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The Biggest Game Dev You've Never Heard Of

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the busy-little-ninjas dept.

simoniker writes "Japan-based game developer Tose has 1,000 employees, and has created 1,100 game SKUs since 1979 (including Final Fantasy GBA versions, though they can't mention it in this interview!), but they're basically unknown, because they're 'game development ninjas', and 'refuse to put [their] names on the game'. Odd stuff."

6 of 85 comments (clear)

  1. Japanese vs American attitudes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's interesting to see the difference between Japanese and American attitudes here. Whereas Activision was founded primarily so that individual devs could get credit for their games, the biggest game development company, which is Japanese, doesn't even put it's name on games.

  2. Not that unusual by nuggz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It sounds like a funny answer, but really it isn't that unusual.

    It's surprising how much is available when you just ask the right way.

    Being at the right place at the right time and simply asking "can I help out" can really get you places.

  3. Credits by Hangeron · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I saw a quote related to this recently. I don't remember the exact words but the gist of it was that a team gets much more done when they don't have to care about who gets the credit.

    I really think it can help a lot in making the team feel more like a unit and reduce work related stress.

  4. Re:Scary by hal2814 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's all a matter of perspective. I used to work construction and I can tell you that I'd much rather spend my day in a cubicle than framing houses or pouring concrete. Fortunately, I have an office now but there are far worse fates than getting a cubicle for a workspace.

  5. Second best response ever by adavies42 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    GS: And you work across all tools?

    SC: Pretty much. And everything we use is legally licensed, even in China.

    --
    Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
    -kfg
  6. Re:Scary by LooseIsNotLose · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Not a very forward thinking professor, then. I am a programmer by trade, and my Oracle cubicle is about to be given away because I'm never there. With my (company) laptop, I can do my job anywhere--at home in my PJs, in the local coffee shop, or while visiting relatives in Alaska. How many jobs give you this level of freedom for a decent wage and benefits?

    To be fair, the first time I was a CS major in the early 90s, I didn't really see where the Internet wave was going to take us, myself. Sure, I'd been online since 1983, but somehow it never seemed real to me that I would truly be able to telecommute like this. When I went back to school in the late 90s, I had missed the crest of the wave, when many were able to get rich for doing almost nothing, but I now had the attainable goal in mind of finding a non-geographically-fixed job.

    I recently re-watched James Burke's The Day the Universe Changed, made in 1985, and found it a little eerie how well he described my current working conditions in the first episode.