AlphaDream (developer of the Mario & Luigi series) declares bankruptcy

[MondoMega]

Their recent titles haven't performed well, but it seems like it came out of nowhere.

https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20191002-00010002-teikokudb-ind

EDIT: A translation of the article has been made available via Gematsu:

AlphaDream, the studio behind the Mario & Luigi RPG series, filed for bankruptcy in Tokyo district court on October 1.

The company was first established in May 1991 as the interior and exterior finishing work company Mente Tomo and Ai, before changing its name to AlphaStar Soft in January 2001 (then AlphaDream in July that year) when it began work on video game planning and development.

AlphaDream is mainly known for its work on the Mario & Luigi RPG series for Nintendo and the Hamtaro series for Marvelous, among other titles. Most recently, it developed the smartphone game Kedama no Gonjiro: Fit and Run for ForwardWorks.

As the company was constantly entrusted with developing series titles, it recorded an annual income of 300 million yen in the fiscal year ended March 2014. However, the sluggish income, heavier burden of development costs, and financial deficits in recent years have entered the company into a financial state of insolvency. Performance has yet to recover since then, leading to the current measures.

As of the end of March 2018, AlphaDream's amount of debt totals about 465 million yen.

Click to shrink...

Thanks for the heads up, Nanashrew

 

[Breakfast Boy]

Their recent titles also sucked....

 

[TimeFire]

Holy crap. What were some of their other projects besides the M&L series? Were they performing as bad as it?

I wonder what's the future for Mario RPGs now.

Hope the people working there can bounce back from this

 

[RochHoch]

Oh wow

RIP Mario and Luigi. At least they got to remake their best game before going out.

 

[Neoxon]

Damn, it's unfortunate to see this happen to the company. I actually enjoyed the Mario & Luigi games.

Hopefully everyone working there finds new stable jobs as soon as possible.

 

[Future Gazer]

 

[butalala]

How does Nintendo financially support studios like these? Are they contracted on a pay for sale basis or something?

 

[Deleted member 23212]

How do bankruptcy laws work in Japan? Do they have a Chapter 11 equivalent or is this like Chapter 7?

 

[Dymaxion]

I wanted them to stop making Mario & Luigi games because they seemed to run out of ideas, but I didn't want it to end like this. I'm sad now

 

[BZL8]

That sucks....

 

[Indelible]

Sad to see them go bankrupt, I enjoyed the M & L games but they started to get pretty shallow on the 3DS.

 

[DominicanGlory]

Hope everyone there lands on there feet but... Mario and Luigi series was a dud...

 

[Strings]

Bah, I had hope they were going to do something interesting with a new entry.

Their last few games have been pretty poor (both remakes and Paper Jam), but yeah...

 

[Kinsei]

Shit. They made damn good RPGs.

 

[Neoxon]

How does Nintendo financially support studios like these? Are they contracted on a pay for sale basis or something?

Click to shrink...

I thought it was like Intelligent Systems where Nintendo doesn't actually have a financial stake in the company, but they instead go to the studio for whatever projects they have in mind.

 

[nodakel]

Holy crap. This was unexpected. I hope this works out for them...

 

[Deleted member 26156]

This news has me distraught. Alpha Dream is one of my favorite developers... well, was

God this is so awful.

 

[esteh]

sucks they dont have chance to make M&L on switch

 

[Deleted member 23212]

I thought it was like Intelligent Systems where Nintendo doesn't actually have a financial stake in the company, but they instead go to the studio for whatever projects they have in mind.

Click to shrink...

Sounds like a way to get companies to make games for you while having to spend a lot less.

 

[Mekanos]

Damn dude. That came out of nowhere. I thought they were developing something for the Switch?

 

[Stormkyleis]

Oh no. They developed one of my favorite series and my favorite game, this sucks.

 

[Hero of Legend]

I'm shocked Nintendo let this happen. You'd think Nintendo would buy them out if things went south for such a long time partner?

 

[Ridley327]

That's really surprising to hear, seeing as they've effectively been a Nintendo second party for over 15 years. It makes me think that they were trying to attract new clients for non-Mario & Luigi projects and no one was biting. I hope everyone lands on their feet if this is truly the end for them.

 

[Xavi]

Wow, this sucks.

 

[Deleted member 23212]

I'm shocked Nintendo let this happen. You'd think Nintendo would buy them out if things went south for such a long time partner?

Click to shrink...

They probably didn't feel like it was worth the money, Nintendo views them as expendable.

 

[Dark Cloud]

This sucks for all the people there. I hope it goes well in the end.

As far as Mario RPG is concerned I've been saying Paper Mario will return to its rpg roots this has 100% solidified that for me. Nintendo has no more experimenting with Mario and Luigi seemingly out of the picture for now.

 

[DeoGame]

Microsoft is looking for a Japanese dev, right? Hopefully they or more realistically Nintendo saves the team. I like their games, even if I kinda wavered off the series after dream team.

 

[Deleted member 10737]

omg what?! that's unexpected. i was looking forward to see what they're working on for switch.
i hope someone saves them, they're an extremely talented team. browser's inside story remains one of the the best ever handheld RPGs ever made.

 

[Strings]

We're in such a dire place with Mario RPGs now. My last hope was basically M&L rising from the ashes on Switch (Paper Mario being a complete lost cause).

 

[Joqu]

:(

Their recent games haven't been their best but I love Mario RPGs and was looking forward to seeing what they'd do on switch. Damn.

 

[Future Gazer]

The upside is that Nintendo has to revive Paper Mario now.

Spoiler

please

 

[Uncle at Nintendo]

Mario RPGs are in a really bad spot now. They need a real fucking Paper Mario 3!

Hopefully Ninty can poach some of the developers.

 

[Deleted member 278]

That's a real shame, guess it wasn't realistic for them to be able to thrive moving to HD development with such a small team.

 

[butalala]

Nintendo views them as expendable.

Click to shrink...

That's assuming a lot. There are people on this team that have worked on Mario RPGs going back to Legend of the Seven Stars, right?

 

[Dark Cloud]

Also I don't want to rant yet again about Nintendo not buying or having more first party studios. This happens. Studios close,
Go bankrupt or can leave. If it's over for AlphaDream then there is no more Mario and Luigi.

it was getting stale but I would never want to see a company go bankrupt

 

[Neoxon]

Sounds like a way to get companies to make games for you while having to spend a lot less.

Click to shrink...

They rarely buy developers outright, with MonolithSoft & Retro Studios being among the exceptions.

 

[Brazil]

That's... pretty shocking, tbh. Even though their latest games aren't the best Mario RPGs out there, they're still reasonably successful.

 

[Clov]

Oof. I wonder if Nintendo's going to bail them out, or if they'll let them die like Cing.

 

[Deleted member 32726]

BiS, PiT, and Superstar Saga were among my top favorite RPGs. It was some of their best work.. definitely not gonna forget those games.

 

[Brazil]

They rarely buy developers outright, with MonolithSoft & Retro Studios being among the exceptions.

Click to shrink...

Retro was a Nintendo studio from day 1.

Edit: Not as in a proper first-party studio, but as in one that was closely linked to Nintendo from the get-go.

 

[Dark Cloud]

We're in such a dire place with Mario RPGs now. My last hope was basically M&L rising from the ashes on Switch (Paper Mario being a complete lost cause).

Click to shrink...

Paper Mario isn't a lost cause.

 

[Zalman]

Hopefully Nintendo can help some of these people land on their feet.

 

[Ridley327]

That's assuming a lot. There are people on this team that have worked on Mario RPGs going back to Legend of the Seven Stars, right?

Click to shrink...

Yeah, they have a ton of history with Mario RPG on the whole. Heck, if anything, their potential death means no more Shimomura working on Mario RPG soundtracks, which is almost as big a shame as no more AlphaDream.

 

[HockeyBird]

Sounds like a way to get companies to make games for you while having to spend a lot less.

Click to shrink...

I mean that is typically how independent companies work together. You can establish a special relationship where a specific contractor gets first dibs but in return, the company rewarding the contract gets a lower price.

 

[Neoxon]

Retro was a Nintendo studio from day 1.

Click to shrink...

Oh, I always thought Nintendo just bought them out early on. They were created from the ground-up as a Nintendo-owned developer?

 

[Strings]

That's... pretty shocking, tbh. Even though their latest games aren't the best Mario RPGs out there, they're still reasonably successful.

Click to shrink...

Not sure that's true for the remakes? They did horrifically bad numbers from what I saw (25k opening week in Japan for Superstar Saga and 9.4k first week for Bowser's Inside Story).

For context, Colour Splash opened to 20.8k, so yeah, Mario RPGs lol :/

Paper Mario isn't a lost cause.

Click to shrink...

The interviews they gave around the release of Colour Splash completely killed off any hope I had for them (as did actually playing the game).

 

[MesaEterna]

This is extremely sad, M&L is one of my favorite series :(
I hope they find new jobs easily

 

[Loan Wolf]

I'm shocked Nintendo let this happen. You'd think Nintendo would buy them out if things went south for such a long time partner?

Click to shrink...

I'm sure a different studio will tackle a new Mario and Luigi project if there's a market or demand for it. M&L and Paper Mario offered a solid story for the Mario series at worst.

 

[Neoxon]

Hopefully Nintendo can help some of these people land on their feet.

Click to shrink...

This. If Nintendo isn't gonna buy out the developer, I hope they at least bring the talent over there into the Nintendo EPD fold.

 

[DecoReturns]

Damn what.

And I kept reading how they were hiring for HD development for a while now.