Superstar Indies: Understanding a Japanese Videogame Phenomenon
by Ryan Scheiding, Marc Lajeunesse & Mia Consalvo
Superstar Indies - Shinji Mikami (Top Left, Source: The Guardian, 2014), Yu Suzuki (Top Right, Source: Japan Forward, 2019), Koji Igarashi (Bottom Left, Source: NintendoEnthusiast, 2020), and Tomonobu Itagaki (Bottom Right, Source: Engadget, 2009)
Abstract
There are several examples of well-known personalities from the Japanese videogame industry leaving large corporations to start their own companies which we label as Superstar Indies. While this phenomenon is noteworthy by itself, the move of celebrity videogame producers, directors, and creators into a different segment of the industry raises several important questions. How are these new companies funded? What are the corporate structures that these new companies use? Can these companies be referred to as being truly “Independent” developers?
Through an analysis of this emergent phenomenon, this paper argues that Superstar Indies transcend the traditional videogame company categorizations of AAA and Indie. Analysis of the structures, rhetoric and outputs of this unique type of company pushes game studies scholars to acknowledge the diversity of different national systems and prompt a reconfiguration of thought regarding how we study and theorize the global videogame industry.
Introduction
On 16 December 2015, famed Japanese game developer Hideo Kojima officially announced that he had left Konami to start an independent studio in partnership with Sony (McWhertor, 2017). While this was certainly an important development within the wider videogame industry, Kojima’s exit from an established AAA Japanese company, such as Konami, to establish his own independent studio was far from unprecedented. In fact, over the past few years there has been a trend of well-known personalities from the Japanese videogame industry leaving larger established studios to create their own companies. Other than Kojima, examples include but are not limited to Shinji Mikami leaving Capcom to start Tango Gameworks, Tomonobu Itagaki leaving Koei Tecmo to start Valhalla Game Studios and Yu Suzuki leaving Sega to start Ys Net.
On the surface these decisions seem similar: a well-known designer breaks away from a large studio to create a smaller, perhaps more uniquely his own type of workplace.[1] However, closer analysis of eight such instances of the creation of these types of companies reveal that their resulting studios and actions are quite differentiated in three key ways: the type of company created, the general company vision/ output, and the role of the well-known employee within the company itself. We believe such companies could be categorized as “Superstar Indies,” indicating the rise of a new type of smaller studio in Japan, one that is performing a more outward global facing business strategy with obvious commercial intent. We argue this due to the way that they combine well-known personalities within the international game industry (or “Superstars”) with a pseudo-independent production model (“Indies”) that distinguishes themselves from both large commercial Japanese studios and small, often non-commercial doujin game creators.[2] This paper examines eight examples of Superstar Indie studios founded by well-known personalities from the Japanese videogame industry in order to examine changing trends within the Japanese videogame industry. These changes include increasing Westernization, changes to the political economic structures of the Japanese videogame industry, shifting ideas about innovation (or lack thereof) within the industry and the ever-changing position of well-known personalities. This is undertaken to answer the larger question: What is the discourse constructed about well-known personalities within the Japanese videogame industry who leave large established firms to start their own independent companies, as directed to a western/global audience?
Past Literature
Before engaging in a larger examination of Superstar Indies and their place within the game industry it is important to define our understanding of “indie,” which has developed a variety of meanings and uses that contrast with the term “independent studio.” Independent studios have typically been defined as studios that focus on making games rather than simply publishing them and that are not owned by game publishers (such as Activision or Electronic Arts). They are also usually smaller game studios, even though some such companies are quite large – the Norwegian company Funcom is technically an independent studio, despite creating such large-scale games as the MMOGs Age of Conan and The Secret World. The development and increasing use of the term “indie” in contrast is much more complex and rife with contradictions and evolving practices. This can be outlined through a brief literature review of how the term indie has been defined within game studies. There is no agreed upon definition of what indie games are. In fact, Bart Simon argues that there is no point in attempting to define or classify indie games. Instead, he believes that it is better to attempt to understand, follow, and articulate how the term is used by people involved in videogames (whether they be fans, creators, journalists, industry insiders, etc.). However, Simon (2012) is quick to note that indie, unlike other labels for games, is not a genre. Instead, the term usually refers to the provenance of a game. He writes, “To speak of an indie game, unlike other video games, is to speak, often very passionately, about the context of the production of that game.” (Simon, 2012, p.2) Thus, despite avoiding a firm definition, Simon gives precedence to a political economy view of indie game development.
Simon is not alone in the view that indie games do not have a single definition. Nadav Lipkin (2013), in his article “Examining Indie’s Independence,” writes, “Rather than arguing for a single definition of indie, this article examines the ideologies underlying the multiple definitions of the term.” (p. 8) He further argues that, “At its simplest, indie media is defined by what is not mainstream.” (p. 10) Regardless, Lipkin does not bind himself to such a limited definition of indie games. Throughout the rest of the article he outlines several important aspects of indie. These include: a nostalgia for the 8- and 16-bit era, a generic opposition to mainstream (especially production and distribution models), the existence of a subculture that strives to support the indie scene and a “strong sense of morality contrasted explicitly with profiteering”. (p. 10-13) Finally, Lipkin argues that indie movements change constantly and can be co-opted by larger mainstream sources. Lipkin adds a layer of nuance to Simon by providing a theorization of indie that is heavily focused on the “scene” aspect of indie games while also incorporating political economy.
Political economy is not the central defining feature of all definitions of indie. Jesper Juul (2014) focuses on the development of a specific indie aesthetic style in his conception of indie games. He identifies a specific visual “Independent Style” by examining the history of winning entries in the Independent Games Festival from 2000-2013. This is done, at least in part, to problematize the definition of indie games which Juul believes had traditionally referred to the financial independence of the game developer rather than to the design of the game. For Juul, this had lead to the use of “indie” as a descriptive term for games made on a small budget. Instead, Juul argues, “…that the combination of anti-industrial attitudes with modern technology is clearly visible in the visual style of many independent games. A visual style here means a particular way of representing a game world and its logic.” (section 2) Consequently, Juul provides an understanding of “indie” that is based primarily on visual styles rather than political economy. It can be argued that Juul focuses on indie games as artifacts rather than as a production style.
Felan Parker (2013), like Simon and Lipkin, argues that the categorization of indie is not so clear cut. He writes, “Indie games is not a fixed or stable idea, and means different things depending on where you are and how it is deployed.” (p. 1) This, he argues, has led to a problem where the typical indie game narrative ignores non-commercial, not-for-profit, activist, and amateur games. As a result, Parker deliberately does not attempt to define or delineate boundaries for indie games. Instead, he decides to focus on the actors who make use of the term as a way of presenting the broadest possible account. To accomplish this goal Parker engages in a brief survey of existing academic work in English on indie games. From here, he identifies four general tendencies of analysis: theoretical/ conceptualization of independent as a term, historical accounts of indie games, political economy of indie games, and socio-cultural contexts of indie games.
Clearly, there is no Western academic consensus of what “indie games” are or how they should be defined. However, this does not mean that we cannot pull out several important aspects of the way that the term has been used. First, political economy or provenance of a game is, seemingly, central to the definition of an indie game. Typically, a company must be independent in its ownership structure (i.e. not beholden to larger industry giants such as Electronic Arts or Ubisoft) to be considered an indie. This also means that smaller companies that do not engage in large-scale production and distribution are most commonly considered to be indie (although it can be difficult to determine exactly what qualifies as large-scale and what does not). Second, the design elements of a game may be used to determine if a game is indie. Indie games tend to have smaller budgets, which leads to smaller games running on different engines. Third, indie is often invoked as an idea or a notion. Sometimes a game is an indie game simply because of the scene that produces it and the fanbase that it is designed for. We will abstain from offering a new definition of “indie games” for the purposes of this paper. Instead we rely on these previous works as a notion of indie when we discuss indie games throughout our work.
However, the idea of “indie games” is only one part of the theoretical puzzle that we must address. Another key part is literature on the Japanese video game industry as both a domestic as well as a global concern. Examining the roots of the game industry in Japan, Picard (2013) argues that its early activities in the 1970s and 1980s “set the stage for the subsequent evolution of the video game industry” but at the same time “the success could not have happened overseas without the establishment of a strong local industry.” (Coda: the formation of a glocal industry) Yet much more popular and scholarly attention has been given to the companies and games that engaged with that outward or global facing focus. For example, Mia Consalvo (2016), in Atari to Zelda: Japan’s Videogames in Global Contexts, provides an overview of the contemporary Japanese video game industry and its relationship with the West. Consalvo outlines specific corporate practices undertaken by large Japanese firms as they attempt to reach new audiences. For example, she writes that Capcom attempted to pursue younger, Western audiences with games like the Devil May Cry reboot. This is far from a unique case, as the company has recently taken to purchasing Western studios for the express purpose of working on sequels in well-known franchises. Practices such as these are undertaken as a way of attempting to both increase short term profits and establish long term markets outside of Japan. However, globalization can come with certain costs. For example, Consalvo writes that in the case of the DMC reboot, Western studio Ninja Theory’s role was to:
…maintain and even increase its Western audience. No mention is made of the interests of Japanese players, who must apparently accept the changes to the franchise. Those players and the Japanese market as a whole are no longer important enough to cater to on its own. (p. 165)
This is an important aspect of game production to consider when examining why well-known personalities leave established firms. While not expressly about stifling creativity in favor of profits and global markets, the practice of farming out sequels to outside developers and dismissing or ignoring the interests of domestic markets could certainly be (among many) reasons for Japanese developers’ dissatisfaction. Additionally, this development strategy reveals a wider corporate focus on profits through expanding into Western markets. This can potentially lead to more rigid design decisions and, potentially, risk adverse game development that may be undesirable for seasoned game developers.
These risk averse strategies of development are expanded upon in Games of Empire by Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter (2009). Although they focus on North American game development, specifically within the large firm Electronic Arts, their work can also be applied to the Japanese game industry, especially the AAA sphere. They argue that there is risk aversion within the AAA game industry due to realities of game publishing where 10 percent of published games make 90 percent of the industry’s money. This leads to a hyper focus on profit, which can lead to the exploitation of workers while also stifling creative or innovative games. This is most notably seen in the normalization of “crunch time” (working excessive hours in order to meet a deadline) and the unpaid labor that results from this practice. While there is little academic research on work routines in Japanese game studios, anecdotal evidence shows a similar if worse reliance on crunch and overwork for developers. (Callum, 2016) The result of these types of development practices in most cases are formulaic games that are proven sellers and, potentially, highly stressful and exploitative jobs for game developers themselves.
Hichibe Nobushige and Ema Tanaka (2016) also point to a similar phenomenon across the Japanese game industry. In their comparison of AAA, indie, and doujin game development they write that commercial game developers in Japan tend to make more conventional games due to profit motivations. However, “in contrast to commercial game production, both doujin and indie fields have autonomy and flexibility during development.” (p.67)
This furthers the general argument that the high costs and long development times associated with commercial game development tend to result in games that are less innovative. Takeaki Wada (2011) refers to this process as “exploitation” of knowledge or experience in game development as opposed to “innovation.” (p.1) It should be noted that, for Wada, “exploitation” is a term that describes how organizations make decisions. Thus, “exploitation” refers to the use of pre-established methods to solve problems rather than the creation of new procedures. In this context, “exploitation” would be the use of existing intellectual properties, gameplay mechanics, genres, technologies, etc. instead of exploring new and innovative ideas or products. In fact, he argues, “…the exploitation of know-how in product development leads to a decline in the novelty of products in the Japanese video game industry.” (p.1) His statistical analysis uses the Fourt-Woodlock model of product diffusion to chart sales numbers in the Japanese game industry from the period 1997-2000. His analysis argues, via the measurement of linear regression, that the Japanese video game industry during that time period relied upon exploitation rather than novelty and thus shrunk during the period studied. He concludes that, “… gradually, firms accumulate know-how, exploitation of know-how increases, and products become more exploitative but less novel in the Japanese video game market; this finding is based on an analysis of a product diffusion model.” (p.11) Studies such as these point towards a growing stagnation of the AAA video game industry, especially in Japan. This is an important factor to consider when examining the phenomenon of Japanese developers leaving larger firms.
Research on smaller game makers in Japan has found a very different situation. Ito (2005) wrote that amateur game makers in Japan “can afford to choose topics of their personal concern and design their games according to their own aesthetics.” (p. 9) Studying the amateur games produced by several hundred individuals using the RPG Tkool software, Ito writes that many such users collaborate to produce games and that while most games are “crude imitations of commercial games” (p. 8) there are also games that deal with issues like bullying among children, issues of war and peace, and even games that satirize the clichés of other RPG Tkool games.
Fiadotau (2017) further investigates doujin games, arguing that they are not simply Japanese analogues of the Western concept of indie games. Instead, he believes there are important conceptual, historical, ecological and textual differences between the two histories’ movements. He explains that while indie as a concept emphasizes financial and artistic independence, a link on a broader continuum with indie film and music, and aesthetic and stylistic paradigms of its own, doujin by contrast relates to the creators’ shared interests (often as fan games), a history rooted in manga fairs, and content that is “almost universally apolitical and generally reproduc[ing] the medium’s male heteronormative bias.” (p. 2)
Perhaps inevitably however, indie as a concept and practice have made their way to Japan, with Vogel (2017) investigating how the two practices compare within Japan itself. Vogel argues that indie continues to remain fairly distinct from doujin game making, as “the main effect of the advent of indie ethos, methods, and tools in Japan is a reorientation towards a global market, and a revaluation of games as global commodities.” (p. vix)
With a growing commercial indie scene we are likewise seeing an increase in well-known personalities spear-heading such efforts. The name recognition that these individuals enjoy within the industry, and thus their greater potential to gain access to publicity and funding helps to explain such a move. However, the ways that the Japanese game industry is traditionally set up help to explain the phenomenon as well. For example, even when Nintendo works with independent developers they concentrate on those who have prior experience. According to Theo Plothe (2016), Nintendo’s Authorized Developer Application form literally warns potential applicants, that “n00bs need not apply.” The form also explicitly states that Nintendo is looking for “established game developers, or individuals with game industry experience.” (p. 47) Nintendo thereby creates high barriers to access, such as proof of previously released games and requiring the purchase of an expensive development kit. Plothe, who has written about this practice in more detail, argues that these types of practices are not exclusive to Nintendo and prevent small game developers from participating within the larger commercial industry, particularly in Japan. In other words, if you do not already have an established track record as a developer in Japan, it will be exceedingly difficult to establish yourself let alone profit as an independent company within the Japanese game industry.
Taking these works together we can theorize that there is great incentive for well-known employees of Japanese video game companies to leave their jobs to start their own independent ventures that potentially have greater global reach. Traditional studios’ focus on sequels, Western markets, and exploitation rather than innovation can potentially leave employees bored, frustrated, or with a feeling of being stifled. These feelings are not unique to the game industry (Japanese or otherwise), however, the ability to become a celebrity (within the press, among fans and within the game industry) and gain public support and financial backing to start a new company is deemed more possible in games creation than in many other spaces. Such negative feelings are only exacerbated by profit driven development that can leave creators working on the same, or similar, games throughout their careers. This would only be compounded by the normalization of unfair labour practices such as crunch time. And high profile individuals can easily side step institutional barriers such as those set by Nintendo that require proven track records to gain access to their platform. Indeed, when considered in combination, it can be easy to argue that well-known personalities within large studios have a unique combination of motivation and opportunity to leave AAA studios to create their own independent companies.
Methodology
For the purposes of this study we have selected eight examples of well-known employees leaving large AAA Japanese video game companies to establish their own studios (See Table 1). Listed alphabetically they are: Igarashi Koji, Inafune Keiji, Itagaki Tomonobu, Kojima Hideo, Mikami Shinji, Sakaguchi Hironobu, Suda Goichi and Yu Suzuki. This group of eight game industry employees are famous for working on or creating some of the game industry’s most prolific series including Metal Gear (Kojima), Resident Evil (Mikami), Final Fantasy (Sakaguchi), Mega Man (Inafune), Castlevania (Igarashi) and Dead or Alive (Itagaki). They also formerly worked for several of the Japanese game industry’s largest and most noteworthy firms. These include Konami (Kojima and Igarashi), Capcom (Inafune and Mikami), Square Enix (Sakaguchi), Sega (Suzuki) and Koei Tecmo (Itagaki). Finally, they are (or have been) public faces of their companies and are, therefore, recognizable to many videogame fans.
We have labelled these former employees as “Superstars” and the companies that they start when they leave large firms as “Superstar Indies”. We decided upon this terminology for two major reasons. First, we wanted to draw attention to the established celebrity status of the employees that were leaving their companies. The fact that these were well-known personalities made the new companies noteworthy to video game audiences, press, and industry insiders alike. Second, we wanted to differentiate these companies and ventures from those undertaken by lesser known (or relatively unknown) employees or first-timers. This was done because of the important differences between an indie company started by a Superstar and a non-Superstar (i.e. institutional access, press coverage, funding opportunities, budget size, development team size, experience).
The eight examples for this study were selected based upon our collective knowledge of the Japanese video game industry and preliminary research into the companies. For example, Hideo Kojima’s complicated relationship with Konami and his subsequent deal with Sony to create his own studio was given extensive media coverage during the planning stage of the project. However, our own knowledge/ fandom of the Japanese video game industry also allowed easy identification of other examples of “Superstar Indie” companies such as Shinji Mikami and his company Tango Gameworks. We also searched for companies that were highlighted in the games press, as that attention signalled the importance of either the developer who was leaving or the company (and perhaps game series) being left behind. Once we had identified the eight examples, preliminary background research was conducted to verify that a) the companies were created/ still in business and b) that easily accessible public materials existed (such as websites and interviews with the Superstars).
Textual analysis of English-language published interviews, marketing materials, and company websites has been utilized to answer the following questions:
How do these companies define themselves? (AAA, subsidiary, indie, other)
What are the goals of the company? (types of games, company vision, etc.)
What is the role of the “superstar” within the company? (director, producer, marketer, other)
Taken together, what can the answers to these questions tell us about independent studios in relation to the Japanese videogame industry?
Although such studios obviously have an even greater media footprint in Japanese, we wanted to investigate the discourse produced by and about them that would reach a Western audience. How were they presenting themselves to a global market? While it might have been interesting to compare that discourse with the one produced in Japan and in Japanese that was beyond the scope of this study. Instead, this analysis provides an exploratory overview of the discourse surrounding prominent Japanese game developers who leave established companies to start their own studios, while also providing larger insights into the evolution of the Japanese videogame industry as a whole.
Findings
We have identified three major trends within the phenomenon of Superstar Indies that are notable for game scholars. These are the types of companies that are created, the vision that the company puts forth through marketing materials (and the potential contrast this has with how the company operates), and the differentiated roles that superstars hold within each company.
Type of Company
Of the eight superstar companies examined, Kojima Productions, Valhalla Game Studios and Ys Net clearly define themselves as indie. Tango Gameworks, Level-5 Comcept and Grasshopper manufacture are technically subsidiaries of larger companies, while Inti Creates is listed as a ‘joint-stock company’ (a type of Japanese corporation) but refers to itself as an “independent developer” on its PR page. (“Inti Creates”, 2017) Regardless of company type, the studios have unique ways of defining their identities that problematizes simple categorization.
Another company, Mistwalker Game Design Studios, exemplifies the problematic aspect of defining these companies. Company founder Hironobu Sakaguchi (creator of the Final Fantasy franchise from Square Enix) avoids directly labeling his company, so the ‘indie’ aspects of Mistwalker can only be extrapolated from interviews and the company’s own English language marketing. According to the company’s website, the concept of Mistwalker is “To create things. To build organizations, to dare to pursue new challenges. It’s like exploring our way through the mist. Completely mystified.” (“Mistwalker Game Design Studio,” 2017) When talking about the change from a large company to Mistwalker, Sakaguchi repeatedly brings up the freedom to collaborate with the people he wants. (Schreier, 2014) Mistwalker also has a very small in-house team, with only 5 staff listed on the company web page. (“Mistwalker Game Design Studio,” 2017) While these aspects give Mistwalker an identity that appears very much in the ‘indie’ spirit by focusing on the art of making games and the collaborative process, it is important to note that the company was originally founded in a deal with Microsoft, and that all but three of the company’s games have been co-developed projects. (Wikipedia, Mistwalker, 2017)
Similarly, Kojima Productions was established in partnership with Sony, yet Hideo Kojima openly refers to Kojima Productions as an independent studio. (McWhertor, 2015) Kojima emphasizes the freedom he has, even while working with Sony, stating, “The process of creating a game and the world remains the same, but basically I was in charge of a fleet before, but now we’re a single ship. So I have the freedom to look more deeply into the process inside of the ship to make sure it’s running smoothly, and the freedom to take it wherever I want.” (Mielke, 2017) And while freedom is undoubtedly an ‘indie’ value, the freedom of the company’s founder does not guarantee that a company operates independently or is making ‘indie’ games. This is especially true for Kojima Production’s forthcoming debut title Death Stranding which as of early 2018 features two prominent actors as stars of the game, and is made in collaboration with Academy Award winning film director Guillermo Del Toro. (King, 2017) While the budget for the game is undisclosed, it is apparent from the involvement of major film industry figures that it far exceeds the budget and scope of a standard ‘indie’ title.
The use of the terms ‘indie’ and ‘independent’ to define these companies are, at least in part, at odds with how these companies are founded and operating. As previously noted, Lipkin (2012) has written that the indie game movement was primed for co-optation. According to Lipkin, “Once a style emerges and displays profit potential, mainstream forces use their resources to emulate the style of indie media production artificially, rather than letting the style emerge naturally from the economics and politics of production at the movement’s core.” (p. 16) Although they may not always be creating games that emulate a lo-fi or pixelated indie style, the language these companies use evokes ‘indie’ values, but the actual production appears suspect. However, co-optation is not the only possible explanation for what is happening with these companies and the ‘indie’ label. As discussed in the next section, these superstar indies often form companies in response to how they view the Japanese video game industry and their experiences working within it.
Company Vision
The companies we examined each have differing visions, although there are some recurring themes among them that can help clarify how these companies perform what ‘indie’ means in the context of the Japanese games industry. Three recurring themes are the need to develop games for a global market, the ability to be creative, and to stand out from ßthe current Japanese games market. All of these elements are visible in the company visions of Keiji Infaune’s Comcept, Shinji Mikami’s Tango Gameworks, and Suda Goichi’s Grasshopper Manufacture.
Comcept was formerly an independent studio but was purchased by Level-5 in 2017 and is now a subsidiary of that studio. On the company webpage, Comcept maintains its own vision, rooted in three connected pillars: growing concepts, mitigating what they call “Japan’s creative crisis,” and marketing their products globally. (“Comcept”, 2017) Comcept claims to understand the proper balance between the business and artistic sides of game design that are required to make a great game. It targets what they paint as a failing Japanese games industry as a driving force behind the company, stating “To survive, game creators have stopped evolving and instead try to live off their past glory. This is a tragedy. Japan is not drawing out the full potential of its creative workforce.” (“Comcept”, 2017) Finally, Comcept aims to tap into concepts not explored within Japan’s current games industry to focus on marketing games globally.
Given the characterization of the Japanese games industry as an inward-focused, creatively stagnant environment, the idea that these superstar companies could be considered ‘indie’ gains more ground, as they position themselves specifically against the established mainstream mold. Once again, as Lipkin (2012) notes, “At its simplest, indie media is defined by what is not mainstream.” (p. 10) However, despite marketing themselves as running counter to the mainstream through company visions and manifestos on creative integrity, these companies often produce within that very mainstream current. In the case of Comcept, their flagship project Mighty No. 9 was modeled in the appearance of the widely popular and successful Mega Man franchise developed by Keiji Inafune’s former company Capcom. Given their output, it is difficult to take Comcept’s company vision as a sincere statement of purpose rather than marketing to an audience with ‘indie’ sensibilities.
Tango Gameworks founder Shinji Mikami in contrast frames his company as a AAA game studio. According to Mikami, “Although there are plenty of talented creators in the Japanese game industry, the modern environment doesn’t offer them many opportunities to work on AAA titles. I wanted to be able to offer them those kinds of opportunities and to provide a challenge to young creators who are just getting their start in the industry.” (“Tango Gameworks”, 2017) Like Inafune, Mikami also references the Japanese games industry, but instead of characterizing it as a stagnant environment creatively, he deems it an industry overshadowed by Western developers. This in turn provides fewer opportunities for creators in Japan to work on big games with worldwide appeal.
This is reinforced by Suda Goichi of Grasshopper Manufacture. Suda’s company vision is to make games with a “signature punk style” that pushes creative boundaries. (“Grasshopper Manufacture”, 2017) However, he is very honest about the demands of the game industry on a company like Grasshopper Manufacture, and the practical realities of co-development or working on licensed games. Of this, Suda says “There are clients who put in orders that request we bring out a strong Grasshopper style in the game, and of course there are also licensed projects where the client already has some degree of a set image in mind and they ask that we hold back on the signature Grasshopper style.” (Sheffield, 2007)
Each of these companies finds themselves in some way constrained by the demands of the Japanese games industry and a purely Japanese market. Even though these companies do not always appear ‘indie’ in the most common sense of the word, they are either attempting to operate outside of the mainstream, or brand themselves as companies that operate as such. These companies are measuring their ‘indie’-ness through what sets them apart from larger Japanese companies, and specifically in the case of these superstars, the companies they used to work for.
Role of Superstar
The respective roles that Superstars play within their studios are particularly noteworthy because of the contrast between public perception of their jobs and their actual circumstances. In general, each Superstar Indie company aggressively promotes the idea that the Superstar is the person responsible for making the games their company produces. Indeed, this is a typical marketing ploy to bring attention and consumer interest to the new companies. For example, the Tango Gameworks website proudly declares that the company was founded by Shinji Mikami “the father of Resident Evil”. (“Tango Gameworks”, 2017) While Mikami was the director of the company’s first game, The Evil Within, he has taken on a different role within the company since that time and his relationship to The Evil Within 2 was called into question before the game was finally released in October 2017. (Taormina, 2017) Ultimately, Mikami was listed as the Executive Producer and Supervisor of the game, however, during the game’s development, it can be argued that his name and reputation were used to help launch the company in a highly competitive market and to hype the subsequent releases of The Evil Within and The Evil Within 2.
Other studios have, seemingly, allowed the superstars a great deal of autonomy in the creation of their games, which is likely played up for more media attention. Both Hideo Kojima of Kojima Studios and Itagaki Tomonobu of Valhalla Game Studios have likened themselves to military commanders (Kojima being a ship Captain and Itagaki a General) tasked with leading their companies, as well as being the creative minds behind the games that their companies have developed. (Mielke, 2017; Mielke 2016) On the other hand, there are also examples of studios where it is difficult to determine what are the roles, or level of involvement, the Superstars have in development. Careful research of Ys Net, made famous by Yu Suzuki, has not yielded concrete evidence of how exactly Shenmue 3 will be funded or what level of involvement Suzuki will have. Suzuki has given interviews about the game that seem to indicate that he will be working on the game, (Robinson, 2015) perhaps as a director, but examining the famous Kickstarter for the game and YS Net’s website reveals no concrete details, apart from the involvement of several companies (such as Sony) in the development, publishing and marketing of the game. (Kickstarter, “Shenmue 3”, 2017) In the very least, the involvement of these larger companies calls into question how much autonomy a Superstar, such as Suzuki, will have in development of a game made by a Superstar Indie company.
Given that only a limited number of games have so far been developed and released by Superstar Indies as of this writing, and those that have been released have been poorly received in some cases,[3] it will be important to monitor the difference between games from Superstar Indies where the Superstar has a great deal of influence over design (as a director, lead designer, etc.) as opposed to cases where the Superstar is used primarily for marketing. Additionally, it will be important to fully outline where funding comes from and the level of involvement of larger, established firms. Indeed, preliminary research shows that Superstar Indies may not entrust development to the Superstar that they market and may not be truly independent from the larger AAA Japanese video game industry.
Conclusions and Future Trajectories
Based upon our textual analysis of available sources, and in consideration of other works written about the Japanese game industry, we have three conclusions regarding the phenomenon of Superstar Indies. Firstly, labelling a company as “indie” requires further contextualization within the realm of the Japanese video game industry. While there is no unified definition of “indie games” within Western scholarship, the Superstar Indie phenomenon does not line up with what has been typically argued or conceptualized as “indie”. From the perspective of political economy or provenance of the games, Superstar Indies are not indies. They are financially tied to large corporations and follow traditional production and distribution methods. In terms of aesthetics Superstar Indies are not indies in a Western sense because they adhere to AAA industry standards (i.e. the newest technology and large-scale). Finally, as an idea or notion Superstar Indies are not indies because they are not from an indie “scene”. Indeed, they should be read as co-opting of both Western and Japanese indie scenes.
Yet, despite all of this, the companies and the superstars that head them, still consider themselves to be “indie”. Thus, while they may not align with traditional understandings of “indie” they should still be classified as such. The Western conceptions of indie game companies as being separate from AAA (or outside the mainstream) and typically smaller in staff and budget does not fit the Superstar Indie model. In fact, “indie” at its basest level for a Superstar Indie company can be understood to simply mean independence from larger firms such as Square Enix, Konami, or Capcom (among others). Additionally, it should be noted that this independence from a former employer does not necessarily disqualify other large firms from being involved in the funding of a Superstar Indie. In short, Superstar Indies may represent a move to independence for the Superstars, but they do not represent the creation of an indie studio.
This leads into our second conclusion, namely that the company visions as articulated by a Superstar Indie through media and marketing may be quite different from the underlying corporate structures that fund the games. In fact, a company that touts itself as fully independent may be (and typically is) funded by a large firm or deeply connected to other established corporate networks. This, of course, means that the companies are operating as parts of the larger AAA structure. Thirdly, we have found that the role of Superstars differs greatly from one Superstar Indie company to the next. Indeed, some Superstars have little, if any, involvement in the creation of the games that their companies develop.
When taken together, we can conclude that Superstar Indies are not indies in the traditional conception of the term. Also, when considering the works of Ito, Fiadotau and Vogel, we can conclude that they are not a part of the well-established doujin scene (in either content or production). However, this does not mean that the companies are insignificant, the same as AAA companies, or unworthy of study. Instead, Superstar Indies represent a uniquely Japanese indie phenomenon that can help in the ever-shifting definitions of “AAA” and “indie” within game scholarship.
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[1] The examples used in this study are exclusively male. This is mainly the result of male employees being more likely to be anointed as “superstars” by the popular press and other systemic issues within the Japanese game industry. There are, of course, female employees within Japanese game companies that face unique challenges. This is covered in a forthcoming article by Tsugumi (Mimi) Okabe. See Okabe, T. (Forthcoming). Rule Makers vs. Rule Breakers: The Impact of Legislative Policies on Women Game Developers in the Japanese Game Industry. Women in Games, Feminism in Play. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
[2] Picard writes that doujin games emerged in Japan as part of the hobbyist game development scene in the mid 1980s. Initially created by “circles” rather than studios, they often focused on genres such as love and dating games as well as “bullet hell” shooting games. See Picard, M. (2013). The Foundation of Geemu: A Brief History of Early Japanese video games. Game Studies, 13(2). Retrieved from http://gamestudies.org/1302/articles/picard
[3] Itagaki’s Devil’s Third and Inafune’s Mighty Number 9 were poorly received among gamers and received Metacritic scores of 43 (WiiU) and 52 (PS4) (out of 100) respectively.
