During his time at Capcom, Keiji Inafune created plenty of gaming magic and helped develop both the first Mega Man and Street Fighter. He then went on to work primarily on Mega Man, but also on other hits such as Onimusha, Dead Rising, and Lost Planet.
He left Capcom 15 years ago, but continues to be an interesting voice in the gaming world. He recently visited the Console Game Developer Conference in South Korea and participated in a panel discussion, transcribed and summarised by This is Game (thanks VGC), where he seemed to suggest that too many sequels are being released nowadays and that developers are afraid to take risks:
"To be clear, it's not that games that continue a series or build off an existing famous genre are bad. What I mean is that only that is not enough."
Creating a game that becomes a commercial success is obviously nice, but it almost requires a sequel, which can be stressful for developers. He continued, stating:
"But few people who succeed once go on to succeed again. Success brings positive effects, but it also brings side effects. I've seen many people who cling only to past success. They cling to how things were done at that time and adopt a defensive attitude."
By daring to do new things, Inafune managed to be involved in creating several major successes. If he had only wanted to make sequels, titles such as Duck Tales, Breath of Fire, and The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (developed by Capcom with Inafune as producer) might never have been created.
"In the games industry many people have succeeded once and that's it, haven't they? How often did their sequels succeed too? I don't want to boast, but I take pride in having many representative works - not just Mega Man, but Lost Planet, Onimusha, Dead Rising and so on. The genres were diverse too. Because I didn't rest on past successes."
When Inafune started at Capcom, obviously none of today's strong brands existed, so creating something new was a given. He believes that there is a danger in getting stuck in what has already been done, because tomorrow's big game franchises also need to be created and that won't happen if publishers only focus on safe bets.
Judging by the successes of smaller developers over the past six months, such as Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and ARC Raiders, he seems to have a point. What is your view on this? Is it good that so many major games today are based on already established foundations, or should there be more attempts to break new ground?
