Inafune to leave Capcom?

[Team Andromeda]

Aren't creative directors and designers more important?

This raises a good point - is there a site or article online somewhere which quantifies the input from various official positions in game development?

They're probably are, but they hardly ever get the credit. Who get the most Credit for the Mario and Zelda games?, Power Drift, OutRun, VF.

I would still say that the Producer is the most important role though, It really up to them to get the right team, make sure they have the budget, the development time, the right staff to get the job done.

[Flabio]

For some companies the terms 'producer' and 'creative director' are interchangeable.

In most western studios a producer is just the chap who manages the schedule, it's the studio head or lead designer that has the most input on the title. I think the Japanese use the term to mean what it does in the film industry.

[Team Andromeda]

I think the Japanese use the term to mean what it does in the film industry.

Isn't a Director a Japan-specific role ?, Just equivalent of what a regular producer does in the west. While a producer title in Japan is more like a senior producer in the West (high level management, ECT).

[Team Andromeda]

The Japanese industry is dead.

I wouldn't go that far, but its not good at the moment.

[Flabio]

To be honest, one of the industries main failings is that there aren't any fixed names for the roles at all. Different studios use completely different names for the same thing...

[Sketcz]

I wouldn't go that far, but its not good at the moment.

It's a running joke me and the purple ninja have.

[Strider]

I was just trying to get a rise out of my good friend John

I'm actually playing resonance of fate at the moment and it's the most refreshing jrpg that I've ever played.

[Decider-VT]

Bang goes any chance of Wayne being in Lost Planet 3.

Bang goes Lost Planet 3, for that matter...

[Sketcz]

Excellent reprinting of an old interview with Inafune here.

Inafune: From birth, you are exposed to your native culture and you view it through your own eyes. Japanese children are exposed to "manga culture" and the established aesthetics that exist in Japan. It is ingrained in our culture. Western audiences, especially Americans, on the other hand, are exposed to a wide variety of characters. From Spongebob to comics such as X-Men, Spiderman, and other superheroes, westerners are exposed to vast differences in the cultural products they consume and this is seen in the visual style exhibited in western games. I don't think this cultural difference is going to change, and to be honest, I don't think it should. As Japanese designers, we can still make games that appeal to not only Japanese, but also western visual tastes.

[sj33]

Inafune has been the subject of some quite venomous critisism recently, and I've never quite understood why. He is often protratyed as someone with a fetish for all things western, and trying to 'westernise' Capcom by outsourcing to western developers, trying to take a more western approach to game development etc., but this is quite a distortion of events.

If he is guilty of anything, it's that he saw the fall of Japanese developers all around him, how Japanese development is stagnating and failing to react to the changing industry. He is spot-on in his critisism of Japanese developers, and you only have to look at the how the value of SquareEnix's stock has halved over two years to see how rapidly the Japanese industry has fallen whilst western developers have taken the lead. Was it right to outsource game development? Perhaps this was a sign that he'd given up on talking to a brick wall, and certainly the results have been a mixed bag... I'd say Dead Rising 2 and Bionic Commando: Rearmed demostrate that a western development team is certainly capable of retaining a very 'Japanese' charm in a game, but this has been met with cries of 'how dare he critisise mighty Japan's developers?!'.

He did a lot of things right, and a lot of things wrong (the new Devil May Cry game isn't exactly envoking confidence), but only the most anal Japan-o-phile could pretend there's nothing wrong with the Japanese industry.

[Flabio]

On the 'fall of Japan', it's worth getting hold of the current 'game developer magazine' for the Final Fantasy 13 post morten. It's *astounding* reading (possibly more so for those of us who do this for a living) in how utterly mental their entire process seems to have been.

[abigsmurf]

The problem with Inafune and Capcom is that their policies turn "the death of Japanese development" into a self fulfilling prophecy.

Konami, namco and Capcom are shipping off more and more of their biggest franchises to Western developers or designing their games specifically for the west. If 3 of the biggest publishers in Japan are choosing not to produce Japanese styled/produced games, there's going to be a massive decrease in in Japanese styled output.

A lot of the "Japan is dying!!" has come from FFXIII and FFXIV being so poorly received. Those are just 2 games (admittedly from one of the biggest franchises in gaming) and despite everything, FFXIII still sold 6mill copies and made a big chunk of change for Square Enix. By comparison, Arkham Assylum sold around 4million.

Then there's the phenomenal success of Dragon Quest and the kingdom hearts series (even 358/2 sold 1.5million) that always gets forgotten.

Mario and Zelda games have barely changed the design policy behind them over the years and I very much doubt the next big Mario game will feature Mario hiding behind cover with recharging health. The sales for those speak for themselves.

[Sketcz]

On the 'fall of Japan', it's worth getting hold of the current 'game developer magazine' for the Final Fantasy 13 post morten. It's *astounding* reading (possibly more so for those of us who do this for a living) in how utterly mental their entire process seems to have been.

I have always wanted to subscribe to GDM, purely because they contain such fascinating insider features. Any chance you could put scans/PDFs of this article? Pm me if needs be.

[saturn-gamer]

Square Enix is a weird one, FFXII was actually westernized and a big success. FFXIII was more Japan like, but newbie friendly. And it kind of failed.

I don't really care about Capcom as much as I once did. Personally I find Lost Planet to be a terrible series. Especially part 2's design is some sort of Japan/Western hybrid that doesn't work out imo. The co-op feels tacked on and I never had the feeling I was helping others, or vice versa. Good that it flopped, as I thought it was too bad that Capcom chose to make a sequel to the lacklustre Lost Planet instead of creating a new Onimusha, or a proper DMC5. But those 2 franchises are probably not western enough. Truth is that DMC4 is among their most succesful releases of this generation. Something you can't say about Bionic Commando, Dark Void, Lost Planet 2 or most other westernized crap. The key is that these developers should stick to what they're actually good at. SFIV, DMC4 are probably their best rated games and not for nothing.

About Namco, I think they are doing a great job. I mean, Tekken 6 is being burnt down but its to me the best in the series and true to its roots. RR7 ignores any western influences and the same can be said for Time Crisis. I think RR7 is one of the best games on Ps3 because it didn't become an NFS.

[Darwock]

I don't think the poor quality of FFXIII has got anything to do with what people are saying to be honest, the situation has been dire for the past 4 or 5 years at least. FFXIII was just a few months ago (and XIV was what, last week??).