Enix

Enix Corporation was a Japanese multimedia publisher which handled and oversaw video games, manga, guidebooks, and merchandise. It was founded in 1975 by Yasuhiro Fukushima as Eidansha Boshu Service Center, initially as a tabloid publisher and later attempting to branch into real estate management.

In 1982, a subsidiary of Eidansha Boshu named Enix began publishing video games for home computers. Notable early collaborators were designers Yuji Horii and Koichi Nakamura, and composer Koichi Sugiyama. All three worked on the 1986 role playing video game (RPG) Dragon Quest for the Family Computer. Dragon Quest was one of the earliest successful RPGs for consoles, spawning a franchise of the same name which remains Enix's best-known product. In 1989, the parent company was itself renamed Enix and absorbed the subsidiary.

Enix would gain notoriety as a publisher for several studios including tri-Ace, Tose, Chunsoft and Quintet. It also founded the Gangan Comics imprint family, and created international subsidiaries or partnerships related to technology development, publishing, and education.

In the early 2000s, due to rising game development costs, Enix entered discussions about merging with Square, a rival company known for the Final Fantasy franchise. The merger eventually went ahead in 2003 forming Square Enix, with Enix as the surviving corporate entity.