Keiji Inafune rather shocked the gaming world a month ago when he dramatically announced his resignation from his life-long career making employer Capcom. Whilst at Capcom, Inafune was responsible for creating some of gamings’ classic icons such as Mega Man, as well as producing and developing numerous successful franchise such as Resident Evil, Street Fighter, and Dead Rising.
In the build up to his departure, Inafune had been rather vocal about the state of the Japanese game industry, stating quite blunty that “Japanese developers are making awful games.”
Inafune also discussed at length his reasons for leaving Capcom, lamenting a ‘salaryman’ attitude which has employees doing just enough to ensure they are paid their monthly salary and not really pushing to innovate and improve. He goes on to describe the working environment as similar to a communist state.
With the parting jabs taken care of, Inafune went rather quiet – presumably taking a bit of a holiday.
He has since reappeared with a smile on his face and a new personal blog. The Google translated link provides some humourous and sometimes confusing reading – luckily the andriasang blog does a better job.
Inafune begins by proudly introducing himself as the title-less Keiji Inafune, clearly a poke at his previous corporately imposed and outlandish title of ‘Head of Research & Development, Consumer Games Research & Development Division and Contents Management Division’ at Capcom.
Inafune goes on to say that he has nothing official to announce, but when he does, they will hopefully be made through his blog. This hints at an independent development future, as any developer tied in with a publisher won’t be likely to make announcements via a personal blog.
He clarifies that he is still intent and keen on making games, and by ‘games’ he means software for consoles and portable gaming systems.
He also revealed an interest in expanding into areas such as social games (I’m assuming social network games) and online games – these are areas that cannot be overlooked, Inafune feels.
Other than game development, he hints at his passion and interest in doing movies, books and manga.
He wraps up by saying that he has managed to free himself of his ‘salaryman’ life but it would be a meaningless new-found freedom if he didn’t try and do things that were previously difficult to achieve as a ‘salaryman.’
“I’d like to challenge things that I couldn’t do during my salaryman era and greatly exceed my former self,” concludes Inafune.
Discuss Keiji Inafune’s re-emergence on the MyGaming forum.
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