ASCII Media Works

ASCII Media Works resulted from a merger between two Japanese publishing companies—ASCII and MediaWorks—on April 1, 2008. The company is a continuation of MediaWorks, but despite this, the former president of ASCII, Kiyoshi Takano, became the president of ASCII Media Works. The company is a member of the Kadokawa Group and is thus affiliated with Kadokawa Shoten, another Japanese publishing company. According to an official press release by Kadokawa Corporation, the merger stemmed from a steady outgrowth in the Internet and mobile parts of society which led publishing companies to branch out to encompass the ever increasing needs and demands of the consumers. Due to mutual company interests, the merger went through to create a stronger company which has more outreaching possibilities than either company could have done on their own.

ASCII brought its expertise with IT and computing. In contrast, MediaWorks brought its expertise of media pertaining to entertainment, such as with visual or printed media including anime, manga, light novels, video games, or magazines covering such media products. In addition to making the combined company more diverse, company management is planned to become more efficient, base revenue is meant to increase, and the company may take on new business opportunities in the future. Enterbrain had been considered for merging with ASCII and MediaWorks, but this was eventually rejected. In April 2011, the video game division of ASCII Media Works was merged into Kadokawa Games along with the video game divisions of Kadokawa Shoten and Enterbrain. ASCII Media Works ceased being a kabushiki gaisha on October 1, 2013, when it was merged with eight other companies to become a brand company of Kadokawa Corporation.

ASCII Media Works has been in the business of developing and producing video games of series that have light novels or manga published by the company. These games are typically visual novels, a genre of adventure games, but some have also been sound novels, which has less attributes of an adventure game than a normal visual novel. The video games produced are ported to the PlayStation 2 or Nintendo DS. Since ASCII Media Works is a continuation of MediaWorks, the company includes the video games previously produced before the merger with ASCII on its official website for its video games. The video games produced are organized into categories for similarly made games. Aside from the main class of visual and sound novels produced, three games were re-released in the Dengeki SP series at reduced prices from their original release; SP stands for "special price". Another class produced exclusively for the Nintendo DS are under the brand imprint series DS Dengeki Bunko, and are games based on light novels published under ASCII Media Works' male light novel imprint Dengeki Bunko. Five games have been produced under this brand, and the two games in the series based on Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu were re-released in a single package together. The company lists the titles which have been the most popular among the games it has produced which include releases based on Sister Princess, DearS, Kino's Journey, Futakoi, and Strawberry Panic!.