Justin Stander is a game developer from Delmar, New York who made Katana Zero under the studio name of Akiisoft. His previous titles were all free and wanted Katana Zero to be his first commercial game. He started development in 2013 and worked on it for six years working through his sophomore college year and worked full time after he graduated. As the sole developer on this project and with the small development cost of $60,000 he would not pay himself much and would have to cut down costs in his own personal life. Using this money he would hire artists and muscians to help bring his vision to life. Eventually the game would be released and in less than a year it would sell 500,000 copies and generate $5 million US dollars in revenue.