DCH Software
DCH Software, Ltd. (Monsilvan: 董陈侯软件; pinyin: Dǒng Chén Hóu Ruǎnjiàn), also known as Dong-Chen-Hou Software, is a Monsilvan video game publisher and holder company. The company was founded in May 1994 as Dong-Chen-Hou Software, Ltd. by three graduates of the University of Shangrao: Dong Huiling, Chen Ping and Hou Jianguo. The company was created as a video game developer, with their first games being Shadow Stalker and Haunted Enigma. In 2000, as the company was beginning to reach an international audience, abbreviated their name in Iberic languages from Dong-Chen-Hou to just DCH. The company saw its largest growth in fame during the 2000s and early 2010s with releases such as Legend of the Arcane III and Stellar Conquest IV: Galactic Conflict which have since become long-standing franchises.
DCH made its first company acquisition in 2006 with Dragonfire Studios. Dragonfire Studios was a very small video game developer also based in Shangrao. It was quickly transformed into DCH's main video-game subsidiary, with all video games partly or fully developed by the studio until the company made its next acquisition. In 2013, DCH acquired Monsilvan video game developer Leapfrog Games, which have since released games such as Harvest Odyssey 2014 and Hu Tao's Railway Simulator, being the first video games by DCH not developed by Dragonfire Studios since 2007. Later, in 2019, DCH acquired Reykani animation studio, Bláar Myndir, in a bailout acquisition to save it from bankruptcy and to expand its own presence in the animation industry. Since 2015, DCH has become purely a publisher for video games, with all video game development being done by Dragonfire Studios and Leapfrog Games and animation being done by Bláar Myndir since 2019.
Popular game franchises released by DCH and its subsidiaries include: Elite, Harvest Odyssey, Legend of the Arcane, Hu Tao's Simulators, Stellar Conquest and Photonix. Stellar Conquest IV: Galactic Conflict, released in 2013 by Dragonfire Studios is by far the most popular game in any of these franchises with tens of millions of copies sold internationally. Franchises published but not developed by DCH, such as Camel Racers are not included.
Contents
History
Founding (1994-1997)
DCH Software was founded by Dong Huiling, Chen Ping and Hou Jianguo as Dong-Chen-Hou Software, Ltd. in May 1994, soon after all three had earned their bachelor's degrees from the University of Shangrao. The name is a hyphenation of the co-founder's family names Dong, Chen and Hou. To fund the company's start-up, all three of them contributed around ¥60,000 (~₵10,000). The company originated in a small rented out office in Shangrao near the university. In this office, the company begun creating its first games, Shadow Stalker and later Haunted Enigma. The first of the two was not very successful, but saw an entrance for the company into the video-games industry. The latter of the two, however, was quickly a success in Monsilva, likely due to its accessibility thanks to being released on a console rather than the PC.
In 1997, a Monsilvan distributor company attempted to acquire DCH for ₵5 million, however the company filed for bankruptcy towards the end of the transaction and DCH remained independent. Not long after this incident, the company released its largest hit yet with Stellar Conquest: Starship Armada, a real-time strategy game.
Stellar Conquest and international recognition (1997-2009)
With the release of the first Stellar Conquest game in 1998 and the second in 2004, DCH Software began to receive international recognition as the game began being sold overseas. This also lead to a huge income for the company, but also provided the need for the company to upgrade from a 20-person to at least 150-person business. In 2000, due to the company's new international audience, they decided to create a name for their company in Iberic script. In the end, they decided to simply abbreviate the first part of their name, from Dong-Chen-Hou Software to just DCH Software. In 2001, they brought the DCH branding to Monsilva, however the company still often pronounces their own name as Dǒng Chén Hóu in Monsilvan.
In 2006, DCH acquired Dragonfire Studios, a small Monsilvan video game developer also based in Shangrao. DCH's CEO and co-founder Dong Huiling had made friends with the owner of the small business and offered to acquire it so that it could release its games, which Dong had taken an interest to, with extra funding. Dragonfire Studios was fully acquired by DCH, and voluntarily turned into a captive subsidiary which would produce all of DCH's video games until the company acquired Leapfrog Games in 2013. Games released by Dragonfire Studios in the early years after its acquisition include Stellar Conquest III: Rise of the Empires and Elite: Battlefront. The former being the third installment of the Stellar Conquest franchise, while the latter has continued into its own successful franchise.
Photonix franchise and acquisition of Leapfrog Games (2010-2018)
By the end of 2009, DCH's was beginning to face criticism for only releasing sequels and not trying to enter a different genre. This lead to Dong Huiling looking into different video-game markets to see if there was a gold mine ready to be struck. Dong saw that there was a gap in the first-person-shooter market. This lead to the company developing and releasing Photonix, an animated child-friendly first-person-shooter game, in 2016 which remains DCH Software's second most successful game after Stellar Conquest III, which was released just three years earlier. Photonix was also the first game developed by multiple of DCH's subsidiaries.
In 2013, DCH acquired Leapfrog Games, a medium-sized Monsilvan video game developer which had seen some success within the Monsilvan market. Unlike Dragonfire Studios, which makes more teen and adult photo-realistic strategy, role-play and adventure games, Leapfrog Games makes simulators and more child-friendly games. DCH Software had previous experience with simulator games, having produced Chienrú Truck Driving Simulator in 2007, which received mostly positive reviews but for comedically buggy gameplay as opposed to high-quality working gameplay. With the acquisition of Leapfrog Games, DCH had gained access to a very different audience and saw this as an opportunity to begin new franchises and retry entering the simulation game industry. The CEO of Leapfrog Games during the acquisition, Hu Tao, had already almost finished development of a railway simulator game when the company was acquired. The game was released as Hu Tao's Railway Simulator in November 2013, and was Leapfrog Games' first game as a subsidiary of DCH Software.
Acquisition of Bláar Myndir and expansion into the animation industry (2019-present)
In 2019 in Reykanes, an animation studio known as Bláar Myndir was facing bankruptcy. Despite its early successes, the studio had struggled to keep up with changing market trends and mounting competition, and eventually filed for bankruptcy. DCH Software saw an opportunity to acquire Bláar Myndir and leverage its existing franchises and saw it as an opportunity to expand their influence in the animation industry. After a series of negotiations, DCH successfully acquired the bankrupt Bláar Myndir. Since then, it has become DCH's main producer of animation and computer-generated imagery.
The company is responsible for the graphics of Hu Tao's Muddy Trailers and Photonix 2 which were released in 2021 and 2023 respectively and have been praised by many critics for their high quality graphics. In January 2022, Dragonfire Studios' animation division, which had been responsible for most of the animation in DCH's video-games franchises until 2019, closed down, with employees being relocated to Bláar Myndir's Monsilvan office in Pudong, just outside of Shangrao.
Photonix 2, released in 2023 as the second installment of the Photonix franchise, sold 2 million copies in one week, the fastest of any game released by DCH and its subsidiaries. As of April 2023, two months after its release, it is on track to succeed Stellar Conquest III, the current most-bought game developed by DCH and/or subsidiaries by the beginning of 2024.
Game releases
Games published and developed by DCH Software or its subsidiaries. DCH Software has published games for many other franchises, such as Camel Racers, but as the company nor any of its subsidiaries developed the game, it is not included in the following list.
| Title | Franchise | Initial release | Developer | Graphics | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chienrú Truck Driving Simulator | — | 2007 | DCH Software | DCH Software | |
| Elite: Battlefield | Elite franchise | 2009 | Dragonfire Studios | Dragonfire Studios | |
| Elite: Commando | 2014 | ||||
| Elite: Invasion | 2019 | Bláar Myndir | |||
| Forward Flight Simulator | — | 2020 | Leapfrog Games | Bláar Myndir | Forward Software Company |
| Harvest Odyssey 2014 | Harvest Odyssey franchise | 2014 | Leapfrog Games | DCH Software | DCH Software |
| Harvest Odyssey 2018 | 2018 | ||||
| Harvest Odyssey 2022 | 2022 | Bláar Myndir | |||
| Haunted Enigma | — | 1995 | DCH Software | Chaosinsing Productions Co. | |
| Hu Tao's Railway Simulator | Hu Tao's Simulators franchise | 2013 | Leapfrog Games | DCH Software | DCH Software |
| Hu Tao's Global Truck Simulator | 2015 | ||||
| Hu Tao's Transit Simulator | 2018 | ||||
| Hu Tao's Muddy Trailers | 2021 | Bláar Myndir | |||
| Legend of the Arcane | Legend of the Arcane franchise | 1999 | DCH Software | ||
| Legend of the Arcane II | 2005 | ||||
| Legend of the Arcane III | 2010 | Dragonfire Studios | |||
| Legend of the Arcane IV | 2015 | ||||
| Photonix | Photonix franchise | 2016 | Dragonfire Studios Leapfrog Games |
Dragonfire Studios Leapfrog Games | |
| Photonix 2 | 2023 | Bláar Myndir | |||
| Shadow Stalker | — | 1994 | DCH Software | Chaosinsing Productions Co. | |
| Stellar Conquest: Starship Armada | Stellar Conquest franchise | 1998 | |||
| Stellar Conquest II: New Frontiers | 2004 | DCH Software | |||
| Stellar Conquest III: Rise of the Empires | 2008 | Dragonfire Studios | Dragonfire Studios | ||
| Stellar Conquest IV: Galactic Conflict | 2013 | ||||
| Stellar Conquest V: Celestial Dominion | 2018 | ||||
| Stellar Conquest VI: Intergalactic Diplomacy | 2024 | Bláar Myndir | |||
Subsidiaries
Dragonfire Studios
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Leapfrog Games
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Bláar Myndir
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