Grasshopper Manufacture Inc. (株式会社グラスホッパー・マニファクチュア) is a Japanese video game developer founded on March 30, 1998 by Goichi Suda. They are well known for creating titles such as killer7 and the No More Heroes series.
History
The company was founded on March 30, 1998 in Suginami, Japan. Its founder, Goichi Suda, gave two reasons why he chose the name "Grasshopper:" The first being a reference to the song of the same name by UK band Ride, which he was listening to on repeat when forming the company.[2] The second reason is that, originally, he wanted to use the Japanese word "battamon" as the company’s name. "Batta" means "grasshopper" and "mon" is "a thing", and when the words are put together, it means "copy" or "fake". However, he later changed his mind and stuck to Grasshopper instead. The word "Manufacture" was added in because his game company was about "building things."[3]
Headed by Suda, GhM were responsible for several original titles, ones that are also fraught with financial risk, but ultimately gained international mainstream attention in 2005 for the GameCube and PlayStation 2