Katsuhiro Harada, On Soul Calibur And Game Industry Shifts
7/15/2024
On June 25th, 2024, Tekken Producer Katsuhiro Harada made an extremely lengthy, insightful tweet. For the purposes of preservation and readability, I am posting his tweet here with some images, footnotes, and emphasis added for your pleasure. In other words, I did not write this!
- Webmaster James
The original tweet that Harada quoted:
If Soul Calibur II had a director as loyal (or better said long term?) as @Harada_TEKKEN was for Tekken Then SCII would have grown into unseen levels of success for the series. The sales have declined over the series because so much changes, and they lose old mechanics introduced new ones. A lost defensive mechanic “push block” away or towards an opponents was lost, sad to see gone. Change is needed, but the soul of the game needs to stay the same. Like Harada has done so well for Tekken. With the success of Tekken 8 I’m sure we’ll see a new entry to the caliber series. But what kind of entry will it be? A suggestion to the @BandaiNamcoSEA team: use SCII as the template: Add in aspects of heat/rage arts/SC6 aspects. Bring back lost mechanics. However be measured in this, as SC over time became to “Tekken” like. As in recovery from attacks was to large, should keep recovery fast, as that is what guard impacts were for to slow down an opponent offense. Want to attract new younger audience, Anime here and across the globe is very liked. Guest characters are key, but not just one a few provide many over time. The soul still burns.
Katsuhiro Harada:
Okay, since it's lunchtime, let's talk a little about the differences between Soul Calibur (Project Soul) and TEKKEN Project.
Before we get to that subject, you mention "game mechanics" as a prime example of how to talk about the survival of a game, but things are not that simple.
In the case of fighting games, if the arcade game market was in its heyday and the income of "one coin per play" was important, it was still the case, but in the home video game market, the only people who can reach an evaluation of game mechanics are those who have already purchased the game, and the paradigm shift in the business model of games has changed the marketing of games itself.
The paradigm shift in the business model of games has changed marketing itself in games. In other words, the world of marketing has changed to a world where the question is how to create a situation where people want to buy a game before they play it, and they do buy it, and how to increase the pre-release evaluation and the number of initial sales.
In talking about historical video game franchises, the shift in marketing and branding due to the paradigm shift in business models cannot be overlooked, and many people who have been in the industry for a long time will probably agree with my simple explanation.
On top of that, of course, it is important to evaluate game mechanics. It is important to have game mechanics that can be played for a long time, because it is a factor that affects the sales beat after the initial launch, and it is a factor that will work like a body blow in the long run.
However, it is too naïve and innocent a point of view to leave everything to game mechanics when talking about the survival of a game franchise. If they are so innocent, why did that game title that was so fun to play disappear? Where are those arcade titles that we were so crazy about? Where did that fighting game franchise with those great mechanics go? Why did that fighting game with those good mechanics disappear?
There are so many titles that have disappeared, that didn't sell despite their highly regarded game mechanics, that are literally dying (people around 45~55 years old today should remember, how many fighting games were there in the 90's? And each of them had reasonably well-received mechanics, More to the point, there must have been some titles you rated as having much better mechanics than TEKKEN!).
Yes, The fact that a series with no good game mechanics has disappeared may be on one hand, but it should not be the only reason. While it is true that games with better mechanics will be loved and survive longer, you are not so naïve as to believe that, and you understand that the world is not simple.
Especially in this day and age when there are so many choices of games, marketing is becoming more and more important as it is the key to sales.
And back to the point...you said... "If Soul Calibur II had a director as loyal (or better said long term?) as @Harada_TEKKEN "
While this is a hypothetical, it is not an industry theory, as it is also a theory of consequence.
However, after observing the industry for 30 years, I can say that in the case of fighting games, there have been many instances in which a series has stagnated or ceased to exist when a key player in the franchise leaves or disappears. and the reasons for the disappearance of these key persons are often not only their own problems.
And in the case of Soul Calibur, I can assure you, having seen it up close and personal, that this is the case. This was not simply a matter of sales and marketing, but I can tell you that the organizational changes and decision makers at Namco Bandai had a great deal to do with it.
I was one of the support personnel for the planning and debugging of SC's predecessor, Soul Edge (Soul Blade), and have since served as Co-Director for SC IV, but I have basically been in the position of maintaining a certain distance from the SC franchise.
In the past, the SC series had a strong leader named Yotoriyama1 (who was also once the Animation Team Leader of TEKKEN), and above all, the team of engineers was more knowledgeable about Fighting Game than TEKKEN, and had excellent programming skills.
The TEKKEN Project had been called "a group of outlaw", "Bellicist" since the days of the old Namco, and was a unique group in the development department, but Project Soul was an elite group, a sophisticated development team.
At the dawn of the polygon era, Namco and SEGA were leading the video game industry, and rivalries were intensifying. In a similar vein, the rivalry between TEKKEN Project and Project Soul was intensifying.
I was in the same game designer department as Yotorityama of Project Soul, but we had friction to the point where we fought daily (That was just the first 10 years, and we were very close after that. BTW, He quit Bandai Namco), and TEKKEN and SC were always rivals within the company as well. More so than people can imagine.
The two projects had different visions, different development policies, and very different ways of thinking about the brand. It is not that we hated each other. However, they were such rivals that it was not surprising to think so. However, even though they were very different at the time, they had a clear vision for each other.
Yotoriyama always said, "There is no point in putting the needs of TEKKEN into Soul Calibur," and I agreed with him.
However, our policies clashed with each other in the debate over whether it was a good thing for [A fighting game of the same company] to have "lever guards" or "button guards,"2 for example (Discussion of....Is it good that they are products of the [Same Company], yet different there?). Ah...I will tell you another time how Tomonobu Itagaki, who was Tecmo at the time, adopted a hybrid lever/button guard system for DOA, and how he called me into his office and proudly presented it to me (By the way, he and I attended the same University).
Whatever the case, Project Soul certainly had a leader and staff with "soul" and "clear vision. The enthusiasm of the game designers on site could have surpassed that of the TEKKEN team, and it was enough to make us feel impatient. If Project Soul had been able to maintain that structure, I sometimes wonder if things might be a little different today.
When the paradigm shift from the arcade market to the console market occurred, SC's console version was outperforming TEKKEN in the North American market and had a high technical reputation.3
On the other hand, TEKKEN had grown to be an immovable object that earned overwhelming top income in the arcade game market, and in home use, it was a title that sold less than SC in North America and was characterized by "wide sales in many countries in all regions. SC was always seen as having a promising future, even within Namco, and was considered to be capable of expanding beyond the realm of Fighting Game in a rather global perspective. Even I, at the time, had a certain appreciation for the hypothetical possibilities.
However, as you all know, as the industry expanded, it became larger and larger, and companies merged with each other. Bandai Namco is no exception, and has changed for "better or for worse.
As you know, Japanese game companies and the IT industry do not have the same organizational systems as those found on the West Coast of North America. There are not many presidents or directors with engineering or game designer backgrounds, and most of them have a "sales/sales" background, or are management professionals, or come from banks, in other words, people with excellent "organizational management" skills have become decision makers. This is not a snide remark, but a fact. One thing is for sure: "They are not familiar with game development, game branding, or the game community.
For example, on the West Coast of the U.S., each position has its own board of directors, but this is not the practice in Japan. As a result, what happens in the case of major game companies is that the management and operation of game companies is focused on "organizational management" and "Human Capital, Capital Available, Resources. Within this framework, game developers will do their best.
But what will be the career roadmap for game developers?
The career path of a game developer who focuses on "organizational management" and "Human Capital, Capital Available, Resources" results in "becoming a manager of an organization.
This is a phrase that many of the leaders of each part of the Ace Combat Project, both we at TEKKEN Project and Project Soul, have actually been asked,
"How long are you going to be in the field? When are you going to become a manager?" And, "When will you be the manager of the organization? "How long will you be a creator? (Yeah, that was directed at the director of Ace Combat.)"
No one in the organization at the time was asking, "When are you going to grow up to be a great game developer?" Literally, not one person talked about the career path of a game developer. It was all about management and administration, and it was true that this was not an organization that could properly evaluate the content of games and their value.
And by "becoming a manager of an organization," he meant that one should not stick to one thing forever, but should broaden one's perspective to every department, division, and business. In fact, at the time, the only way to advance one's career was under such a system.
Broadening one's horizons" sounded good, but in game development, it was the opposite of "pursuing a single path" or "mastering something.
Also, at that time, the concept of job rotation was widespread, based on the idea of "broadening one's horizons, growing as a manager leading any department or any division or business, and contributing to the expansion of the company. It was originally intended for younger employees, but as a result, it was undoubtedly one of the factors that gave rise to the trend that "working only on a specific game or a specific genre of work forever is not a career development and is not valued. Then the phenomenon of people leaving various titles and series as if they were being peeled off began to occur.
Each time a project's key players were peeled away, the big dreams and visions that the project once held became weaker. Project Soul was struggling to survive (or so it seemed to me), especially among its younger members. However, it seems that it was difficult for them to maintain their vision, will, and organizational structure now that they are no longer in the game development-centered world of the past, but rather "a game development team that is just one of all the businesses in the group companies.
At the same time, of course, this was happening to me in the same situation.
First, the company was split into a development company and a publishing company, and I became of the publishing company member, but also the head of a new department called Global Business Development, which had nothing to do with game development (none of my subordinates were in development, they were all marketing staff). This meant that from a company organizational point of view, I was out of the TEKKEN Project, both in terms of the company itself, its divisions and departments, and its budget management. This was not my idea, of course, but was decided by the management at the time according to the company policy I mentioned earlier. And while this might have put me on a career path...I had something else in mind entirely.
I made the decision to lead the TEKKEN Project despite the fact that I was in a different company, department, and division, and had no budget authority. I practically manipulated the creative and budget planning.
Why? I knew, that the soil and currents of such a large organization "just happen from Things that are happening due to delusions caused by the group mind And a head appointed solely for career advancement, with no love for that game title and no long term vision, cannot be good for the survival of the series or the fan community".
And we, TEKKEN Project, always said that "the rights to the title belong to the company, but the fan community can only rely on the team that has the will to make the game". So, from the very beginning, I decided to completely break the "rule of tacit understanding in a company".
So, I decided to continue to play the role of "TEKKEN Project leader," which was not directly related to my original duties, and proceeded with the development as an independent team "with independent decision making as a team beyond the boundaries of the company or organization" with the team members who became a separate company (this move was very much disliked by the publisher department heads must have been very uncomfortable with it. Yeah, he hated me so much).
Yes, as mentioned above, we, TEKKEN Project, were called a"a group of outlaw", "Bellicist". So we survived as the only group with independent decision making in the great tide of group companies (Now recognized as an official organization).
If there is only one major difference between Project Soul and the other companies, this is the only one.
There are many titles that have disappeared in the course of these past transitions. There are no obvious villains in that history. They are all being chipped away in the course of a larger trend.
However, I think... me and the TEKKEN Project, were Evil in the eyes of the group companies. In TEKKEN, Heihachi and Kazuya say "A fight is about who's left standing. Nothing else." ....and This line used to be my motto. I kept this in mind throughout our rivalry with Soul Calibur, and even when the market for 3D fighting games was becoming increasingly competitive, I continued to tell my team, "No matter how you do it, the last one standing wins," And this motto remained unchanged even in the midst of the major trends that occurred within the group companies (I understand that there were some board member who were not happy about it, and I received quite a few complaints).
So we were never obedient, but always a wicked group with a strong will (I've realized through these experiences that, unfortunately, I probably have a bad personality). I think this was the only difference between TEKKEN Project and Project Soul. I think that the fact that the number of members who had the drive to keep the title alive, even if they had to jump through all kinds of pressure, decreased as the organization changed, and that is one of the aspects that weakened Project Soul little by little. I am not saying that is all But it was a big factor. Happened due to organizational policy, not individual problems.
But from my point of view, I don't think the fire of Project Soul has been extinguished. There are still a few people in the company who have the will to do it. I would like to believe that they are just not united now.
[1] This is Yotoriyama Hiroaki. It may be worth noting that he was credited as Producer for the 2008 console-exclusive Soul Calibur IV, he is only credited as "Intellectual Property Manager" for 2012's Soul Calibur V.
[2] In the Soul Calibur series, Guarding is done by holding down a dedicated button, where the character will raise their weapon in a defensive position. In the Tekken series, blocking is done by holding the control stick/d-pad/whatever in the opposite direction your character is facing. Starting in Tekken 2, you could perform a guard by not touching the stick at all. In Dead or Alive, you can hold the control stick for a traditional guard, but a button will enter a Defensive/Counter Hold, where you can then input a direction on the stick. Timing this correctly and having the stick direction match the opponent attack results in an automatic punish. At least I think that's how it works. I didn't want this bit to be gibberish to anyone who came for industry insight and isn't necessarily a fighting gamer.
[3] As far as I can tell, this period of time should roughly be 2002. The home console release of Soul Calibur 2 outsold both the 2000 PlayStation 2 release of Tekken Tag Tournament, and 2002's Tekken 4. Though, it did not outsell either game by that much if the linked charts are to be believed. This may or may not be the most accurate sales data, but it's what I could find.