One could very easily argue that there’s a “huge disconnect” between developers and gamers right now. There are many developers and publishers who feel that there’s only “one path to making a profit” in the gaming space and push things out that gamers either don’t want or regret playing after a while. In contrast, there are certain teams and publishers who want to keep making great titles and put the gamer first alongside the game’s quality. One such developer is Masahiro Sakurai, the legendary maker of Kirby and the guy who continues to make Super Smash Bros the best fighting game franchise ever.
He was recently honored in Japan for his “Creating Games” YouTube series, where he shared many views on the gaming industry. In an interview with Entax after the announcement of his award, Masahiro Sakurai noted that he feels that Japanese developers don’t need to “adapt” to “American models” of game development. Instead, they should just make what they want:
“It’s not necessarily my own idea, but the trend in the games industry is that Japanese people should go for what Japanese people like. A while ago, there was certainly a culture of making Americanised products, because various works were popular in the US. However, I feel that ‘Japanese game lovers’ overseas are not looking for such things, but for something unique and interesting from Japan. In other words, I think the ideal is to make the games the way you like them, and the people who can accept them will enjoy them.”
It’s not hard to see why Sakurai would feel this way, as that’s been his motivation for much of what he’s done with the titles he’s worked on. Then, when you look at Japanese developers/publishes like Atlus and Capcom, they’ve been crushing it recently by making games that THEY wanted to, and people have been responding to them with praise.
