Keiji Inafune is a legend. As a young artist working for Capcom, Inafune designed Mega Man and the character took off both in Japan and abroad. Over the course of his 23-year career, he created other hit franchises such as Onimusha and Dead Rising as he rose through the company ranks.
Inafune also gained a reputation as one of gaming's most outspoken personalities due to his blunt criticism of the Japanese video game industry. He famously declared during the 2009 Tokyo Game Show that Japan as a gaming superpower was "finished." Last year he offered a slightly less dour appraisal, estimating that Japan was "at least five years behind" Western developers. His status both as a successful designer and Capcom VP only added to the weight of his damning proclamations.
Suddenly, he announced last fall that he was leaving Capcom to head out on his own, later revealing he was starting not one but two companies: Comcept and Intercept. News later broke that he would appear in the forthcoming sequel to Hyperdimension Neptunia as himself, an unusual move to say the least.
I caught up with Keiji Inafune at Comcept in Osaka. As new tenants, the Comcept office is rather spartan with blank white walls and the bulk of the staff sitting in a room that feels too large. Inafune's office, too, was empty save for his desk, a few couches, and a pair of plants. It was there that we sat down and talked about what he hoped to achieve with his new companies, how he felt about Capcom's recent moves since his departure, and whether the Japanese game industry showed any signs of learning from its mistakes.
Inafune wasted no time in reaffirming his view that Japan was stagnant when it came to innovation. Whereas they were five years behind last fall, he suspects Japan is now "six years behind, in a year they'll be seven years behind. "He believes that Japanese developers are at least aware of the problem but unaware of how to fix it. As he put it, "until they figure out the how I'm afraid [that in] Japan, the game industry right now is kind of in a sad state."
Given his status and his willingness to openly criticize his industry, I asked him if he felt he was responsible for getting the word out on Japan's problems. He denied this to some extent, but admitted that by talking about it he "put it on a few people's radars." He was quick to hold up Capcom as a company that does well domestically as well as overseas, but warned that international success isn't as simple as "throw[ing] money at a Western developer...or just outright buying [one]."
Inafune told me that in order to sell games to the world, "[Japanese developers] have to empty their glass and fill it up with what foreigners like," rather than "forcefully push[ing] their own way of doing things." In other words, he feels Japan must actively try to create new things rather than figure out how to better sell the products they're already making -- something he doesn't seem optimistic about: "That's very difficult for Japanese people to do...because they have a lot of pride."
Pride came up a lot as an explanation of Japan's shortcomings in the world of technology. When discussing the scarcity of downloadable titles from Japan, Inafune said "one of the issues is that creators, the top-notch high-profile game creators, don't seem to want to do digital download titles because they're an afterthought, like it's below them." Similarly, Inafune feels that the "younger creators" in the Japanese game industry "feel entitled" because when they grew up, Japan was on top. Now they "feel they're already number one even though they're not."
With a rush of recent Capcom announcements in the news, I asked Inafune about a few moves that directly pertained to properties he was close to. He was "very disappointed" by the cancellation of Mega Man Universe, in part because "[Capcom] kind of started to cancel the game as soon as I left." But he also saw it as an example of a downloadable title that could reach a lot of overseas users, so by dropping it "now they're right back where they started a few years ago in not understanding digital content." He told me that the recently revealed Frank West version of Dead Rising 2 was "something that I mentioned before that we should do as a company" but didn't want to talk about it as it was now out of his hands. When I asked if he worried about these franchises he created continuing on without him, he hoped the original concept behind those games would continue. Otherwise, he said, "To have it be changed so drastically or radically, if that ever does happen to one of the franchises I've created that would be very disappointing."
Looking to the future, Inafune explained to me why he created two companies instead of just one. "I wanted to actually put a concept into the creation of these companies," he told me, with Comcept being a "think-tank" that will come up with ideas (not limited to games, but other mediums such as comics and movies as well) and Intercept serving as the dedicated publisher/gaming company. He wanted these two aspects to be visibly separate, saying "if it had only been one company and I just tried to explain that in words, I think it would have been lost on a lot of people." He's detailed his plans for one of those companies in his new book, "Hits are born because of contradictions: The Comcept Way of Working."
Can we expect news of a Keiji Inafune game (or film, or comic for that matter) this year? He told me that he probably wouldn't make it to E3 next month, but hoped to have something to show at Tokyo Game Show in September "if we can get it out in time." Regardless, he told me he'd be there, and I expect he'll have a lot to say about what he sees -- as always. You can check out the full interview on the following pages.
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