They've got their office in Tokyo.
The PlayStation is about to change everything.
What is the first thing that comes off the assembly
line? Well, looking at the game's published list
in our source, the very first title that appears
is Spectral Tower in 1996 for the PlayStation.
Spectral Tower. OK, that sounds ominous. It definitely
doesn't sound like a game where you jump on turtles.
No, it sets the tone perfectly for their early
years. It was a dungeon crawler. First person.
Very difficult, very dense. And then in 1997,
you get Spectral Force. And this kicks off what
I'm calling the spectral and chaos era. I'm just
looking at this list. And the sheer volume of
titles with the word spectral or chaos in them
is, I mean, it's kind of hilarious. It is relentless.
Between 1996 and roughly 2005, they were building
a brand. You have Spectral Force 2, Ayanaru Kiseki
in 1998. You have Spectral Force. Lovely Wickedness
in 1999. OK. Lovely Wickedness is a great subtitle,
by the way. It is. It sounds like a goth band
from the late 90s or something. It's very evocative
of that era. And then on the other side of the
coin, you have the Chaos branding. Generation
of Chaos in 2001. Kingdom of Chaos. Field of
Chaos. It just keeps going. It feels like they
found a fantasy setting they really liked and
just decided to live there for a decade. But
let's talk about the gameplay for a second. Because
looking at screenshots of something like Spectral
Force or Generation of Chaos. This isn't Final
Fantasy. You aren't just, you know, walking around
a world map fighting goblins in random battles.
No, not at all. These are strategy RPGs or SRPGs.
Grand strategy, even. Think of it as a mix of
a game like Risk. maybe a bit of civilization,
and then a classic Japanese RPG. Okay. You choose
a nation from like dozens of options. You have
generals, each with their own stats and special
moves. You have to manage your borders, fortify
your castles, recruit troops, and even engage
in diplomacy with the other kingdoms. And then
when a battle actually happens, it shifts to
a tactical map. So it's basically a spreadsheet
with dragons. In the best possible way, yes.
It appeals to a very, very specific type of brain.
The type of player who loves maximizing stats
and organizing armies and looking at maps. And
they just kept pumping these out. The market
was there for it, clearly. They did. And in gaming
circles, this whole interconnected series is
often referred to as the Neverland universe.
The source material actually lists games like
Neverland Senki Zero and later on Neverland Card
Battles. Oh, I see that. Neverland Card... battles
on the PSP much later on. So all these spectral
and chaos games, they're all connected. They
take place in the same world. For the most part,
yes. They were building this huge interconnected
world with a long history. And this is really
interesting from a business perspective. If you
are a small studio in the 90s, you don't have
the budget for Final Fantasy level graphics.
You can't compete on spectacle. Yeah. So how
do you hook players and keep them coming back?
I don't know how. You hook them with lore, you
hook them with continuity. If you played Spectral
Force, you might see a character named Judu.
Then three years later in Generation of Chaos,
Jadu is back, but maybe now he's an older king
or a legendary villain. Ah, I see. If you've
played the previous games, you feel rewarded.
You get the reference. You feel like you're part
of a secret club that understands the deep history
of this world. That's really smart. It creates
a sticky ecosystem. You're not just buying a
game, you're buying another piece of the puzzle.
It's basically the Marvel Cinematic Universe
model, but built on a shoestring budget in 1998.
That's the perfect way to put it. And look at
the platform loyalty here during this era. The
list is just dominated by the original PlayStation
and then seamlessly the PlayStation 2. They found
where that hardcore RPG audience was living and
they just set up shop and refused to leave. I
did notice an odd one in the list, though. From
1998. Spectral Force. Era Corinne. The system
listed is mobile phone. That stood out to me
as well. 1998 is incredibly early for mobile
gaming, especially in Japan. This was well before
smartphones. This would have been on those early
iMode -style distinct Japanese feature phones.
Wow. So even while they were deep in this console
strategy RPG grind, they were willing to experiment.
They were dipping a toe into mobile way, way
before it's cool. It speaks to that factory mindset
again. Try everything. If the brand is strong,
see if it works on a tiny phone screen. They
were likely looking at the Japanese commuter
culture and thinking, if we can get them to play
our game for five minutes on the train to work,
that's a win. It's an interesting little footnote
in their history. So, OK, we have this first
decade. It's gritty. It's strategy heavy. It's
all demons and knights and kingdoms at war. And
then. Something shifts. A seismic shift, really.
A complete change in direction. We get to section
three of our outline, the automate revolution.
And this is where things get really interesting
for me. This is arguably the single most important
pivot in the company's entire history. I'm not
sure we would even be talking about them today
if they hadn't done this. For those listening
who might not know, let's define this clearly.
What is automate? Automate is the brand name
for their division that produces automagames.
Otome literally translates to maiden. In gaming
terms, these are story -driven games, usually
visual novels, aimed specifically at a female
audience. The gameplay goal is usually to pursue
a relationship and romance one of several male
characters. So we go from Generation of Chaos,
which sounds like a heavy metal album cover,
and involves managing tax rates for Goblin Army
to romance games for women. That is a hard left
turn. It is. But if you look at the automate
games sub list in our source, you see that they
didn't just dabble in this. They didn't just
release one game to see what would happen. They
absolutely flooded the market. The list is huge.
I'm scrolling through it right now and it just
keeps going. Why did they do this? Was the strategy
market just dying out? It was a few things. By
the mid -2000s, yeah, the spectral formula was
getting a little stale. Development costs on
the next generation of consoles, the PS3, were
skyrocketing. But more importantly, Idea Factory
identified a massively underserved market. Women.
Exactly. In the mid -2000s, video games were
still largely marketed almost exclusively toward
men and boys. There were very, very few high
-quality narrative -rich games specifically for
women on consoles. Idea Factory looked at that
huge void and said, we can fill that. It's the
classic blue ocean strategy, right? Everyone
else is fighting over the teenage boys in this
bloody red ocean of competition. Let's go over
here where there is no one. That's it, exactly.
And because these were visual novels, they didn't
require complex 3D physics. engines or massive
open worlds. They relied on beautiful 2D art,
excellent voice acting, and most importantly,
good writing. It was incredibly cost effective
to produce them. So they could make a lot of
them for cheap. And test the waters with different
themes and genres within that one umbrella. Let's
look at some of the heavy hitters here, because
some of these names are absolutely legendary
in that community. The biggest one, without a
doubt, has to be Hakuuki. It first appears on
the list as Hakuuki Shinsengumi Kitan in 2008.
And the Shinsengumi part refers to that famous
sort of samurai police force in 19th century
Japan, right? Correct. It's a historical fantasy.
You play as a young woman who gets entangled
with these famous historical swordsmen, Hijikata
Toshiso, Okita Tsuji, who are, of course, all
drawn to be incredibly attractive. But Idea Factory
added a twist. They added vampires. Wait, what?
Vampires? In 1860s Kyoto. Well, essentially,
in the game, they're called Furies or Rasetsu.
The samurai drink this special medicine, the
water of life, to get stronger and heal their
wounds, but it has a side effect. It turns them
into these bloodthirsty, white -haired berserkers,
and it slowly drains their life force. So every
romance is basically a tragedy waiting to happen.
You fall in love with a guy who's doomed. And
that is the key. Atone games aren't always just
about happily ever after. They are often about
melodrama, sacrifice, and tragic romance. Hakugi
hit that tone perfectly. It resonated so deeply.
that it spawned multiple anime series, stage
plays, movies. It became a huge media franchise.
Naturally. And looking at the list, Hakuuki isn't
a one -and -done title. I see Hakuuki Susoroku,
Hakuuki Ramiroku, Hakuuki Sweet School Life.
Wait a minute, Sweet School Life? Yes. This is
a common trope in anime and Japanese games. After
you put the characters through a grueling, tragic,
bloody war story, you release a non -canon spinoff
where they are all just students and teachers
in a modern Japanese high school. That is whiplash.
From tragic samurai vampires to the school festival.
It's pure fan service. It allows the fans who
fell in love with these characters to see them
happy and doing mundane things like planning
for the cultural festival. It shows the incredible
power of the IP. Once the audience loved these
characters, they would follow them anywhere,
even to high school algebra class. That's amazing.
There's another title that pops up a lot here
in the list. Amnesia. Yes, a huge one. Amnesia.
Later amnesia crowd, amnesia world, amnesia.
Memories. I love the title. It's so direct. It
implies mystery right off the bat. It does. And
the premise is exactly that. The protagonist
wakes up on August 1st with no memory of her
life, her job, her friends, nothing. She has
a little spirit guide named Orion that only she
can see, and she has to navigate her relationships
with these five men who all claim to be her boyfriend,
but she doesn't know who she can trust. That
sounds more like a psychological thriller than
a romance game. It blends the two genres brilliantly.
In some of the story routes, if you make the
wrong choice, the love interest might actually
turn out to be dangerous or even kill you. It
adds this layer of genuine... suspense, and paranoia
to the whole experience. It proved that autumn
games could be dark, psychological, and really
intense. And speaking of dark, we have to mention
the Diabolic Levers series. Ah, yes. Which is,
well, it's exactly what it sounds like. It's
about a group of vampire brothers, but not the
noble, tragic vampires of Hakuuki. No. What kind
of vampires are we talking about? Diabolic Lovers
caters to a much, much darker fantasy. The love
interests are all sadists. They are emotionally
and verbally abusive. It's what's known as a
deus or sadism -focused game. That seems, I mean,
that seems risky and really controversial. It
was incredibly controversial, but it was also
massive. Titles in the source, like Diabolic
Lovers, More Blood and Vanded Carnival, show
that it found a huge audience. It tapped into
the bad boy trope and just dialed it up to 11,
or maybe 100. It's just impressive how they segmented
the market. They have the historical samurai
niche, the psychological mystery niche, the sadistic
vampire niche, all within the broader romance
genre. They essentially built a buffet for every
possible taste. And notice the hardware progression
in this section. This is really fascinating to
me if you look at it from a business analysis
perspective. What do you see? Walk me through
it. Okay, so the automate list starts on the
PlayStation 2 around 2005 to 2010. But right
around 2008, there is an aggressive, very sudden
shift to the PSP, the PlayStation Portable. Oh,
right. Yeah. The list is suddenly all PSP. And
then later on, it's all PS Vita. Exactly. While
the rest of the gaming world was moving to high
definition home consoles like the PS3 and Xbox
360, the auto market moved in the complete opposite
direction. It went to handhelds. Why do you think
that is? I would assume you'd want to see the
handsome samurai on your big screen TV. Think
about the nature of the game, though. It's a
visual novel. It's basically like reading an
interactive book. It's a very intimate, personal
experience. You don't necessarily want to play
a romance game on the big 50 -inch TV in the
living room with your family walking by. Hey,
Mom, just dating a vampire who keeps insulting
me, don't mind me. Exactly. You want to play
it in your bedroom or on the train during your
commute or in a cafe, ideally somewhere private.
Handheld offered that privacy and portability
that was perfect for the genre. That makes total
sense. And the PSP and Vita were perfect for
that kind of experience. And Idea Factory recognized
that immediately. They became one of the biggest
supporters of the PS Vita long, long after other
major developers had completely abandoned it.
The source shows them releasing games on the
Vita well into 2016 and 2017. So they basically
kept that handheld alive for their specific audience.
That's the kind of loyalty you don't see often.
It's symbiotic, right? The audience bought the
hardware specifically for the Automate games,
and the company kept supplying them with a steady
stream of new titles. They built their own ecosystem
on that device. Okay, so we've got the strategy
RPG roots, and we've got this massive romance
empire they built. Looking at section four of
our outline, there's another whole side to this
factory, the collaborations. Yes, the games developed
section of the source lists other developers
alongside Idea Factory, and this is where things
get really meta. We have to talk about the Compile
Heart connection and, of course, Hyperdimension
Neptunia. This series started around 2010, developed
with their internal studio Compile Heart, but
also in collaboration with Nippon He Software
and Gust. The source lists those names. Yeah.
For people who don't follow the nitty gritty
of Japanese RPGs. Who are these guys? Okay, so
Nippon Ichi is famous for the Disgaea series,
these incredibly over -the -top strategy games
where you can level up to level 9, 9, 9, 9, 9
and do billions of points of damage. And Gust
is famous for the Atelier series, these very
charming, cozy games about alchemy and crafting.
Putting them together with Idea Factory is like,
well, the outline calls it the Avengers of niche
RPGs, and that's not far off. That's a great
way to put it. It's a niche crossover event.
And the game itself, Hyper Dimension Neptune,
is a full -blown satire of the video game industry.
The entire setting is a world called Game Industry.
Game Industry. Okay, real subtle there. The main
characters are... literal anthropomorphic personifications
of game consoles. Wait, really? Like human versions
of consoles? Yes. The protagonist, Neptune, represents
a fictional Sega console that never came out.
Noir represents the PlayStation. Blank represents
Nintendo. Vert represents the Xbox. And they
are goddesses fighting each other in a literal
console war. That is the most idea factory thing
I have ever heard. It's so self -referential.
It's a snake eating its own tail, but the snake
is an anime girl. It is. And it resonated. It
became a massive franchise for them. The Source
lists Hyperdimension Neptunia, MK2, Victory,
Megadimension Neptunia 7th. It became a third
pillar of their business, right alongside Automate
and their older strategy games. Why do you think
this worked? On the surface, it sounds like a
joke that would get old in about five minutes.
It worked because it embraced the mo culture
of the time. You know, cute anime girls doing
cute things. But it wrapped it in this very specific,
very nerdy gamer humor. The characters would
break the fourth wall constantly. They would
complain about grinding for experience points.
They would make inside jokes about piracy or
frame rates or game bugs. So they were laughing
with their audience, not at them. Exactly. It
made the player feel smart for getting all the
references. It was a game for people who truly
loved video games and the culture around them.
I also see some other crossover games here in
the Source. Cross Edge from 2008 and Trinity
Universe from 2010. Yeah, these are what you'd
call festival games. They are pure fan service.
They take characters from Idea Factor games,
from Nippon Ichi games, sometimes from Capcom
or Namco Bandai games, and just throw them all
into one big RPG. It's an excuse to see all your
favorites interact. What if my favorite character
from Game A fought the villain from Game B? It's
literally playing with your action figures. That's
exactly what it is. And it reinforces that community
feeling. If you are a fan of these niche Japanese
games, Idea Factory is telling you, we see you.
We are all in this weird little club together.
Before we move on from this section, I have to
ask you about two specific titles that are listed
here because the names are just incredible. First
one. Sorcery Saga, Curse of the Great Curry God.
Yes. Released on the PS Vita, it's a dungeon
crawler, a roguelike game, but the central theme
is making curry. Making curry. You are a young
sorceress, and you are fighting your way through
dungeons filled with angry ingredients to find
the legendary spices to make the ultimate curry
to save your friend's curry restaurant. I love
it. It takes a very serious, often punishing
genre, the roguelike, and just makes it... Completely
ridiculous. And then there's this one, which
I might struggle to say. Trillion, one billion.
God of Destruction. Yes. The number one trillion
is literally in the title. Why? What does that
even mean? The premise of the game is that the
final boss, the God of Destruction, has one trillion
hit points. Get out. One trillion. As in... A
one followed by 12 zeros. One trillion. And your
job is to whittle it down. You train a character,
you send them to fight the boss, they do some
damage, and then they inevitably die a heroic
death. But their skills and power are passed
on to the next character you train. It's a game
about sacrifice and generational attrition. That
is such a bold... almost hostile design choice
it's terrifying it's an absurd mechanic but it
grabs your attention immediately doesn't it it
stands out on a store shelf god of destruction
sounds generic one trillion hp god of destruction
sounds like a personal challenge it really does
it sounds impossible and that is the idea factory
way they aren't afraid to be weird they know
they can't compete with final fantasy on graphics
or budget so they compete on wait they did what
they compete on concept so they've conquered
japan with strategy rpgs and a massive game empire.
But the world is a big place. Section 5 of our
outline covers their expansion to the West. This
is a relatively recent development in the grand
scheme of their 30 -year history. Idea Factory
International was established on September 30,
2013. And they set it up in California, right
in the heart of the American games industry.
Correct. Why does this matter so much? Before
2013, how were we in the West getting these games?
Usually through third -party publishers. Companies
like NIS America or Axis Games or Atlas USA would
license a title like Hakuki or Spectral Force,
handle the translation and localization themselves,
and then publish it. So Idea Factory was getting
paid, but they weren't really controlling the
message or the distribution. Exactly. They were
getting a licensing fee, which is nice, but the
Western publisher was taking a big cut of the
profits and making all the decisions about marketing
and release dates. By opening their own branch
in California, they signaled a new level of confidence.
They were basically saying, we know we have an
audience in the West and we want to sell to them
directly. It cuts out the middleman. It cuts
out the middleman and it allows them to control
their own destiny in the global market. They
can decide exactly which games to localize and
when. They can interact with their own fans.
It was a real maturing moment for the company.
They realized that niche in Japan plus niche
in America plus niche in Europe actually equals
a pretty decent sized global market. But then
we get a curveball. The source mentions a 2022
announcement. A whole new division called Altergear.
This one is fascinating to me. The source says
Altergear is a division focused on visual novel
titles aimed at a male audience. Wait a second.
So they spent 15 years perfecting the art of
the visual novel for women with Ottoman. They
built an entire empire on it. And now they are
circling all the way back to men. It certainly
seems so. Why would they do that? Is the Ottoman
market slowing down or something? That's just
speculation. But it could be a number of things.
It could be that they feel the Atom market is
saturated. largely by their own products. They've
released so many games that maybe the market
is getting a bit tired. Or perhaps they see a
resurgence in interest for male -oriented visual
novels on consoles and want to apply what they've
learned. It just goes to show that they are still
iterating, even after 30 years. They aren't just
sitting on their laurels. It's, OK, we won the
Audemars, what's the next campaign? Let's try
the guys again, but this time we're the experts.
It's the factory at work. Shut down one production
line, start up a new one. I want to zoom out
a bit and look at the lists in the source. as
a kind of historical map. We touched on their
platform loyalty to PlayStation, but there's
a weird little blip in the timeline. The Xbox
360. Ah, yes. The great Xbox 360 anomaly. If
you look at the dates between, say, 2006 to 2010,
you see Spectral Force 3, Innocent Rage, Absolute,
Blazing Infinity, Diario, Rebirth, Moon Legend,
all on Xbox 360. This was a very, very specific
moment in gaming history. Microsoft was trying
desperately to break into the Japanese market
with the 360. They knew that to win over Japan,
they needed Japanese RPGs. So they actively courted
Japanese developers. They likely offered financial
incentives, marketing support, easier development
tools, whatever it took to get games on the 360.
And a smaller company like Idea Factory jumped
on board. They did. For a few years, if you wanted
to play the newest idea... factory grand strategy
RPG, you had to own an Xbox 360. It was a strange
time. It didn't last long. The Xbox never really
took off in Japan in a big way. But the list
captures that effort perfectly. It's like a fossil
record. You can see the sediment layer in their
history where the Xbox happens. It also shows
their pragmatism. You know, if Microsoft is offering
support and money to develop for their console,
why not take it? And then if you look at the
modern era in the source, say 2017 and beyond,
you see the shift back. A lot of PS4 games, but
also. Windows. PC. Yes. Seeing a game like Cyber
Dimension Neptunia, four goddesses online hitting
Windows is a huge deal. Why is that so significant?
Because for the longest time, the vast majority
of Japanese console developers just ignored the
PC market. There was a perception that PC gaming
is for work or for weird Western games like shooters,
but the rise of Steam as a global distribution
platform completely changed that. And Idea Factory
International, their U .S. branch, likely pushed
really hard for this. Absolutely. The Western
audience games on PC. A huge part of it does.
By porting their back catalog and their new releases
to Steam, they unlocked a massive new global
audience that doesn't necessarily own a PlayStation.
It was another brilliant, pragmatic move. So
we've tracked them from the post -Data East days
of 1994 through the PlayStation strategy era,
the ultimate revolution on handhelds, the meta
humor of Neptunia, all the way to the modern
global PC era. It really is quite a trajectory
when you lay it all out like that. So let's try
and wrap this up. What is the big picture here?
What is the story of Idea Factory? I think Idea
Factory is a chameleon. That is the best word
to describe them. They change their colors to
suit their environment to survive. They started
with those gritty, super serious strategy games,
Spectral Force. Then they pivoted to completely
dominate the romance genre for women with Otome,
changing their entire company culture in the
process. Then they partnered with other studios
to make these self -aware, meta -commentary RPGs
like Neptunia. And finally, they established
a beachhead in the U .S. to sell their very,
very Japanese games directly to fans all over
the world. The takeaway for me, I think, is that
they prove you don't need to be making Call of
Duty or Mario to succeed. You don't need to be
the biggest company in the world with the biggest
marketing budget. No, you just need to find your
audience, however small, and serve them faithfully.
Whether that audience wants to manage a fantasy
kingdom for 100 hours, fight with anime consoles,
or date a tragic member of the Shinsengumi. If
you feed the niche, the niche will feed you.
Precisely. They have survived by being indispensable
to small, passionate groups of people, rather
than being kind of liked by everyone and truly
loved by no one. All right, so here's a final
thought to leave you with. We mentioned that
2022 announcement of UltraGear, their return
to male -targeted visual novels. Now, Idea Factory
has spent the last decade and a half mastering
the art of romance games for a female audience.
You know exactly what makes a heart flutter,
what pacing works, what makes a story sticky
for that audience. Indeed, they have refined
that formula down to an absolute science through
dozens and dozens of games. So my question is
this. Will that experience change how they make
games for men? Will we see male -oriented visual
novels from them that have the kind of emotional
depth and character complexity of a top -tier
autumn game? Or will they just go back to the
old tired tropes we often see in that genre?
That is a really provocative question. Usually
those two genres, autumn games and male -targeted
visual novels, are kept very separate. The design
philosophies, the writing styles, they're often
completely different, but they can cross -pollinate.
If they can bring that emotional intelligence
they learned from Automate over to Alter Gear,
that could be something really special. They
could end up reinventing the genre all over again,
just like they did back in 2008. I guess we'll
just have to wait and see what rolls off the
factory line next. Thanks for joining us on this
deep dive into the weird, wonderful, and ever
-changing world of Idea Factory. It was a pleasure.
See you in the next deep dive.