CyDesignation, Inc. BlazeGames, Inc. WithEntertainment, Inc Citail, Inc CygamesPictures Kusanagi, Inc LogicLinks, Inc. Cymusic, Inc. Cysharp, Inc. Scoop Music Corporation CyFoods, Inc. CySphere, Inc. flaggs, Inc. Cygames Capital, Inc.
Cygames, Inc.[a] is a Japanese video game development studio established in 2011 by CyberAgent. Mobile and e-commerce company DeNA acquired a 24% stake in the studio in 2012, and Nintendo acquired another 5% stake in 2018, leaving CyberAgent with 69% of the shares and as such, they are the parent company of Cygames. From its formation, the company produced mobile games, initially on the Mobage platform, and from 2013 on Android and iOS. The company headquarters is located in Tokyo while other divisions are located in Osaka and Saga in Japan and Seoul, South Korea.
Cygames, Inc. was established in 2011 by CyberAgent,[1] a Japanese web services company. In 2012, DeNA purchased a 24% stake in Cygames.[2] Shortly thereafter, the studio was chosen by Gamasutra as one of the top 10 game developers of the year.[3]
In June 2012, Cygames founded CyDesignation, a company specialized in Design, Illustration, Game planning and Game development.[4][5]
In March 2016, Cygames announced the establishment of its own anime production division and anime studio as a subsidiary known as CygamesPictures to do planning, production and animation both for Cygames own IPs and original anime projects as well.[6][7]
In June 2016, Cygames announced the acquisition of the gaming and anime background studio Kusanagi.[8]
In 2016, Cygames announced that it was developing Project Awakening, its first large-format title for consoles[9] as well as the establishment of their Osaka studio focused on console games.[10]
In May 2017, Cygames and Kodansha announced that they formed a partnership to launch a new label called Cycomi to release volumes in print distributed by Kodansha for manga already published online by Cygames on its digital manga website called Cycomics.[11] However, in April 2019, Cygames formed a new partnership with Shogakukan.[12]
On June 8, 2017, Cygames and its parent company CyberAgent announced that they jointly established CA-Cygames Anime Fund", a fund for investing in anime IP which will inject funds to the anime production committee to obtain the rights to stream anime videos on the Internet and produce games with a total amount of funds to be 3 billion yen.
In April 2018, a partnership with Nintendo was announced to develop the game Dragalia Lost, for the purpose of facilitating the partnership Nintendo will obtain approximately 5 percent of Cygames's issued stocks.[15]
In May 2018, Cygames announced the establishment of a subsidiary for music production and artist management called Cymusic.[16]
In April 2021, Cygames announced the establishment of a subsidiary called CyberSphere which is focused on 3DCG production for anime and games.[17]
Cygames produced the anime The Marginal Service which started airing in 2023.
In April 2023, Cygames opened two more international offices focused in marketing for its regions; one in Los Angeles called Cygames America and one in London called Cygames Europe.[18]
Since January 2024, Cygames is an official sponsor of Sagan Tosu.[19]
In October 2024, Cygames was announced as the title sponsor of the Breeders' Cup Sprint, a horse race run as part of the annual Breeders' Cup championships in American thoroughbred racing. The sponsorship was part of a promotion to mark Cygames' planned English-language release of the Uma Musume Pretty Derby mobile game.[20]
^Granblue Fantasy is not formally available on app stores outside of Japan; however, the game client is fully localized into English with new updates on pace with Japanese content releases, there is no region locking and, so long as a user can navigate account creation in Japanese, the game can be freely accessed outside of Japan, and in-app purchases in currencies other than JPY are supported via PayPal or Google Play, meaning that the game and all features (save promotional events that require living in Japan) are available to English speakers.
