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Return of the Game Development Ninjas!

Posted by Zonk on Fri Apr 20, 2007 10:19 AM
from the ninja-vanish dept.
Entertainment Games
simoniker writes "After being exposed in 2006 as 'the biggest game developer you've never heard of', with over 1,100 employees at the time, Executives from Tose have been speaking to Gamasutra about their recently 'blown cover'. The interview explores how this has affected their business working on 'stealth' game development for hundreds of titles (recently including Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime), in which the publisher takes the credit for the end product. They seem a little conflicted about it, to say the least, as Tose's Masa Agarida notes: 'Actually, I have tried to expose us more in the US than in Japan, but right now, everybody's getting to know us more than before. Right now I'm thinking of going back behind the scenes again.'"
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[+] The Biggest Game Dev You've Never Heard Of 85 comments
simoniker writes "Japan-based game developer Tose has 1,000 employees, and has created 1,100 game SKUs since 1979 (including Final Fantasy GBA versions, though they can't mention it in this interview!), but they're basically unknown, because they're 'game development ninjas', and 'refuse to put [their] names on the game'. Odd stuff."
[+] Tose - Gaming's Little Secret 12 comments
1up has a piece up looking at the fine folks at Tose, the secret development ninjas behind a number of popular games. This group takes contracts from other developers, and purposefully keeps its name off of the final product. They're the developers of many high profile games, and very few gamers have ever heard of them. If they do sound familiar, it may be because we had a discussion about these folks back in May of last year. 1up's article covers some of the same ground as Gamasutra's, dealing with Tose's unique relationship with developers and their unusually secretive nature. They do, however, dig up the names of some of the shops Tose has worked with, including outfits like Nintendo, Capcom, Namco, Sony, Square Enix, Electronic Arts and THQ. They also point out a few games they know to be Tose's handiwork; the GBA ports of the Final Fantasy titles, Super Princess Peach, and Metal Gear Solid Ghost Babel all bear the company's mark. The veil is cracking, then, but for the most part this group stands as a unique company in the games industry: a development house with little interest in press attention.
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Return of the Game Development Ninjas! 19 Comments More /

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  • To clarify... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MS-06FZ (832329) on Friday April 20 2007, @10:24AM (#18812115) Homepage Journal
    "After being exposed in 2006 as 'the biggest game developer you've never heard of', with over 1,100 employees at the time, Gamasutra has caught up with executives from Tose"

    To be clear - Tose, not Gamasutra, is the subject of this sentence, the game developer with 1100 employees.

    • Re:To clarify... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Tofystedeth (1076755) on Friday April 20 2007, @10:40AM (#18812335)
      The dangling participle is but one of the many tools in their ninja arsenal used for confusing the enemy.
    • Oops, that'll teach me to submit too early in the morning, without recourse to caffeine.
    • Changed, but it's still pretty bad:

      with over 1,100 employees at the time, Executives from Tose have been speaking to Gamasutra about their recently 'blown cover'.
      Since when was Gamasutra's cover blown? That whole chunk in the middle about 1,100 employees makes it more confusing and adds little value.
  • So... do you work for Tose? or is it Gamasutra?
  • I've heard outsourced devs called a lot worse.

  • My name is Robert and I can't stop thinking about game development ninjas. These guys are cool; and by cool, I mean totally sweet.

    Facts:

    1. Game development ninjas are mammals.
    2. Game development ninjas fight ALL the time.
    3. The purpose of the game development ninja is to flip out and kill people.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I heard that there was this game developer ninja who was eating at a diner. And when some dude left a dangling pointer, the ninja killed the whole town. My friend Mark said that he saw a ninja totally stack trace some kid just because the kid opened an invalid memory address.
      • -Ninjas always use RAII. They leave no tracks behind.

        -A ninja can stealthily break into your /home and kill you in your sleep().

        -When a ninja closes his eyes, he sees only objdump.

  • Kinda makes you wonder... (Score:5, Funny)

    by djones101 (1021277) on Friday April 20 2007, @11:05AM (#18812657)
    Did they ever do any pirate games? One would think that would be a conflict of interest.
    • Why would they pirate their own games? They'd just be stealing from themselves... Wait a minute! That's brilliant! The perfect victimless crime!
      • I hate to state the obvious, but I doubt the parent comment realizez dat Pir@t3s fig4ting n!njaz i$ teh coolest t4!ng in teh wurld, since they are sworn enemies.
        • Whoa, you spelled a lot of words wrong. Can you please post a reply to me saying, "I hate to state the obvious, but I doubt the parent realizes I was spelling the words wrong on purpose?"

  • A secret? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I wonder if the reason they want to keep it secret is because American's particularly want to know where their entertainment products are produced? I think we actually need a law which requires that information to be disclosed so that we can make informed decisions when we buy games and want the money to go back into our own economy. That information should never be kept secret from the consumer...in fact, I believe we already have some kind of requirements that products be labeled with their country of o

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