At this year’s BitSummit PushDustIn and MasterOfBear (Nick) got the chance to interview key members of the indie gaming scene in Japan. In this interview, the duo spoke with Takuya Aizu, the President & CEO of Inti Creates, who has worked on series such as Mega Man and Azure Striker Gunvolt.
Nick: I recently moved to Aichi prefecture and I’ve read that you opened a branch office in Nagoya. So I was wondering: Why Aichi? It’s kind of known for being more an industrial place.
Aizu: When we first started off back in 1996, everyone who founded IntiCreates originally came from Capcom, which is based in Osaka. So when we were trying to figure where we’re going to set up our new company, we were debating where to go. Sony Music Entertainment at that time took us under their wing and had us develop games for them. One of the stipulations for us doing that and working with us was that we had to build our company in Tokyo area, which ended up being in Chiba — but still applicable and close enough. But the thing about doing that is as we were building our company, we were realizing that there are a lot of game companies, who are based in the Tokyo area. So you have a lot of people there, but you also have so much competition and a lot of other companies rallying for the same people you’re trying to get, so it’s really hard there despite there being a lot of people. There are a lot of difficulties that come with that.
So we figured Osaka is basically the next biggest one with the most game companies in. Let’s say you have somebody who lives in Nagoya, for example, which is still a decent sized city. If they want to work in the game industry, they have to either go to Tokyo or Osaka. So we decided to build our branch offices in a place where these people are looking for jobs and they could still be in a decent sized city, and we have a much easier time recruiting people because they don’t have to leave their city and still stay in Nagoya. So that’s one of the reasons why we decided to build our branch office in Nagoya.
Nick: [That’s pretty cool!] My next question: In recent years, you guys do a lot more publishing and creating your own titles instead of developing for companies like Capcom. So I was wondering why you’re moving in that direction.
Aizu: The biggest reason for that was that the market for games in Japan really started to change. There started a big shift from console games into the mobile market. The sheer amount of contracts from companies to make console games was decreasing over time until we’ve got to the point where we had staff, who weren’t working on any titles. We didn’t want to say “Oh well, we can’t give you titles to work on, we lay you off”, we didn’t want to do that. So we decided to fill the gap the other way and started to make our own titles.
One of the bonus treats to that is, that we actually had a lot of staff here in the company, who really had a strong desire to make their own games. When we decided to move towards making own IPs, the motivation and morale of the company were really high because we had a lot of creators who really had a bunch of amazing ideas and really wanted to see these games coming to life. It ended up working pretty well for us just because we had so much talent [who were ready] to start building on their own ideas and make these games happen.
Nick: You also worked on the MegaMan Zero series. Have this series any influence on your current action titles?
Aizu: The people who originally worked on the Mega Man Zero series are still in the company and a lot of them are more in a supervisor-role. But a lot of people who join IntiCreates because like games and because they played titles like Mega Man Zero. And they want to make games like Mega Man Zero. So they come to IntiCreates and wanting to create games in that mold sort of style. It comes together like that in full circle!
Push: Now this is about your new upcoming title: Will Gunvolt play any role in Luminous Avenger iX?
Aizu: With Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Adventure X, this is a title to the Gunvolt series. So obviously, there’s that thread connecting it to the world and it’s all part of the same universe. There’s relation back to the original Gunvolt games, but how big and small, it’s too early to say right now. We just announced this and just get out this big bit of information, we didn’t want to kill any suspense. [laughs]
We can’t ruin the excitement by giving you much of the juicy tidbits to the story right now so your readers can have something to look forward to [laugh]
Push: Since this is a spin-off, we shouldn’t consider this as Gunvolt 3?
Aizu: With the Gunvolt main series, that’s director’s Yoshihisa Tsuda work and who also worked on Mega Man X. That’s his baby. So if there’s going to be a Gunvolt 3, it’s going to come from director Tsuda, although he hasn’t done a whole lot with it yet.
[Everyone laughs]
But yeah, anything involving a direct sequel to the Gunvolt games has to come from him. So let’s see what happens.
Push: Are there plans for a physical release [for Luminous X]?
Aizu: We as IntiCreates have the ability to soft-publish physical titles both in Japan and Asia region, so obviously we could do that and that’s going to happen. That’s all well and good. But for North America and Europe, we’re in discussions with partners that we’ve worked in the past and to see if we can make that happen, but nothing is officially confirmed and it’s still long on the works. We would love to do that, but we may not get it on the same day as the digital release. But again, nothing is set in stone yet. We’re trying our best to do that but can’t make any promises.
Push: “X” in Japanese can be used to signify a cross over event. Will there be any crossovers in this game?
Aizu: I think our director would be able to answer it best. But based on things I just heard from him saying yesterday in some other interviews that we’ve done, in his mind, the “X” signifies the most powerful and the strongest. That’s why we added the X taglines in both Japanese and English for the titles. This is the pinnacle, the ultimate 2D action experience. Like in English the tagline, “Apex of 2D Action”. So that’s more what he’s going for with the “X”.
Push: Is the title also a reference to Mega Man X?
Aizu: The director is a huge Mega Man X fan. So maybe somewhere in the depths of his brain, maybe that connection idea was floating around there. But I don’t think he done that on purpose or to make a reference. But [considering] how much he loves this series, maybe somewhere and somehow, it’s possible. But I don’t think it was a purposeful reference.
Push: Gunvolt 2 had DLC, so will Luminous X also have DLC?
Aizu: A big thought process among our creators at IntiCreates is like “Well if we’re going to do this before the game comes out, we want to put it in the main game.” They don’t really like purposely leave things aside for release date DLC. They much rather put them in the game to be the final part of the product. At this point and time, there are no official plans for DLC. But with the way it goes: After the game is released and our creators receive feedback from our fans, they’re like “Oh man, we should have done that!”. Or they may think of an idea months after the game came out and think “This [idea] would have been so cool”. Then a DLC plan comes to life. But at this point of time, there is no official plan for DLC so who knows what will happen when the game comes out.
Nick: Last year, when Gal*Gun 2 was about to be released, it was not allowed to be sold in Germany and Sony also became way more strict with suggestive depictions of women. Did it become more difficult, to develop these titles? And do you think it’s healthy for the industry to have such restriction?
Aizu: Comes to how everything comes together with a couple of different rules and a couple of different policies. First and foremost, there’s the rating system that exists to help decide what is acceptable and what is possible within this region. Then you have the platform holders and the makers, so you really have those three parts, to begin with.
In the best case scenario, you can hope for what the fans are looking for and what type of fans are in line with the platform holders, for example, Sony and they say it’s okay. But if you have fans, who want X-content and the platform holders don’t want that X-content, that’s where you run into issues.
When it comes to the game makers and the creators, they want to make the game their way and want to create the product in their image, not in the platform holder’s image. What you see in a lot of instances is that instead of catering to the platform, who has all these rules in place, they would rather make the game that they want to make and that unfortunately would just not be available on that platform.
For business, it’s unfortunate when you can’t provide an outlet for the creators to make the game. For us, a lot of games we’re proud of are on Nintendo platforms, which at this point of time, games like Gal*Gun, are totally fine there. People get used to your games on a certain platform. And then, as an example, they may say down the line that they don’t want this kind of games on their platform anymore. For the customers, that’s a pretty crappy negative experience for them. If they want something, it’s there and all of a sudden, it’s gone. “You can’t do that anymore.” And that can be a very bad experience for the customers as well.
At the end of the day, I think we as platform holders and game makers, we can work around that stuff. But the ones who really suffer the most are the customers and the fan base. The ratings are there for a good reason. You follow what the ratings allow to do. We try to work within those rulesets from the ratings the best we can and create an experience that will make everyone happy.
Push: That’s all the time we have. Thank you!
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