Beyond Beat 'Em Ups: SNK Has Ambitions to Become a Top 10 Publisher

Back in the day, SNK was one of gaming’s biggest names. King of Fighters and Fatal Fury were hugely popular beat-’em-ups in the 1980s and ’90s, while Metal Slug helped define the side-scrolling action game genre, and the company’s high-spec console, handheld and arcade hardware were the envy of many.

After two tumultuous decades in the 2000s, SNK received investment from Saudi Arabia’s Electronic Gaming Development Company in 2020 and was fully acquired in 2022. The investment has come under scrutiny due to Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, which includes allegations of unfair treatment of women and the LGBTQ community. In the aftermath of the acquisition, an SNK lead insisted that the studio's new ownership "doesn't affect us in any way."

Shortly after the opening of a new development studio in Singapore in April, IGN spoke with SNK President and CEO Kenji Matsubara about the company’s vision, which includes becoming a Top 10 global publisher.

Matsubara’s goal is ambitious, but the company does of course face extremely stiff competition. Depending on the definition, the world’s largest game publisher is currently Sony Interactive Entertainment, with the Top 10 also including Microsoft, Nintendo and Electronic Arts. The group also includes relative newcomers from China such as Tencent, NetEase and miHoYo.

“Setting such a lofty goal has helped me to identify the challenges that stand in our way,” he says. “What SNK currently lacks the most is development capabilities, so strengthening development capabilities will be essential. Beyond that, we can also consider acquiring other studios with strong IP, to add to our portfolio.”

SNK’s next announced game is Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, the first new entry in the Fatal Fury series in 26 years. After nearly three decades away, the new game is attracting a positive response from fans of fighting games – but Matsubara acknowledges this alone will not be enough.

“It will be necessary for us to develop titles in various genres and release multiple titles every year,” he says. “We are also working on genres other than fighting games. We are planning not only action games that utilize SNK’s legacy IP, but also action games that are brand new, and we hope to start releasing these over the next few years.”

Matsubara joined SNK in July 2021. In the three years since, he has made significant changes, strengthening the company’s development, sales and publishing divisions. Headquartered in Osaka, the company also opened new development studios in Tokyo and, most recently, Singapore, with another studio already open in Beijing. Last year, its Osaka HQ changed location as well, leaving its longtime home for a larger, more centrally located office close to Shin-Osaka bullet train station. In terms of marketing and sales, Matsubara has increased the company’s focus from Asia to include more proactive efforts in the West.

As a geographically central location in Southeast Asia with a high level of English proficiency, stable economy and growing pool of tech talent, Singapore is becoming one of Southeast Asia’s most prominent locations for game development. In recent years, companies such as Ubisoft, Electronic arts and Bandai Namco have opened offices there, while locally developed indie games such as Cuisineer and Let’s Build a Zoo are taking Singapore’s soft-power culture to the world. Gaming peripheral makers such as Razer and Secretlab, too, have built a strong reputation for the country, while gamescom spinoff event gamescom asia has been held there for several years.

As we spoke with Matsubara shortly after the opening of SNK’s new Singapore studio, we asked the reasons behind this choice of location.

“When I joined SNK, we only had studios in Osaka and Beijing,” he says. “We soon set up a Tokyo studio, but we felt we needed to increase the number of studios and work on strengthening our development capabilities. When we look to Asia, Singapore is the most attractive place. Engineers there are knowledgeable about generative AI and machine learning, which have been attracting attention in recent years, and they are interested in joining the videogame industry. So Singapore felt ideally suited for game development.”

Each of these studios undertake different tasks while also collaborating on certain projects. While the Singapore studio finds its feet, it has been twinned with the Tokyo studio, while also taking advantage of local knowhow to contribute development research to the group as a whole.

“For now, the Singapore studio and the Tokyo studio work together closely, holding regular meetings and collaborating on title development. In the future, I would like the Singapore studio to become a standalone studio, and to develop AAA titles as a hub studio for Southeast Asia.”

Matsubara also explained that the Singapore studio has a strong R&D focus, particularly in the fields of generative AI and machine learning, which will feed back into the rest of the SNK group.

SNK also has sales bases in China, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. But even with all of these new development and sales offices, the company’s plans for expansion continue to unfold. As SNK works towards its goals, it plans to eventually either open outposts in North America and Europe, or to build partnerships in those regions with other companies.

While SNK has a very long way to go to realize its aspirations of cracking the global Top 10 publishers, it is clearly no longer just a Japanese company. By embracing a multicultural approach and dabbling in new genres, there’s a good chance it will release some cool games. That in itself will be an important first step in once again making SNK a household name.

Daniel Robson is Chief Editor at IGN Japan and is on Twitter here.