Former Square Enix veteran Ryutaro Ichimura, who was the lead producer on Dragon Quest VIII and IX, recently talked to Famitsu about what he’s been up to at his new company PinCool. Ichimura left Square Enix in 2023 and became the CEO of NetEase Games-funded studio PinCool the same year. Although the company has lived to celebrate its third anniversary and release its debut game safe and sound, PinCool did not go unscathed when NetEase games decided to change its investment strategy for the Japanese market, according to Ichimura.
Back in 2024, it was reported that after investing heavily in several Japanese game studios employing renowned creators, NetEase Games was looking to back out from many of its ventures. This was followed by news of Visions of Mana developer Ouka Studios shutting down, and more recently, of Nagoshi Studio losing funding while in the middle of developing the large-scale cinematic action game Gang of Dragon.
As it turns out, PinCool was also hit hard by NetEase Games pulling its support. “We had prepared ourselves for something like that to happen eventually since establishing the studio, but it happened sooner than we expected,” Ichimura told Famitsu. At the time, his studio had been working on three unannounced projects, one of which survived because it was smaller in scale and nearly complete. The rest were long-term projects and thus had to be scrapped.
However, thanks to Ichimura anticipating the worst-case scenario even before NetEase Games officially announced it would withdraw funding, PinCool was able to find a new partner, the US-based investment company Initiate Games. PinCool became a subsidiary of Initiate Games with its whole team intact, and in 2025, it released its first game, Pritto Prisoner. Ichimura says that it was thanks to the game being almost complete and in a playable state that his studio was able to secure a partner willing to invest in them.
Going forward, PinCool plans to continue working on indie-scale games with its small in-house team, as well as pitching larger-scale titles to external companies.
