Bankruptcy of AlphaDream
AlphaDream Corporation, Ltd. was Japanese video game developer founded on January 12, 2000 by Tetsuo Mizuno and Chihiro Fujioka, featuring several members of Square. They were best known for their role-playing games, mostly the Mario & Luigi series, which is an RPG spin-off of the Mario franchise. However, on October 1, 2019, AlphaDream filed for bankruptcy.
What happened?
In later years of the 2010s decade, AlphaDream began struggling to keep up with growing debt, which, as of March 2018, was over ¥465 million. At the same month, more specifically on March 8, 2018, Nintendo announced a remake of Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story on a Nintendo Direct, titled Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey, for the Nintendo 3DS, being the second remake in the Mario & Luigi series after Superstar Saga's remake, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions.
Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey would be released on December 27, 2018 in Japan and in January 2019 in North America, Europe and Australia. Despite the remake receiving positive reviews, it was a commercial failure, making it not only the worst game in the series, but also one of the worst-selling Mario games of all time. It has been reported that a total of 34,523 copies were bought as of June 30, 2019, the lowest of any game in the franchise.[1]
Eventually, AlphaDream filed for bankruptcy on October 1, 2019. Aside from being unable to keep up with the growing debt, other reasons include sluggish revenues and high development costs. Said commercial failure of Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey is often cited as one of the reasons for that.
AlphaDream's bankruptcy caused some problems in their games; notably, one of their games, Tomato Adventure, ends on a cliffhanger where Alesa is kidnapped at the end, with DeMille saying that his and his party (Pasaran, Sofubi, and Relek)'s next adventure begins. However, the game was released in 2002 only in Japan, and for 17 years before AlphaDream's bankruptcy, the game did not receive a sequel that could solve the cliffhanger.
Aftermath
Following AlphaDream's bankruptcy, Nintendo would file a trademark for the series in Argentina. While most assumed Nintendo was simply protecting their IP, it also led to speculation that the series would hopefully continue on a later date. In July 2021, Tomato Adventure would get an unofficial fan translation, allowing people outside of Japan to play the game in English. The fan translation can be downloaded here.
Eventually, on June 18, 2024, Nintendo announced a new Mario & Luigi game titled Mario & Luigi: Brothership, though did not reveal the developer. A few days later, Nintendo has noted that some of the developers from AlphaDream return to work on the game.[2] Some time later, it was revealed through the game's intellectual property notices that the developer of Brothership is Acquire, who had previously worked on Octopath Traveler, which Nintendo initially published outside of Japan.[3] The game was released on November 7, 2024 to positive reviews.