Harvest Moon Japanese Publisher Marvelous Merging With AQ Interactive

Harvest Moon and No More Heroes' Japanese publisher Marvelous Entertainment today announced a three-way merger with with AQ Interactive -- the parent company of developers such as Artoon and Xseed Games -- and mobile developer Liveware. As translated by video gaming site Andriasang, the merger will take place on October 1, and the new company will be known as Marvelous AQL. Current Marvelous CEO Haruki Nakayama will become Marvelous AQL's chairman, while AQ Interactive's CEO Shuichi Motoda will be AQL's CEO. As AQ Interactive's stock is to be delisted on September 28, Marvelous will be the only surviving entity in the merger. Existing AQ Interactive shareholders will be granted seven Marvelous shares for every AQI share they currently hold. Existing Liveware shareholders will also receive 6.2 MMV shares for each Liveware share. AQ Interactive was the parent company of Feel Plus, the developer behind Lost Odyssey, and Artoon, the Blue Dragon creator, before these subsidiaries were absorbed last year. Liveware has worked with Marvelous before, developing a social version of Harvest Moon for a variety of Japanese mobile networks. Marvelous and AQI are currently working together on Nintendo 3DS title Animal Resort, which as of yet does not have a release date set.