Japanese game makers are struggling to find affordable commercial fonts after one of the country's leading font licensing services raised the cost of its annual plan from about $380 to $20,500.
According to Gamemakers And GameSpark and translated MachineFontworks LETS ended its game licensing plan at the end of November.
The expensive replacement plan offered by Fontwork's parent company, Monotype, doesn't even include local pricing for Japanese developers and comes with a cap of 25,000 users, which is likely unacceptable for Japan's larger studios.
The problem is further compounded by the difficulty and complexity of providing fonts that can accurately transcribe kanji and katakana characters.
“It's a little-known issue, but it's become a huge issue in some circles.” wrote CEO of the development studio Indie-Us Games.
UI/UX designer Yamanaka emphasized that this would be particularly problematic for live service games; even if studios quickly switch to fonts available through an alternative licensee, they will have to re-test, re-check and re-check the quality of the content that is already available and actively used.
The crisis could even end up forcing some Japanese studios to completely rebrand if their branding becomes tied to a commercial font they can no longer afford to license.
