History Creator / WorkingDesigns

Working Designs was a small, influential American video game publisher headquartered in Redding, California. It was primarily known for translating Japanese RolePlayingGames for the UsefulNotes/SegaCD, the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn and the UsefulNotes/PlayStation. It was originally founded by programmer Todd Mark and venture capitalist Sylvia Schmitt in 1986 as an office software developer for the IBM PC; after Mark's death in 1988, programmer Victor Ireland was hired to complete his unfinished work and transitioned Working Designs to a video game publisher. Their first game was ''Parasol Stars'' for the UsefulNotes/TurboGrafx16, which was released in 1991. While not their first RPG to be released, their first major success was the UsefulNotes/SegaCD game ''VideoGame/LunarTheSilverStar'' in 1993. A critical and commercial success, it was also one of the first games to have a thorough "localization". Indeed, the ''VideoGame/{{Lunar}}'' series proved to be their most popular license, being the financial cornerstone of most of their existence.

First, until they jumped ship to the UsefulNotes/PlayStation, their games were never for the more popular consoles. This was at least partly due to a reluctance to touch Nintendo due to their draconian [[CensorshipBureau Seal of Quality certification system]]. However, initially attempts to get a license with Sony didn't go very well. This is because Bernie Stolar was Sony Computer Entertainment America's executive vice-president, and his refusal to promote any 2D games, [=RPGs=], or "overly Japanese" games in America made it effectively impossible for Working Designs to even try to work with Sony, since these games were their forte. Ironically enough, Stolar soon departed from SCEA to replace the retiring Tom Kalinske as president and chief operating officer of Sega of America, the company for which Working Designs was releasing games. [[ScrewedByTheNetwork Stolar's questionable handling]] of promoting the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn in America frustrated many of the console's developers, Working Designs included. This deprived Working Designs of access to many games they wanted to release in the U.S., though they were still able to rescue some before the Saturn was discontinued. They decided to completely forgo releasing any games on the [[UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast Dreamcast]] due to their frustration with the Saturn and strained relationship with Sega.

Ironically enough, though, it was perhaps Working Designs' dedication to their fans that did them in. One game in particular which saw them hemorrhaging money was the Saturn adaptation of ''Manga/MagicKnightRayearth''. Originally announced in 1995, it ended up being delayed nearly three years. Most accounts seem to put the delays down to legal issues regarding the use and possible changing of the original characters' names, as well as technical problems. When Working Designs initially got the game, they discovered that parts of the source code were missing due to a hard disk crash, and had to be rebuilt. After relative success during the later [=PS1=] era, difficulties with Sony's approval process for the games they attempted to localize for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 (the most publicly infamous being the forced packaging-together of ''[[VideoGame/{{Growlanser}} Growlansers II and III]]'' and the cancellation of their planned localization of ''Mystical Ninja Goemon'') led to them officially shutting down on December 12, 2005, [[EndOfAnAge ending]] its twenty-four year run as a major third-party developer.

Their legacy still lives on, though. It's now extremely rare to find a translation of anything (much less an [=RPG=]) that is of extremely low quality. Most games are now translated by native English speakers, which means that they are at least grammatically correct. And while most companies haven't really mimicked their self-referential humor, it still shows up in games from time to time, notably in {{Creator/Atlus}}, Creator/XSEEDGames, and {{Creator/Nintendo}} translations. To top it all off, Victor Ireland established Working Designs' SpiritualSuccessor, Gaijinworks, in July 2006; they would go on to digitally re-release the ''Arc the Lad'' games as well as ''Alundra'' on the UsefulNotes/PlayStationNetwork.

* ''VideoGame/{{Cadash}}'' (UsefulNotes/TurboGrafx16, 1991)

* ''[[VideoGame/LunarTheSilverStar Lunar: Silver Star]]'' ([[UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis Sega CD]], 1993)

* ''VideoGame/ShiningWisdom'' (UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn, 1995)

* ''[[VideoGame/RAYSeries Ray Crisis]]: Series Termination'' ([=PlayStation=], 2000)

* ''Silpheed: The Lost Planet'' ([=PlayStation=] 2, 2001)

First, until they jumped ship to the UsefulNotes/PlayStation, their games were never for the more popular consoles. This was at least partly due to a reluctance to touch Nintendo due to their draconian [[CensorshipBureau Seal of Quality certification system]]. However, initially attempts to get a license with Sony didn't go very well. This is because Bernie Stolar was Sony Computer Entertainment America's executive vice-president, and his refusal to promote any 2D games, [=RPGs=], or "overly Japanese" games in America made it effectively impossible for Working Designs to even try to work with Sony, since these games were their forte. Ironically enough, Stolar soon departed from SCEA to accept an offer to replace the retiring Tom Kalinske as president and chief operating officer of Sega of America, the company for which Working Designs was releasing games. [[ScrewedByTheNetwork Stolar's questionable handling]] of the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn in America and his "five-star game" policy (a slightly more lax version of what he had going at Sony) infuriated many developers for the Saturn, Working Designs included. This deprived Working Designs of access to many games they wanted to release in the U.S., though they were still able to rescue some before the Saturn went completely belly-up. They would decide to completely forgo releasing any games on the [[UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast Dreamcast]] due to their frustration with the Saturn and deteriorating relationship with Sega.

Ironically enough, though, it was perhaps Working Designs' dedication to their fans that did them in. One game in particular which saw them hemorrhaging money was the Saturn adaptation of ''Manga/MagicKnightRayearth''. Originally announced in 1995, it ended up being delayed nearly three years. Most accounts seem to put the delays down to legal issues regarding the use and possible changing of the original characters' names, as well as technical problems. When Working Designs initially got the game, they discovered that parts of the source code were missing due to a hard disk crash, and had to be rebuilt. After relative success during the later [=PS1=] era, difficulties with Sony's approval process for the games they attempted to localize for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 (the most publicly infamous being the forced packaging-together of ''[[VideoGame/{{Growlanser}} Growlansers II and III]]'' and the cancellation of their planned localization of ''Mystical Ninja Goemon'') led to them officially closing their doors on December 12, 2005, [[EndOfAnAge ending]] its twenty-four year run as a major third-party developer.

Working Designs was responsible for a number of innovations to the field. Traditionally, Japanese video games had been translated completely literally and at times even by non-native English speakers, leading to... [[BlindIdiotTranslation dubious results]]. Working Designs avoided this practice, choosing instead to rewrite portions of games that made little sense without a Japanese perspective, or which were non-essential to the game's story. This included the largely unimportant wandering [=NPCs=]' dialogue in order to avoid WelcomeToCorneria syndrome. Even before voice acting was common in video games, they had a full staff of decent-quality voice actors; an impressive feat considering the generally low standards the plagued 90s games and the fact they hired locally. Most importantly, though, they were the first company to really have a dedicated relationship with their fans. They would manufacture [[{{Feelies}} high quality packaging and extras]], and were dedicated to providing niche releases for a relatively small fanbase.

They were not without criticism, though. One frequent complaint made against the company was the previously mentioned rewrites to NPC dialogue. In place of the usual trivial wandering NPC dialogue (itself usually either a Japanese-specific joke or just a vapid Welcome to Corneria), they inserted new (and frequently different) dialogue with their own brand of humor. Some of it was... a little immature, to say the least (such as turning the entire town of Meryod in ''Lunar'' into a bunch of inbred hicks ("Welcum ta Meryod! We're all family heer!"). They also referenced a lot of American culture, with the Sega CD version of ''Lunar: Eternal Blue'' being one of the biggest offenders in this regard. Thankfully, this rarely ever crept into the important game dialogue, which they made sure was close the to original intent and text.

Working Designs was a small, influential American video game publisher headquartered in Redding, California. It was primarily known for translating Japanese RolePlayingGames for the UsefulNotes/SegaCD, the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn and the UsefulNotes/PlayStation. It was originally founded by programmer Todd Mark and venture capitalist Sylvia Schmitt in 1986 as an office software developer for the Creator/{{IBM}} PC; after Mark's death in 1988, programmer Victor Ireland was hired to complete his unfinished work and transitioned Working Designs to a video game publisher. Their first game was ''Parasol Stars'' for the UsefulNotes/TurboGrafx16, which was released in 1991. While not their first RPG to be released, their first major success was the UsefulNotes/SegaCD game ''VideoGame/LunarTheSilverStar'' in 1993. A critical and commercial success, it was also one of the first games to have a thorough "localization". Indeed, the ''VideoGame/{{Lunar}}'' series proved to be their most popular license, being the financial cornerstone of most of their existence.

They were not without criticism, though. One frequent complaint made against the company was the previously mentioned rewrites to NPC dialogue. In place of the usual trivial wandering NPC dialogue (itself usually either a Japanese-specific joke or just a vapid Welcome to Corneria), they inserted new (and frequently different) dialogue with their own brand of humor. Some of it was... a little immature, to say the least (such as turning the entire town of Meryod in ''Lunar'' into a bunch of inbred hicks ("Welcum ta Meryod! [[IncestIsRelative We're all family heer!]]"). They also referenced a lot of American culture, with the Sega CD version of ''Lunar: Eternal Blue'' being one of the biggest offenders in this regard. Thankfully, this rarely ever crept into the important game dialogue, which they made sure was close the to original intent and text.

Working Designs was a small, influential American video game publisher headquartered in Redding, California. It was primarily known for translating Japanese RolePlayingGames for the UsefulNotes/SegaCD, the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn and the UsefulNotes/PlayStation. It was originally founded by programmer Todd Mark and venture capitalist Sylvia Schmitt in 1986 as an office software developer for the Creator/{{IBM}} PC; [[AuthorExistenceFailure after Mark's death in 1988]], programmer Victor Ireland was hired to complete his unfinished work and transitioned Working Designs to a video game publisher. Their first game was ''Parasol Stars'' for the UsefulNotes/TurboGrafx16, which was released in 1991. While not their first RPG to be released, their first major success was the UsefulNotes/SegaCD game ''VideoGame/LunarTheSilverStar'' in 1993. A critical and commercial success, it was also one of the first games to have a thorough "localization". Indeed, the ''VideoGame/{{Lunar}}'' series proved to be their most popular license, being the financial cornerstone of most of their existence.

Working Designs was a small, influential American video game publisher headquartered in Redding, California. It was primarily known for translating Japanese RolePlayingGames for the UsefulNotes/SegaCD, the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn and the UsefulNotes/PlayStation. It was originally founded by programmer Todd Mark and venture capitalist Sylvia Schmitt in 1986 as an office software developer for the Creator/{{IBM}} PC; [[AuthorExistenceFailure after Mark's death in 1988]], programmer Victor Ireland was hired to complete his unfinished work and transitioned Working Designs to a video game publisher. Their first game was ''Parasol Stars'' for the UsefulNotes/TurboGrafx16, which was released in 1991. While not their first RPG to be released, their first major success was the UsefulNotes/SegaCD game ''VideoGame/LunarTheSilverStar'' in 1993. A critical and commercial success, it was also one of the first games to have a thorough "localization". Indeed, the ''VideoGame/{{Lunar}}'' series proved to be their most popular license, being their financial cornerstone through most of their existence.

Working Designs was responsible for a number of innovations to the field. Traditionally, Japanese video games had been translated completely literally and at times even by non-native English speakers, leading to... [[BlindIdiotTranslation dubious results]]. Working Designs avoided this practice, choosing instead to rewrite portions of games that made little sense without a Japanese perspective, or which were non-essential to the game's story. This included the largely unimportant wandering [=NPCs=]' dialogue in order to avoid WelcomeToCorneria syndrome. Even before voice acting was common in video games, they had a full staff of decent-quality voice actors; an impressive feat considering the generally low standards at the time and the fact they hired locally. Most importantly, though, they were the first company to really have a dedicated relationship with their fans. They would use [[{{Feelies}} high quality packaging and extras]], and were dedicated to providing niche releases for a relatively small fanbase.

They were not without criticism, though. One frequent complaint made against the company was their rewritten NPC dialogue. In place of the usual trivial wandering NPC dialogue (itself usually either a Japanese-specific joke or just a vapid Welcome to Corneria), they inserted new (and frequently different) dialogue with their own brand of humor. Some of it was... a little immature, to say the least (such as turning the entire town of Meryod in ''Lunar'' into a bunch of inbred hicks ("Welcum ta Meryod! [[IncestIsRelative We're all family heer!]]"). They also referenced a lot of American culture, with the Sega CD version of ''Lunar: Eternal Blue'' being one of the biggest offenders in this regard. Thankfully, this rarely ever crept into the regular game dialogue, which was kept close to the original text, and only modified as necessary to make more sense.

The other major and common complaint was that, at least as far as their role-playing games were concerned, their release schedule ran into frequent delays. This was due in part to the perfectionist attitudes of the staff, but also due to quality problems in the production of the deluxe packaging for which they became known. Indeed, they went through dozens of companies to find one that would produce the cloth map that came with ''Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete'' at a reasonable quality and price. They became so notorious for this that when ''Gungriffon Blaze'' was released on time, many reviews of it made sarcastic comments about the situation. ''Magic Knight Rayearth'' for Saturn was even delayed for nearly three years.

The other major and common complaint was that, at least as far as their role-playing games were concerned, their release schedule ran into frequent delays. This was due in part to the perfectionist attitudes of the staff, but also due to quality problems in the production of the deluxe packaging for which they became known. Indeed, they went through dozens of companies to find one that would produce the cloth map that came with ''Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete'' at a reasonable quality and price. They became so notorious for this that when ''Gungriffon Blaze'' was released on the first scheduled date, many reviews of it made sarcastic comments about it. ''Magic Knight Rayearth'' for Saturn was even delayed for nearly three years.

First, until they jumped ship to the UsefulNotes/PlayStation, their games were never for the more popular consoles. This was at least partly due to a reluctance to touch Nintendo due to their draconian [[CensorshipBureau Seal of Quality certification system]]. However, initially attempts to get a license with Sony didn't go very well. This is because Bernie Stolar was Sony Computer Entertainment America's executive vice-president, and his refusal to promote any 2D games, [=RPGs=], or "overly Japanese" games in America made it effectively impossible for Working Designs to even try to work with Sony, since these games were their forte. Ironically enough, Stolar soon departed from SCEA to accept an offer to replace the retiring Tom Kalinske as president and chief operating officer of Sega of America, the company for which Working Designs was releasing games. [[ScrewedByTheNetwork Stolar's questionable handling]] of the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn in America and his "five-star game" policy (a slightly more lax version of what he had going at Sony) infuriated many developers for the Saturn, Working Designs included. This deprived Working Designs of access to many games they wanted to release in the U.S., though they were still able to rescue some before the Saturn went completely belly-up.

First, until they jumped ship to the UsefulNotes/PlayStation, their games were never for the more popular consoles. This was at least partly due to a reluctance to touch Nintendo due to their draconian [[CensorshipBureau Seal of Quality certification system]]. However, initially attempts to get a license with Sony didn't go very well. This is because Bernie Stolar was Sony Computer Entertainment America's executive vice-president, and his refusal to promote any 2D games, [=RPGs=], or "overly Japanese" games in America made it effectively impossible for Wording Designs to even try to work with Sony, since these games were their forte. Ironically enough, Stolar soon departed from SCEA to accept an offer to replace the retiring Tom Kalinske as president and chief operating officer of Sega of America, the company for which Working Designs was releasing games. [[ScrewedByTheNetwork Stolar's questionable handling]] of the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn in America and his "five-star game" policy (a slightly more lax version of what he had going at Sony) infuriated many developers for the Saturn, Working Designs included. This deprived Working Designs of access to many games they wanted to release in the U.S., though they were still able to rescue some before the Saturn went completely belly-up.

First, until they jumped ship to the UsefulNotes/PlayStation, their games were never for the more popular consoles. This was at least partly due to a reluctance to touch Nintendo due to their draconian [[CensorshipBureau Seal of Quality certification system]]. However, attempts to get a license with Sony during the [=PlayStation=] release didn't go very well, as Bernie Stolar was Sony Computer Entertainment America's executive vice-president. Stolar's refusal to promote any 2D games, [=RPGs=], or "overly Japanese" games in America made it intolerable for them to even try to work with Sony, since these games were their forte. Ironically enough, Stolar departed from SCEA to accept an offer to replace the retiring Tom Kalinske as president and chief operating officer of Sega of America, the company for which Working Designs was releasing games. [[ScrewedByTheNetwork Stolar's questionable handling]] of the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn in America and his "five-star game" policy (a slightly more lax version of what he had going at Sony) infuriated many developers for the Saturn, Working Designs included. This deprived Working Designs of access to many games they wanted to release in the U.S., and led to them largely dropping the system alongside quite a few other disgruntled developers.

Working Designs was a small, influential American video game publisher headquartered in Redding, California. It was primarily known for translating Japanese RolePlayingGames for the Sega CD, the Sega Saturn and the [=PlayStation=]. It was originally founded by programmer Todd Mark and venture capitalist Sylvia Schmitt in 1986 as an office software developer for the Creator/{{IBM}} PC; [[AuthorExistenceFailure after Mark's death in 1988]], programmer Victor Ireland was hired to complete his unfinished work and transitioned Working Designs to a video game publisher. Their first game was ''Parasol Stars'' for the UsefulNotes/TurboGrafx16, which was released in 1991. While not their first RPG to be released, their first major success was the UsefulNotes/SegaCD game ''VideoGame/LunarTheSilverStar'' in 1993. A critical and commercial success, it was also one of the first games to have a thorough "localization". Indeed, the ''VideoGame/{{Lunar}}'' series proved to be their most popular license, being their financial cornerstone through most of their existence.

Working Designs was responsible for a number of innovations to the field. Traditionally, Japanese video games had been translated completely literally and at times even by non-native English speakers, leading to... [[BlindIdiotTranslation dubious results]]. Working Designs avoided this practice, choosing instead to rewrite portions of games that made little sense without a Japanese perspective, or which were non-essential to the game's story. This included the largely unimportant wandering [=NPCs=]' dialogue in order to avoid WelcomeToCorneria syndrome. Even before voice acting was common in video games, they had a full staff of decent-quality voice actors (an impressive feat considering they hired locally). Most importantly, though, they were the first company to really have a dedicated relationship with their fans. They would use [[{{Feelies}} high quality packaging and extras]], and were dedicated to providing niche releases for a relatively small fanbase.

The other major and common complaint was that, at least as far as their role-playing games were concerned, their release schedule ran into frequent delays. This was due in part to the perfectionist attitudes of the staff, but also due to quality problems in the production of the deluxe packaging for which they became known. Indeed, they went through dozens of companies to find one that would produce the cloth map that came with ''Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete'' at a reasonable quality and price. They became so notorious for this that when ''Gungriffon Blaze'' was released on the first scheduled date, many reviews of it made sarcastic comments about it. One game was even delayed for nearly three years.

They also felt compelled to alter the gameplay in various ways at times. Usually this was beneficial, such as fixing major bugs or slowdown. Other times, the changes seemed designed to punish the player for not importing instead. Especially in ''[[VideoGame/RaySeries RayStorm]]'', where half the game is locked out on difficulty levels below default ''and'' the default difficulty was bumped up to higher than what it is in the Japanese version. ''VideoGame/SilhouetteMirage'' was also victim to this sort of meddling, having been made significantly harder, and requiring grinding not necessary in the original. At their absolute worst, these difficulty changes were done so carelessly and poorly that it bordered on game destroying - the most drastic example would be ''Exile: Wicked Phenomenon'', where a fairly easy game had its difficulty jacked up to the point of being near unwinnable.

First, until they jumped ship to the UsefulNotes/PlayStation, their games were never for the more popular consoles. This was at least partly due to a reluctance to touch Nintendo due to their draconian [[CensorshipBureau Seal of Quality certification system]]. However, a feud developed with Sony during the [=PlayStation=] release, while Bernie Stolar was Sony Computer Entertainment America's executive vice-president. Stolar's refusal to promote any 2D games, [=RPGs=], or "overly Japanese" games in America made it intolerable for them to even try to work with Sony, since these games were their forte. Ironically enough, Stolar departed from SCEA to accept an offer to replace the retiring Tom Kalinske as president and chief operating officer of Sega of America, the company for which Working Designs was releasing games. [[ScrewedByTheNetwork Stolar's questionable handling]] of the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn in America and his "five-star game" policy (a slightly more lax version of what he had going at Sony) infuriated many developers for the Saturn, Working Designs included. This deprived Working Designs of access to many games they wanted to release in the U.S., and led to them dropping the system alongside quite a few other disgruntled developers.

They also felt compelled to alter the gameplay in various ways at times. Usually this was beneficial, such as fixing major bugs or slowdown. Other times, the changes seemed designed to punish the player for not importing instead. Especially in ''[[VideoGame/RaySeries RayStorm]]'', where half the game is locked out on difficulty levels below default ''and'' the default difficulty was bumped up to higher than what it is in the Japanese version. ''VideoGame/SilhouetteMirage'' was also victim to this sort of meddling, having been made significantly harder, and requiring grinding not necessary in the original. At their absolute worst, these difficulty changes were done so carelessly and poorly that it bordered on game destroying - the most drastic example would be ''Exile: Wicked Phenomenon'', where what was a fairly easy game had the difficulty jacked up so high that it effectively made the game near-unplayable and put it by right by the cliff edge of being outright {{Unwinnable}}.

They also felt compelled to alter the gameplay in various ways at times. Usually this was beneficial, such as fixing major bugs or slowdown. Other times, the changes seemed designed to punish the player for not importing instead. Especially in ''[[VideoGame/RaySeries RayStorm]]'', where half the game is locked out on difficulty levels below default ''and'' the default difficulty was bumped up to higher than what it is in the Japanese version. ''VideoGame/SilhouetteMirage'' was also victim to this sort of meddling, having been made significantly harder, and requiring grinding not necessary in the original. At their absolute worst, these difficulty changes were done so drastically and poorly that it bordered on game destroying - the most drastic example would be ''Exile: Wicked Phenomenon'', where the difficulty was jacked up so high that it effectively made the game near-unplayable and put it by right by the cliff edge of being outright {{Unwinnable}}.

They also felt compelled to alter the gameplay in various ways at times. Usually this was beneficial, such as fixing major bugs or slowdown. Other times, the changes seemed designed to punish the player for not importing instead. Especially in ''[[VideoGame/RaySeries RayStorm]]'', where half the game is locked out on difficulty levels below default ''and'' the default difficulty was bumped up to higher than what it is in the Japanese version. ''VideoGame/SilhouetteMirage'' was also victim to this sort of meddling, having been made significantly harder, and requiring grinding not necessary in the original.

Ironically enough, though, it was perhaps Working Designs' dedication to their fans that did them in. One game in particular which saw them hemorrhaging money was the Saturn adaptation of ''Manga/MagicKnightRayearth''. Originally announced in 1995, it ended up being delayed nearly three years. Most accounts seem to put the delays down to legal issues regarding the use and possible changing of the original characters' names, as well as technical problems. When Working Designs initially got the game, they discovered that parts of the source code were missing due to a hard disk crash, and had to be rebuilt. After relative success during the later [=PS1=] era, difficulties with Sony's approval process for the games they attempted to localize for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 (the most publicly infamous being the forced packaging-together of ''[[VideoGame/{{Growlanser}} Growlansers II and III]]'' and the cancellation of their planned localization of ''Mystical Ninja Goemon'') led to them officially closing their doors on December 12, 2005.

Their legacy still lives on, though. It's now extremely rare to find a translation of anything (much less an [=RPG=]) that is of extremely low quality. Most games are now translated by native English speakers, which means that they are at least grammatically correct. And while most companies haven't really mimicked their self-referential humor, it still shows up in games from time to time, notably in {{Creator/Atlus}}, Creator/XSEEDGames, and {{Creator/Nintendo}} translations. To top it all off, Victor Ireland established Working Designs' SpiritualSuccessor, Gaijinworks, in July 2006; they would go on to digitally re-release the ''Arc the Lad'' games as well as ''Alundra'' on the [=PlayStation=] Network.

Ironically enough, though, it was perhaps Working Designs' dedication to their fans that did them in. One game in particular which saw them hemorrhaging money was the Saturn adaptation of ''Manga/MagicKnightRayearth''. Originally announced in 1995, it ended up being delayed nearly three years. Most accounts seem to put the delays down to legal issues regarding the use and possible changing of the original characters' names, as well as technical problems. When Working Designs initially got the game, they discovered that parts of the source code were missing due to a hard disk crash, and had to be rebuilt. After relative success during the later [=PS1=] era, difficulty with Sony's approval process for the games they attempted to localize for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 (the most publicly infamous being the forced packaging-together of ''[[VideoGame/{{Growlanser}} Growlansers II and III]]'') led to them officially closing their doors on December 12, 2005.

Their legacy still lives on, though. It's now extremely rare to find a translation of anything (much less an [=RPG=]) that is of extremely low quality. Most games are now translated by native English speakers, which means that they are at least grammatically correct. And while most companies haven't really mimicked their self-referential humor, it still shows up in games from time to time, notably in {{Creator/Atlus}}, Creator/XSEEDGames, and {{Creator/Nintendo}} translations. To top it all off, Victor Ireland established Gaijinworks in July 2006 to carry on his former company's legacy; they would go on to digitally re-release the ''Arc the Lad'' games as well as ''Alundra'' on the [=PlayStation=] Network.

Working Designs was a small, influential American video game publisher headquartered in Redding, California. It was primarily known for translating Japanese RolePlayingGames for the Sega CD, the Sega Saturn and the [=PlayStation=]. It was originally founded by Todd Mark and Sylvia Schmitt in 1986 as an office software developer for the Creator/{{IBM}} PC; [[AuthorExistenceFailure after Mark's death in 1988]], programmer Victor Ireland was hired to complete his unfinished work and transitioned Working Designs to a video game publisher. Their first game was ''Parasol Stars'' for the UsefulNotes/TurboGrafx16, which was released in 1991. While not their first RPG to be released, their first major success was the UsefulNotes/SegaCD game ''VideoGame/LunarTheSilverStar'' in 1993. A critical and commercial success, it was also one of the first games to have a thorough "localization". Indeed, the ''VideoGame/{{Lunar}}'' series proved to be their most popular license, being their financial cornerstone through most of their existence.

Working Designs was a small, influential American video game publisher headquartered in Redding, California. It was primarily known for translating Japanese RolePlayingGames for the Sega CD, the Sega Saturn and the [=PlayStation=]. It was originally founded by Todd Mark and Sylvia Schmitt in 1986 as an office software developer for the IBM PC; [[AuthorExistenceFailure after Mark's death in 1988]], Victor Ireland completed his unfinished work and transitioned Working Designs to a video game publisher. Their first game was ''Parasol Stars'' for the UsefulNotes/TurboGrafx16, which was released in 1991. While not their first RPG to be released, their first major success was the UsefulNotes/SegaCD game ''VideoGame/LunarTheSilverStar'' in 1993. A critical and commercial success, it was also one of the first games to have a thorough "localization". Indeed, the ''VideoGame/{{Lunar}}'' series proved to be their most popular license, being their financial cornerstone through most of their existence.

Ironically enough, though, it was perhaps Working Designs' dedication to their fans that did them in. One game in particular which saw them hemorrhaging money was the Saturn adaptation of ''Manga/MagicKnightRayearth''. Originally announced in 1995, it ended up being delayed nearly three years. Most accounts seem to put the delays down to legal issues regarding the use and possible changing of the original characters' names, as well as technical problems. When Working Designs initially got the game, they discovered that parts of the source code were missing due to a hard disk crash, and had to be rebuilt. After relative success during the later [=PS1=] era, difficulty with Sony's approval process for the games they attempted to localize for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 (the most publicly infamous being the forced packaging-together of ''[[VideoGame/{{Growlanser}} Growlansers II and III]]'') led to them officially closing their doors in December 2005.

Their legacy still lives on, though. It's now extremely rare to find a translation of anything (much less an [=RPG=]) that is of extremely low quality. Most games are now translated by native English speakers, which means that they are at least grammatically correct. And while most companies haven't really mimicked their self-referential humor, it still shows up in games from time to time, notably in {{Creator/Atlus}}, Creator/XSEEDGames, and {{Creator/Nintendo}} translations. To top it all off, Victor Ireland established Gaijinworks in 2006, taking most of the former Working Designs staff with him.

''"Our games go to 11!"''

Working Designs was a small, influential American video game publisher primarily known for translating Japanese RolePlayingGames for the Sega CD, the Sega Saturn and the [=PlayStation=]. It was originally founded by Todd Mark and Sylvia Schmitt in 1986 as an office software developer for the IBM PC; [[AuthorExistenceFailure after Mark's death in 1988]], Victor Ireland completed his unfinished work and transitioned Working Designs to a video game publisher. Their first game was ''Parasol Stars'' for the UsefulNotes/TurboGrafx16, which was released in 1991. While not their first RPG to be released, their first major success was the UsefulNotes/SegaCD game ''VideoGame/LunarTheSilverStar'' in 1993. A critical and commercial success, it was also one of the first games to have a thorough "localization". Indeed, the ''VideoGame/{{Lunar}}'' series proved to be their most popular license, being their financial cornerstone through most of their existence.