Inafune: Blame culture behind Capcom failures

20 Sep 2011 at 13:18:51 by John Robertson

Capcom's former head of R&D launches a fresh attack on the publisher.

Revered videogame designer, researcher, producer, illustrator (and more) Keiji Inafune, has launched a fresh attack on Japanese game publisher Capcom. In regards to the failure of Capcom's Western collaboration projects, Dark Void and Bionic Commanado, Inafune said of his former employers:

"[It's] very, very simple, the publisher was Japanese and the developer was foreign," Inafune said.

“Even inside Japan, when you work in two different companies, they always blame each other for any small mistakes, so that's pretty much what happened in those two games – blaming each other."

Dark Void and Bionic Commando both suffered from poor sales worldwide, as well as a less-than-positive response from critics. 

Moving on, Inafune compared his experience of the Dark Void/Bionic Commando developments with that of Dead Rising - one of the last games Inafune worked on before leaving the company in late 2010.

"When I was making Dead Rising, I told my staff, 'Don't ever blame the other guys. Do your best, and just keep doing your work,'" said Inafune.

“[I've now heard that] it's getting back like before – blaming each other."

Compared to the aforementioned Western collaboration titles, Dead Rising is a major critical and commercial success.

This is not the first time that Inafune has attacked Capcom and the Japanese gaming industry in general. Earlier this year he said of the Japanese industry that "they're six years behind [the West]". 

Source: Joystiq

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