Private company

Rising Star Games

British video game publisher

Rising Star Games was a British video game publisher founded in 2004 to publish localised Japanese titles to the European market. Originally a joint venture between Bergsala and Marvelous Entertainment, it became a subsidiary of Thunderful Group in 2018.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

2004Founded1

Rising Star Games was a British video game publisher founded in 2004 to publish localised Japanese titles to the European market. Originally a joint venture between Bergsala and Marvelous Entertainment, it became a subsidiary of Thunderful Group in 2018.2

The story

Rising Star Games was founded on 10 July 2004 by Martin Defries as a joint venture between Bergsala Holding and Japanese publisher Marvelous Entertainment. Marvelous Entertainment sold its 50% share in Rising Star Games to Intergrow, another Japanese publisher, in January 2010. Rising Star Games opened a United States office based in California in January 2012. The company had an exclusive licensing agreement with Marvelous and used Xseed Games English localizations, but it did not extend to North America. Thunderful acquired Rising Star Games from Bergsala Holding in July 2018, at which point Ed Valiente became its managing director and Defries left the company.

The last game released under the Rising Star Games banner was the Windows version of Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise, released in July 2022. However, as of 2026, Rising Star is still listed as an active publishing label of Thunderful Publishing. The Rising Star Games Limited company as a whole was renamed to Thunderful Games Limited in September 2023.

From Wikipedia’s article on Rising Star Games, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Products and brands

  • video game

Listed on Wikidata.1

Subsidiaries and ownership

Owners

From Wikidata.1

Timeline

  1. 2004Founded Founded1

Sources

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