[GameSpot] - Crunchyroll Wants To Get More Anime Games Into Western Markets

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Crunchyroll has been a prominent name in the anime industry for years now. The company has been the go-to for anime streaming for a while, but it has expanded into other ventures in recent years, with one of the most interesting being video game publishing.

In 2016, Crunchyroll Games began publishing games based on anime or original titles featuring anime-like art styles--the most recent of which, Princess Connect! Re:Dive, released in the US on January 19 after a successful launch in Asia back in 2018. The publisher has worked on games about other established properties, like Mob Psycho 100, as well as original IP, like Grand Alliance, all in the hopes of promoting types of games that traditionally haven't done as well in the west. Though there are exceptions, like last year's Genshin Impact, plenty of anime or anime-looking games just don't make a splash in American or European markets.

"I think [game publishing] goes in hand with our philosophy, which is our long-term vision to be a more significant kind of piece of that anime ecosystem, of that puzzle," Crunchyroll general manager of games & head of 360 Terry Li told me. "We already are on the video side, but I think on the game side, there's certainly an aspiration that we want to get more involved in game development, game publishing. Not for the sake of just doing that, but because we do believe that today there's an abundance of games that get made in Asia around this anime ecosystem that don't fully consider a global audience."

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