The story
1975–1989: Origins, Dragon Quest
Enix was founded under the name Eidansha Boshu Service Center on September 22, 1975 by Yasuhiro Fukushima. An architect-turned-business entrepreneur, Fukushima initially founded Eidansha as a publishing company focused on advertising tabloids for real estate.
On February 5, 1980, Eidansha Boshu created a wholly owned subsidiary Eidansya Fudousan for the purpose of specializing in real estate trading and brokerage. Eidansya Fudousan was renamed Eidansha Systems in 1981. After Eidansha Boshu made an unsuccessful attempt to become a nationwide chain the following year, Fukushima decided to invest his capital into the emerging video game market. During this period, Eidansha Systems was renamed Enix Corporation on August 30, 1982. The name Enix was a play on both the mythological Phoenix, and the early computer ENIAC.
Seeking game proposals, Fukushima organized a competition dubbed the "Enix Game Hobby Program Contest" in both computer and manga magazines, offering a prize of ¥1 million (US$10,000) for a game prototype which could be published by Enix. Among the winners were Yuji Horii, then a writer for Weekly Shōnen Jump, with the sports game Love Match Tennis; designer Koichi Nakamura with the puzzle game Door Door; and self-trained programmer Kazuro Morita with the simulation video game Morita's Battlefield. During the next few years, Enix would publish titles for both the PC market and the fledgling Japanese console market. Using his royalties, Morita established the developer Random House and developed several PC and console titles including the Morita's Shogi series. In collaboration with Nakamura's new company Chunsoft, Horii notably created the adventure game The Portopia Serial Murder Case (1983), then during discussions around a port of the game to the Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System) Horii and Nakamura decided to develop a role-playing video game (RPG) for the platform.
The RPG, titled Dragon Quest, began development in 1985. Horii and Nakamura acted as designers, composer Koichi Sugiyama created the score for the game, and Dragon Ball artist Akira Toriyama was brought on board for art design. While meeting with initially slow sales, Dragon Quest became a critical and commercial success, selling over one million copies in Japan. The success of Dragon Quest spawned a franchise of the same name, which would become Enix's highest-grossing property. Horii, Sugiyama and Toriyama remained mainstays with the series. Chunsoft developed the next five Dragon Quest titles. While the Dragon Quest series proved successful, Enix continued publishing PC titles to maintain financial stability. The company also began selling merchandise themed after Dragon Quest in 1988 with character statues and toys, expanding to board and card games the following year.
In October 1983, Enix co-founded Konishiroku Enix with Konishiroku Photo Company, later purchasing all shares in January 1989. A second subsidiary, Enix Products, was established in March 1988 for the sale of publications and character merchandise. Both subsidiaries along with the original Enix were merged in April 1989 into their parent company Eidansha Boshu which renamed itself Enix Corporation.
1990–1999: Publishing and collaborations
In 1990, Enix published its first third-party console title ActRaiser for the Super Famicom. The game was developed by Quintet, a Japanese independent developer made up of former Nihon Falcom staff. Enix acted as publisher for all of Quintet's subsequent Super Famicom games in Japan. Enix had begun publishing guidebooks for the Dragon Quest series, between 1988 and 1991 the company decided to make print publication of its second major business section alongside video game publishing. This was to ensure income did not entirely depend on Dragon Quest. This eventually led to Enix launching the Gangan Comics imprint family, beginning with Monthly Shonen Gangan March 1991. Following its first publication with Monthly Shonen Gangan in March 1991, several other manga imprints with magazine and tankōbon editions were created for different genres including Monthly G-Fantasy and Monthly Shonen Gag-OU. The company also expanded merchandise range to include other notable series including Mario and Pokémon. In February 1991, Enix registered with the Japan Securities Dealers Association to offer shares for public purchase.
Following Dragon Quest V (1992), Chunsoft left as main series developer, wanting to create its own titles. In the years following, Chunsoft continued collaborating with Enix on spin-off Dragon Quest titles including early entries in the Mystery Dungeon franchise. The next two entries were developed by Heartbeat, a company founded by former Chunsoft staff dedicated to developing Dragon Quest titles. Heartbeat would handle main series production until going on sabbatical in 2002. From 1994, Enix acted as publisher for Horii's Itadaki Street series, taking over the series from ASCII. It also frequently acted as publisher for titles from Tamtam, and created the Dragon Quest Monsters spin-off series with developer Tose.
Enix were initially pitched unsuccessfully by Wolf Team with Tales of Phantasia, which was ultimately published by Namco in 1995. Enix later acted as publisher for Star Ocean (1996), developed by former Tales of Phantasia staff members who split from Wolf Team to form tri-Ace. In partnership with Enix, tri-Ace developed three further Star Ocean titles, and the Norse mythology-inspired RPG Valkyrie Profile (1999). Enix also notably helped publish two Western console titles; Riven (1998) and Tomb Raider III (1999). In August 1996, Enix moved from Shinjuku to offices in Shibuya. In contrast to other companies at the time, which were leaving behind cartridge-based Nintendo 64 for the disc-based PlayStation, Enix announced in 1997 it would publish titles for both platforms. It later stated its intention to develop for the GameCube. In August 1999, Enix was listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange's first section, which includes the largest companies on the exchange.
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2000–2003: Internal troubles, merger
Beginning in the early 2000s, Enix's manga publishing division went through a period of turbulence as several editors expressed dissatisfaction with Enix's focus on Dragon Quest media and the shōnen demographic, a growing lack of creative freedom, and rising tensions between authors and editors. Editor Yoshihiro Hosaka and a number of other Gangan associates founded Mag Garden in 2001, which became a market rival through the Monthly Comic Blade magazine. Mag Garden's foundation triggered a mass departure of creatives and legal battles with Enix over manga copyright ownership. The issues were resolved in 2003 when Enix agreed to partially invest in Mag Garden. The manga division's troubles were lessened with the beginning of Fullmetal Alchemist, which proved highly popular. Enix also suffered from financial losses due to the delayed releases of Dragon Quest VII (2000) and Dragon Quest Monsters 2 (2001). Some notable titles begun or announced during the 2000s were PlayStation 2 titles in the Grandia series, the MMORPG Fantasy Earth: The Ring of Dominion from Puraguru, and the action role-playing game Drakengard from Cavia.
In 2001, citing the rising cost of game development, Enix expressed interest in merging with either Square or Namco. Ultimately, talks began with Square, a market rival and developer of the Final Fantasy franchise. Talks were temporarily halted when Square suffered financially due to the failure of the 2001 feature film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Following the commercial success of Final Fantasy X (2001) and Kingdom Hearts (2002), talks went ahead on the merger with Enix as Square's finances stabilized; Square's then-CEO Yoichi Wada described it as a merger of two companies "at their height". Despite this, some shareholders had doubts about the merger, notably Square's founder Masafumi Miyamoto, who would find himself holding significantly less shares and having a smaller controlling stake if the deal went ahead as initially planned. Miyamoto's issue was resolved by altering the exchange ratio to one Square share for 0.85 Enix shares, and the merger was greenlit. The merger resulted in Square Enix being formed on April 1, 2003, with Enix as the surviving corporate entity and Square dissolving its departments and subsidiaries into the new company. Enix's last two published titles were Star Ocean: Till the End of Time and Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart, both in 2003. Fantasy Earth and Drakengard were published after the merger.
From Wikipedia’s article on Enix, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4