Monotype accused of overcharging Japanese devs for Japanese language fonts
Commercial font service company Fontworks is gradually terminating provisions of licenses that originally cost around $380 a year for Japanese developers. Now, Fontworks' new US-owned parent company Monotype is charging $20,500 a year for the new plan.
As reported by Gamemakers and Game*Spark, and translated by Automaton, this started when Fontworks discontinued its Leading Edge Type Solution plan (LETS) on November 28. In short, the plan allowed developers to integrate Japanese font families, also known as typefaces, into their game builds for around 60,000 yen.
Some notable examples include Atlus with Persona 5 and Etrian Odyssey V, Capcom with Monster Hunter Ultimate, and Type-Moon with Fate/Grand Order.
Now, according to the Monotype site, the standard yearly plan has a cost of $20,500, which is roughly 3.2 million yen. Moreover, the plan can apply to up to 5 applications, but each app can only have "an aggregate of up to 25k registered users."
In summary, as of November 28, Fontworks has ceased supporting further extensions of the LETS license, and it will now be redirecting all existing subscriptions to Monotype's own fonts service.
US-based company Monotype acquired Fontworks in late 2023Monotype acquired Fontworks back in September 2023, which has been one of the most renowned companies for typefaces in the Japanese game industry.
According to Japanese web and UI/UX designer Yamanaka, who's worked on Attack on Titan VR and Soul Covenant, developers of ongoing live-service games are poised to be substantially affected by the service change. If they decide to switch to a different company, for example, this will require redoing the font integration, which would result in another QA pass and a re-release, something that can be especially taxing for games like Fate/Grand Order, which have been running for over ten years now. A change of fonts can also mean a change across branding, too.
As Game*Spark points out, via RPG Site, some of the alternatives include Mojimo Game, which is currently available in Japan for 5,280 yen per year (around $34). But these services are primarily targeted at independent developers, as the subscription is exclusively available to individuals and doesn't apply to corporations. Moreover, Mojimo is also managed by Fontworks.
Alwei, CEO of development studio Indie-US Games, commented that "this is a little-known issue, but it's become a huge problem in some circles." After receiving the quote for renewing their license, the company decided to switch to DynaFont instead.
