Yostar
Shanghai Yostar Co., Ltd. (Chinese: 上海悠星), often known as simply Yostar Games or Yostar, is a video game developer and publisher based in Shanghai, China. They are the publisher of the English, Japanese, and Korean servers (collectively known as the Global server) of Arknights.
Background
Originally a Chinese doujin gaming student society dedicating themselves in making spin-off games known as Studio GameMaster or Studio GM, Yostar was founded as a video game developer and publisher company by Yao Meng and Chen Kai under the help of Liu Wei, the founder of MiHoYo that is later known for Honkai Impact 3rd, Genshin Impact, and Honkai: Star Rail.
However, Yostar's first game released in 2014, Nono from Isekai (诺诺来自异世界), failed to achieve commercial success and was shut down in 2016, putting the company on the verge of bankruptcy. It was during this time that Hypergryph was founded and working on Arknights, prompting Yao Meng to make a risky decision of selling his family house to both publish Azur Lane JP and EN (which Yostar had already working on with its developers, Manjuu and Yongshi), and fund the development of Arknights (and by extension, becoming one of HG's co-founders).[1] Yostar also published Mahjong Soul worldwide since 2017, and the company has since recovered from their setbacks and became one of the major Chinese mobile game publishers.
From their entrance to the gaming industry, Yostar has been investing much in ACGN-themed games produced by developers based in China, as well as spearheading the entry of Japanese ACGN market to China through Azur Lane and Arknights. Recently Yostar is planning to restart their game development industry as well as expanding to other fields, even including anime production as attested by Yostar Pictures. Yostar had branches in Tokyo and Hong Kong, with the former being focused on the Japanese/JP servers of their games while the latter focusing on the English/EN servers.
As mentioned above, Yostar played a major part in the foundation of Hypergryph and, as of 2023, owns 15% of HG's shares; in turn, HG owns 23% of Yostar's shares. Although this resulted in many mistakenly believing that Yostar owns HG, in truth both companies are more of close partners who shared similar origins, with Yostar particularly having a major influence in Arknights' internationalization.
Branches
Studio GM
A game studio bearing Yostar's former name with their first work being the previously mentioned Nono from Isekai. As of September 2023, Studio GM is working on Nekoparaiten that would become the second game developed by Yostar.[2]
Yostar Pictures
Founded on January 2020 under the collaboration with the Japanese animation studios ARCH and ALBACROW, Yostar Pictures is Yostar's very own animation production studio, initially established to produce short PVs for the games they published because no other animation studios are willing to do so. Later on Yostar Pictures start to produce feature-length animations including the Holy Knight Light OVA and eventually the anime adaptations of games published by Yostar, from Arknights (Prelude to Dawn, Perish in Frost, and Rise from Ember) to Azur Lane and Blue Archive. It is worth noting that Hypergryph had commissioned Yostar Pictures to produce the in-game cutscene in JT8-2 because their own animation studio, Gravity Well, is yet to be established then.
Yostar Pictures founded ARCUS, a studio dedicated to producing 3D animations for games published by Yostar, with their first work being the MV of Ain't Seen Nothing Like This.
Production
Games (developed)
- Isekai Kara No Nono (CN and JP; 2017–2018)
- Nekoparaiten (TBD)
Games (published)
- Azur Lane (EN and JP; 2018–present)
- Epic Seven (JP; 2019–2022)[3]
- Mahjong Soul (EN, JP, and KR; 2019–present)
- Arknights (Global; 2020–present)
- Blue Archive (JP and CN; 2021–present and 2023–present, respectively)
- Guardian Tales (JP; 2021–present)
- Revived Witch (EN and KR; 2021–2023)[4]
- Aether Gazer (EN and JP; 2023–present)
Anime
- Azur Lane: Bisoku Zenshin! (January–March 2021)
- Sorairo Utility (December 2021)
- Arknights: Prelude to Dawn (October 2022)
- Arknights: Perish in Frost (October 2023)
- Blue Archive The Animation (April 2024)
- Arknights: Rise from Ember (TBA)
Notable employees/collaborators
- Yao Meng (姚蒙): Founder and CEO
- Chen Kai (陈开): Official register
- Li Hengda (李衡达): Director-general for the Japanese branch
- Watanabe Yūki (渡邉 祐記): Key animation director for Yostar Pictures; known for his previous works for A-I Pictures.
- Saitō Kengo (斉藤 健吾): Director for Yostar Pictures; known for his previous works for Studio Trigger.
External links
References
|