Working Designs

Founded December 1986 · United States of America

Working Designs was an American video game publisher that specialized in the localization of Japanese role-playing video games, strategy video games and top-down shooters for various platforms. Though the company had published many cult hits, it was known best to fans as the long-time exclusive North American publisher of the Lunar series. The company was one of the few game publishers that attempted to bridge the cultural gap between the Japanese and American video game industries during the 1990s with an eclectic selection of releases from various genres, and was also one of the earliest American publishers to make use of the CD-ROM format for full, spoken English dialogue in their titles at a time when voice acting was not a common feature in most mainstream games. On December 12, 2005, Victor Ireland, President of Working Designs, announced via the company's message board that it was closing its doors. He later started a new company called Gaijinworks.