United Game Artists made only a handful of games, and two of them are the reason Sega’s early-2000s output is remembered for more than Sonic. Space Channel 5 had a 25th-century reporter defeat aliens by dancing; Rez turned a rail shooter into a way of playing trance music. Both came from a studio of about 60 people in Shibuya, Tokyo, which its head, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, filled with visual artists, dancers, DJs and sound specialists as well as programmers. In its awards for 2001, Edge put UGA third in its Developer of the Year award, behind Nintendo and Konami, for releasing “a breath of inspirationally fresh air” when other studios were playing safe. Two years later Sega folded it into Sonic Team.
Fast facts
- Part of: Sega. A wholly owned company in the Sega group from 2000.
- Head: Tetsuya Mizuguchi, described by Edge in 2002 as its “president and CEO”.
- Earlier names: AM Annex (Mizuguchi’s arcade team from 1996), then Software R&D No. 9 (from 1999).
- Staff: about 60 in 2000.
- Games: Space Channel 5 (Dreamcast, 1999), Rez (Dreamcast and PlayStation 2, 2001), Space Channel 5 Part 2 (Dreamcast and PlayStation 2, 2002).
- End: merged into Sonic Team in 2003; Mizuguchi left Sega in October 2003.
From the arcade to Shibuya
The team began in Sega’s arcade division. By 1996 Mizuguchi, the producer of Sega Rally Championship, was running a team of about 15 people called AM Annex, which made Sega Touring Car Championship and, in 1998, Sega Rally 2. In 1999 he moved to home consoles, set up Software R&D No. 9 to make a game for the Dreamcast, and took the team to Shibuya. The game was Space Channel 5, a rhythm game in which the player copies the moves of dancing aliens, aimed, Mizuguchi told Edge, at “people who don’t play games”. Sega launched it in Japan at the end of 1999 with a street event in front of Shibuya station.
A company of its own
In 2000 Sega broke its development departments up into nine separate companies, each wholly owned by Sega, and R&D No. 9 became United Game Artists. Edge interviewed the heads of all nine for its October 2000 issue. Mizuguchi explained that, given a company of his own within the Sega group, he had made his idea its name: “Each member of UGA is a creator, a videogame artist.” Its market would not be Japan, America or Europe: “our ‘market’ is the human being.” About 25 people had made Space Channel 5, and the company now had around 60, several of whom “don’t come from the games industry. They are specialists in various fields: visual, dance, DJ, sound etc.” He admitted that setting the company up had been stressful, and said that because UGA was “100 per cent owned by Sega Group”, it would “work at taking Sega to the top”.
DC-UK visited the studio at the end of 2000 and presented it as “the new face of Tokyo games design”, its offices “tucked away down a side street not far from the famous Shibuya Square”, reached by “a pokey security-pad operated elevator”, where Mizuguchi could be found “rubbing shoulders with famous anime creators one minute and DJs the next”.
Rez
In that interview Mizuguchi said UGA had two projects under way, the more advanced aimed at 2001 and “very different from Space Channel 5”, before his assistant stopped him saying more. The next game to appear was K-Project, shown only on video at E3 in 2001 and released at the end of that year as Rez. Its team included the American artist Jake Kazdal, who told Edge that he had met Mizuguchi at E3 in 1998 and been invited to move to Japan to work on the game, although he spoke no Japanese; he recalled videotaping a Winamp music visualiser for Mizuguchi, and said “that’s where the wireframe look for Rez originated”. The UGA team followed the magazine’s coverage closely enough to send Edge “a heartfelt email” after reading a translation of its Rez preview.
Rez won Edge’s Graphical Achievement of the Year award, and in the Developer of the Year category the magazine wrote that while others “proved willing to rely on boring, bankable concepts and genres, Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s United Game Artists bucked the trend”. Both Rez and Space Channel 5 Part 2, it said, “defy easy categorisation”. Part 2, released on the Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 in 2002, brought back the dancing reporter Ulala; Edge later called it “perhaps his most human title”. In 2002 Mizuguchi told Edge that he updated the UGA website diary himself “every day”.
Merged into Sonic Team
The games were admired more than they were bought. Reviewing a Game Boy Advance version of Space Channel 5 in October 2003, Edge noted that there “might not have been a reshuffle if the games had been as successful commercially as they were critically”, and wondered whether UGA’s design ethic would be lost “along with his sub-division’s name”. In 2003 Sega merged UGA into Sonic Team. Kazdal had spent a year after Rez on a GameCube prototype that was never released; Edge’s profile of him records that when the merger was announced, many of his friends at the studio left, and so did he. Mizuguchi left Sega in October 2003 and set up Q Entertainment. When Sonic Team released Astro Boy for the PlayStation 2 in 2004, Edge linked its troubled development to the merger: “It’s no secret that Astro Boy suffered pains during its conception, with Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s Sega division merging into Sonic Team shortly before he left.” The result, it wrote, “shows little of the UGA spirit”.
Sources
- Edge issue 37, October 1996, pp. 47–48: AM Annex and Sega Touring Car Championship (about 15 staff).
- Edge issue 77, Autumn 1999, pp. 34–36: Space Channel 5 preview and interview (Software R&D No. 9, Shibuya, “people who don’t play games”).
- Edge issue 80, January 2000: the Space Channel 5 launch event in Shibuya.
- Edge issue 89, October 2000, pp. 68–81, “Sega’s new beginning”: the break-up of Sega Enterprises into nine new companies; interview with Mizuguchi on UGA (the name, “a videogame artist”, “the human being”, about 25 on Space Channel 5, about 60 staff, specialists from outside games, “100 per cent owned by Sega Group”, two projects, one aimed at 2001).
- DC-UK issue 16, December 2000: feature on Tokyo and game design (UGA “formerly R&D dept 9”, its Shibuya offices, “the new face of Tokyo games design”).
- IGN Unplugged issue 4, July 2001: UGA and K-Project shown on video at E3 2001.
- Edge issue 101, September 2001: letters page, the email from UGA about the Rez preview.
- Edge issue 108, March 2002: interview with Mizuguchi as “president and CEO, United Game Artists”.
- Edge issue 109, April 2002: questionnaire with Mizuguchi as head of UGA (the website diary).
- Edge issue 110, May 2002, p. 54 and p. 60: Edge Awards 2001, Rez as Graphical Achievement of the Year (p. 54); Developer of the Year (p. 60: Nintendo first, Konami second, UGA third; “bucked the trend”, “defy easy categorisation”).
- Edge issue 128, October 2003: Space Channel 5: Ulala’s Cosmic Attack review (Game Boy Advance; Sega’s “reshuffle”).
- Edge issue 136, May 2004, p. 104: Astro Boy review (PlayStation 2, Sonic Team; UGA merged into Sonic Team shortly before Mizuguchi left).
- Retro Gamer issue 26, 2006: Sonic Team “absorbed United Game Artists (AM) in 2003”.
- Edge issue 177, July 2007: Time Extend, Space Channel 5 Part 2 (Dreamcast and PlayStation 2, 2002; “perhaps his most human title”; the group “swallowed up by Sonic Team”).
- Edge issue 262, January 2014, pp. 104–107: profile of Jake Kazdal (meeting Mizuguchi at E3 1998, moving to UGA for Rez, the Winamp visualiser, the GameCube prototype, UGA’s incorporation into Sonic Team and his departure).
- Wireframe issue 50, April 2021: Kazdal joining “Mizuguchi’s new Sega division, United Game Artists”.
- Sega Retro, “Tetsuya Mizuguchi” (accessed September 2026) (web, secondary): United Game Artists from April 2000; its closure in Sega’s 2003 reorganisation; Mizuguchi’s departure in October 2003. https://segaretro.org/Tetsuya_Mizuguchi