Imageepoch Files for Bankruptcy, CEO Still Missing - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 13 May 2015 / 4,453 Views
Japanese RPG developer Imageepoch and affiliate company Smile Online Games filed for bankruptcy on May 7th, according to a report from Teikoku Databank, as translated by Siliconera. The two companies have until June 4th to report their credit and are scheduled to have a property advisory meeting on July 30th.
Imageepoch was founded in 2004. Its first game release was Luminous Arc for the DS and its final game looks set to have been Stella Glow, which was recently confirmed for release in the West.
The developer currently owes 43 different creditors a total of 1.1 billion yen. It earned 1.7 billion yen of profit in September 2011, but figures have continued to decline to just 400 million yen in revenue by September 2013.
Imageepoch CEO Ryoei Mikage recently disappeared and there is no word on his location.
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A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Yeah and the CEO disappearing make me think of two senerios, either he borrowed money from the wrong people, or he embezzled and is running.Add your comment...
Their games were not the greatest things ever but they did provide some fun and in the end that is all that counts.
It's sad. they did bad games recently, but before that, they made some great games such as sol trigger, 7th dragon ds + 7th dragon 2020 I/II psp, and luminous arc.
So everything is fine with them when they developed for the NDS/PSP/PS3.
They start makeing games for 3DS and everything goes to hell.
Is the 3DS hard to develop for?
When I worked in Japan, if a CEO went missing usually they started searching the rivers. Looks like this guy has upset the wrong people.
This reminds me of the devs for Folklore and Genji.
: ( Its sad, but oddly funny. Ill be starting and ending with games that seem very similar to each other, least Glow seems like a spiritual sequel to Luminous Arc.
Sounds like the Yakuza are involved.
