Industry legend Keiji Inafune has become a bit infamous for his harsh criticisms of the Japanese game business, and in Gamasutra's
latest feature interview, the Capcom veteran and
Mega Man creator explained that many Japanese companies suffer because they don’t operate under a single "creative vision."
"A lot of companies, if you look at them today, they'll be like, 'Oh, Okay. How do we monetize? Where's the money to be made? What are we giving the consumers that they want?' They don't really have a creative vision for what to build a game around," he said.
At his own studios, Comcept and Intercept, Inafune hopes to avoid this problem by establishing a clear creative goal for his teams, which will help ensure that all development efforts go towards realizing that vision.
"We have this creative concept, and that's what we're going to build our IP around. We're not going to focus it necessarily on the money... We're not going to focus it necessarily on what exactly the people want. This is going to be our vision and what we're going to stick to it."
The real trick, he says, is to establish a sense of leadership -- otherwise, a development team won't have anyone to keep their projects focused and on track.
"If you look at other companies, they may have a president, they may have producers and directors, but these guys sometimes don't really understand. In the end, you can't say whose game it was that they made. They're not really unified as a company under a single person's vision."
"All the people that work for me understand how to follow and how to iterate and execute on that concept. So, we're just a unified team moving forward versus some people being political, some people pretending to be a producer and not really having a true skill to do it, and not really having a vision, or whatever. We are a unified single unit."
The full interview, in which Inafune details his plans for improving the state of Japanese game development, is
live now on Gamasutra.
