The Koei Tecmo Dark Souls Factory
Koei Tecmo is famous for hitting on a good idea then producing a million copies of that idea. You need look no further than the long-running Dynasty Warriors game franchise to see this in action.
What started as a simple one-on-one fighting game grew into a massive action franchise about one hero character taking on thousands of enemies — and then Koei made thousands of sequels. The core franchise has nine main entries and dozens of spin-offs. The Samurai Warriors side franchise is nearly as big. And the real money in these games is in the licensed tie-ins where Koei collaborates with other studios and uses much bigger world-recognized characters and IP, like Fire Emblem, Persona, Zelda, and One Piece.
These side licensed games are also often better pieces of software than the core franchises, probably due to the increased oversight from the partners involved and also the increased budget that comes with working with established IP that gamers outside of the core Japanese market will enjoy. If you know your thing is going to sell to a larger audience, it’s easier to spend more money on its production.
Dynasty Warriors isn’t the only franchise that Koei Tecmo regularly exploits in this manner. They also put out a new Atelier game every…
