FuRyu to “temporarily suspend” games business [Update]

FuRyu, the studio behind The Legend of Legacy, The Caligula Effect, The Alliance Alive, and the upcoming CryStar, will “temporarily suspend” its games business outside of the titles it has already invested in, FuRyu president and CEO Takashi Mishima said in the company’s latest shareholder report.

“In our games business, we strived to monetize the sector through mixed media developments,” Mishima said. “However, we were struggling to recover our heavily invested games business, and growth in the main business was also sluggish, which led to a major disparity from the overall initial plan.”

Mishima continued, “Investment in game development will be temporarily suspended, and we will maximize our focus on the monetization of the titles that we have already invested in. We have also already invested in anime for our mixed media developments, and we plan to maximize revenue in the synergy between our anime and games this fiscal year. Additionally, we will revise advertising expenses and the like for our games business.”

FuRyu’s announced upcoming releases are as follows:

• Work x Work (Switch) – September 27 in Japan
• CryStar (PlayStation 4) – October 18 in Japan
• Beyblade Burst: Battle Zero (Switch) – October 25 in Japan
• Project One-Room (Tentative Title) (PlayStation 4) – TBA

Update 07/02/18 at 2:50 a.m.: FuRyu has put out a press release clarifying what it called “a statement that could cause misunderstandings.” Here is the snippet:

Statement Being Clarified

“Investment in game development will be temporarily suspended, and we will maximize our focus on the monetization of the titles that we have already invested in.”

Clarification

What we are describing is in regards to the smartphone games within our games business—while we have been releasing several titles each year, we temporarily suspended the development of new titles in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2019. With that in mind, please take note of the following information:

• For console games, we will continue to plan, develop, and sell games in the same way we have been during and after the fiscal year ended March 31, 2019.
• For smartphone games, we do not have any release plans for new titles during and after the fiscal year ended March 31, 2019, and will focus on maximizing the revenue of the titles that are currently available.