Spike Chunsoft

Spike Chunsoft (スパイク・チュンソフト, Supaiku Chunsofuto) is a Japanese video game developer specializing in console RPGs and visual novels. It is also a subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation (through their other subsidiary Dwango).

The company as it exists today is the result of the merge of previously separate companies Spike and Chunsoft in 2012. Notably, the latter was the original developers of the first few Dragon Quest titles.

Chunsoft was originally created in 1984 by Kōichi Nakamura, as his company for game development who was originally working alongside Enix. Later, they ended up releasing their own games since the 1990s.
The name of the company came from one of the Japanese characters making up the founder's name 中, as it can also be used for the "chun" tile in Mahjong.

Spike was originally created in 1987 (under the name Mizuki, and renamed to Spike in 1997). They released several Western games localised for the Japanese market, alongside some original games.

By 2012, both companies who were under Dwango got merged into the now Spike Chunsoft.