Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio (Japanese: 龍が如くスタジオ | Hepburn: Ryū ga Gotoku Sutajio) is a Japanese video game developer housed within Sega (the Japanese video game company) as part of its Sega CS Research and Development No. 1 (Japanese: セガ 第一CS研究開発部 | Hepburn Sega Daiichi shīēsu kenkyū kaihatsubu) division. It is known for developing the games in the Yakuza (also known as Like a Dragon) series, which the studio is named after Yakuza 5. Though the RGG Studio logo was only officially established in late August 2011, and first used to promote Binary Domain in Japan back in February 2012, the studio's origins can be traced back to Sega AM11 in 1998, which was renamed to R&D4 or AM4 in 1999. It was headed by Toshihiro Nagoshi who joined Sega AM2 in 1989 and has been credited as the creator of the arcade titles Daytona USA and Virtua Striker. He requested his own development division during the development of Shenmue. In 2000, AM4 was reestablished as Amusement Vision, where it was best known for Super Monkey Ball and F-Zero GX. Several structural changes occurred in the years that followed. During a reorganization in 2003, the non-sports staff of Smilebit merged with Amusement Vision, and a year later Sega merged with Sammy to form Sega Sammy Holdings. Amusement Vision became New Entertainment R&D Dept. and the first Yakuza game was released. Ryu Ga Gotoku Kenzan was the last Yakuza game to be developed under the New Entertainment R&D name. Since Yakuza 3, they were referred to as Sega's CS1 team, all the way up to Yakuza: Dead Souls. The first game to use the RGG logo was Binary Domain in Japan, released in February 2012. Eventually, the RGG Studio's logo became used consistently, and the way they brand themselves and give themselves an identity of their own. According to studio head Masayoshi Yokoyama, the studio is not a company organization but rather a "concept" or a "production team". Nevertheless, the studio's logo and name have become more recognizable internationally, and the logo has been used consistently.