Top Japanese Designers Talk Development Problems

Thanks to GameSpot for their article covering a Tokyo computer graphics festival featuring noted Japanese game creators, as they discussed problems funding and developing innovative videogames. As ex-Sega developer Tetsuya Mizuguchi (also lecturing separately) explained: "The scenario may be good, the characters may be good, and the setting may be good [for a game]. But nobody will allocate 2 billion yen [$15 million, to bankroll development] just because of that. The graphics may turn out to be excellent, but it might be a crappy game." Yuske Naora of Square Enix explained the way that Final Fantasy games are developed, saying they "work from checking out successful examples in the past", but pointing out: "There's some sense of danger among the staff that the way we're heading [in not 'taking risks'], we may only be able to produce Final Fantasy games."