Back when the Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages / Seasons games came out for the Game Boy color, I was taken aback upon realizing that the games weren't created by Nintendo, but rather by Capcom and Flagship.  As Hank Hill once said, "That's just not right.  That's like a pretty girl with short hair."  Indeed.  But this type of borrowing from other developer armies is not as atypical as one might think.

Hit the link to see which of your favorite games were made by mercenary developers.

When you hear "Street Fighter," you probably think "Capcom," but for SFIV,  Capcom only did part of the work.  A developer named Dimps played a substantial part in creating Street Fighter IV.  Based in Osaka, Dimps have created a whole lot of recent fighting games and platformers.  And, ironically enough, the team is mostly made up of ex-SNK employees.  But take a look at the SFIV box.  Dimps' name is nowhere to be seen.  Uncredited work is pretty standard in the game development world, but this lack of recognition seems like Capcom is trying to pass off Dimps' hard work as their own.  Sure, any publisher looking for a developer will know what Dimps created, even if they were uncredited, but I doubt most fans would attribute SFIV's awesomeness to anyone other than Capcom.  Weak!

Some more games that were made by Dimps are the Dragon Ball fighting games along with a slew of other Bandai-owned adaptations, and all the portable Sonic games other than those on the Game Gear and PSP.  They also made the Daytime sections of Sonic Unleashed (ie: the good, non-werehog parts of the game).

Oh, and speaking of Capcom, a lot of people are looking forward to the release of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom.  Guess who didn't develop that game.  TvC was made by Eighting, a company made up of ex-Compile designers.  To be honest, most of their games kind of suck, but their shooters, such as Battle Garrega and Armored Police Batrider, are great.  And like the Street Fighter IV box, the Eighting logo is absent.

Another big company that goes uncredited is TOSE, who have been around since the late '70s.  They've created games such as Bases Loaded, the Densetsu no Stafi games, Metal Gear Solid: Ghost Babel, the Game & Watch collections on Game Boy, Dead Rising for the Wii, and may of the Square-Enix remakes.  But just like the others, their names are never seen.

In an interview between Gamasutra and a TOSE executive who could not reveal his name [do these guys fly into their offices in unmarked jets?], the interviewers asked "Have there been cases in the past where Tose has come up with an idea, pitched it to a publisher, and the publisher released it as their own?"  The anonymous exec answered simply, "Basically, that is what we are doing."

The unknown workers who keep the big name devs around

Some other shadow developers include Suzak, who made the F-Zero GBA games, Good-Feel, who created Wario Land: Shake It, and Paon, who have made several Donkey Kong games.

This is all a bit reminiscent of the early days of video games, where programmers' identities were kept secret out of fear that other companies would lure them away with better pay.  But what it really boils down to is outsourcing.  The industry is at such a competitive point that to stay ahead of the competition, publishers need to milk as many games as they can from their developers.  Instead of hiring more designers and programmers, developers get little-know companies to do the work for them, and then do not give credit where credit is due.  Shouldn't all the people who worked on a game be listed in its credits?  Shouldn't the team's logo be on the back of the box?  Talk about keeping down the man.

[Gamasutra / TOSE Interview]

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