Working Designs was an American company that published video games. It focused on translating and adapting Japanese role-playing games, strategy games, and top-down shooter games for different platforms. While the company released many popular games, it was most well-known for being the only publisher in North America for the Lunar series of games. During the 1990s, Working Designs helped connect the Japanese and American video game industries by offering a wide variety of games from different genres. It was also one of the first American companies to use CD-ROM technology to include full, spoken English dialogue in its games, a feature that was rare in most mainstream games at the time.
On December 12, 2005, Victor Ireland, the president of Working Designs, announced on the company’s message board that the business would close. In 2006, he started a new company named Gaijinworks.
History
Working Designs was started as a software company that created programs for managing data on IBM PCs. After the main programmer, Todd Mark, passed away in 1988, Victor Ireland was hired to finish Mark’s work. In 1990, the company changed its focus to publishing video games.
Working Designs released games for the Sega CD and TurboGrafx-CD because these systems used CDs, which were different from the more common cartridge-based systems like the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis. The company sold some games in special packaging that cost more. These packages included shiny foil stamps, detailed artwork, and full-color manuals with anime drawings and concept art. At the time, most Western game manuals were in black and white. Each manual also included notes explaining how the game’s translations were made, usually on the last page. Every set of notes ended with the phrase, “We’re nothing without you!”
Working Designs became well-known for adding unique, American-style humor to its game translations. Victor Ireland, the company’s president, said the team tried to keep translations as close to the original Japanese text as possible while making them easy for U.S. players to understand. He explained that adding American-style jokes was necessary to replace jokes from Japan that most American players would not understand.
When the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn were released, Working Designs met with Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), which was led by Bernie Stolar at the time. SCEA said it did not want to release non-action games on the PlayStation. Because Working Designs focused on strategy games and role-playing games, the company decided to publish games only for the Sega Saturn. By this time, Working Designs had developed a strong partnership with Sega.
The last Sega Saturn game released in the United States, Magic Knight Rayearth, was delayed for over two years. After Stolar left Sony, Working Designs began making games for the PlayStation. They released the most games on a single console (10 titles) in their history and started a new line of arcade-style shooting games called “Spaz.” At E3 1997, Ireland criticized Sega of America for placing the company’s booth in a less visible area and sharing information about the upcoming Dreamcast console, which hurt the Saturn’s market. Because of this, Working Designs announced it would stop making Saturn games after completing the four games already in development.
Due to repeated delays, approval problems, and declining sales, Working Designs announced on December 12, 2005, that all employees had been laid off, and the company was no longer active. In a public message posted on the company’s website, Victor Ireland thanked fans for their support but said that issues with getting new games approved for the PlayStation 2 had caused financial losses the company could not recover from.