Rising Star USA Taking Over Marvelous USA Publishing Business

By Ishaan . February 8, 2012 . 8:30am

There was a time when Marvelous Entertainment (now Marvelous AQL) had a 50% stake in European publisher Rising Star Games. Rising Star was originally established by way of a partnership between Marvelous and Bergsala, a Nordic Nintendo distributor.

In 2010, Marvelous sold their stake in Rising Star to a Japanese company named Intergrow, which handles PC, video and mobile phone games. Despite the change of hands, however, Rising Star retained the rights to continue publishing Marvelous games in European territories, and have continued to do so all this while.

Now, they’re taking over Marvelous USA’s publishing business as well.

Speaking with MCVUK, Rising Star managing director, Martin Defries, says that Rising Star’s recently established North American office was created as the result of an opportunity to take over the U.S. publishing business of Marvelous USA, which is Marvelous’ link to U.S. publishing partnerships.

“We were given an opportunity to take over the US publishing business of our former parent company Marvelous Entertainment, to rebrand that as Rising Star Games Inc and to build a successful subsidiary,” Defries reveals. Defries also shares that Rising Star have partnered with an existing publisher in the U.S., who has “strong roots into the market,” but doesn’t reveal who it is.

Once upon a time, Marvelous USA had a publishing deal with Xseed Games. In 2010, they changed to a licensing model, which meant that Xseed and other publishers would have to bid for rights to license their games. With Rising Star USA now effectively taking over for Marvelous USA, it calls into question whether that licensing model is still in place, and also how this will affect Xseed — which is owned by Marvelous AQL — in the years to come.

Rising Star USA’s very first North American title will be Akai Katana for Xbox 360.

A bow to Denpa no Sekai for the heads up!