Irem

Also known as Irem Software Engineering, it is a video game developing corporation founded in 1974 that published arcade games. It was acquired by Eizo in 1980 and began developing video games in 1997 when its former parent company, Irem Software Engineering, moved to making coin-operated slot machine games. It was famous for game series like the R-Type series as well as other games including Moon Patrol and Kung Fu Master. However, the 2011 earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan disrupted the work flow there, and the company axed the video game projects it was working on and moved to slot machine and coin-operated games. Some of the staff there, including producer Kazuma Kojo, left the corporation to found a new video game corporation, Granzella.