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Obviously, they were the three key individuals, so obviously it was a very important component to Clover, but in any organization -- especially a company like Capcom that is coming up on its 30th anniversary -- reinvents itself over and over again. [Keiji] Inafune-san who is now the head of our R&D teams, when Capcom started he was very much a junior level person within the organization. So we've grown internal talent very much in terms of evolving the development teams as well. I think it's a good balance we need to have between keeping certain individuals versus continuing to grow and evolve the organization. GS: Do you see Capcom creating other studios in the same vein as Clover or is that a failed experiment at this point? CB: Well that's looking a little into the crystal ball at this moment. I think you never say never about anything but I do think the structure we have – we don't have seperate delegated teams, we have one big team – is a great way to cross-pollinate skill sets across the whole organization, and also learning curves. So, for example, some of the team that worked on Clover titles are now helping Takeuchi-san on Resident Evil 5, helping Inafune-san on a new title for the Wii, so I think it's very much the skill set still stays in the company when those individuals stay and, unfortunately, three individuals chose to leave. I think the structure Capcom's got in Japan is unique, it allows a cross-pollination between teams, a shared skillset that various games from various teams and different individuals can work on. We're balancing that with external development talent in the West and in Japan as well when we do have dedicated teams we're working with. In essence, at the end of the day, Capcom will always have a balance between different types of organizational structures. GS: You mentioned a new title for the Wii. What are Capcom's plans for the Wii and the PlayStation 3 going forward? CB: I would love to give you my product lineup for the next five years, but... *laughs*. Obviously you saw Inafune-san mention we are developing a new title for the Wii platform. I will say we are developing a cross-support for all major platforms that are out there at the moment -- the ones that have shipped for a while and the ones that recently shipped. We will be making announcements in the coming months as to what these different titles are. GS: Are the games being developed for the Wii going to be exclusives or re-imagined ports from other platforms? CB: It's a good question... Capcom has to balance its content between some of its established brands that may come over to different platforms – obviously we have a track record there with Resident Evil 4 from Gamecube to PS2. We also have a track record of focusing key franchises on specific platforms such as the Devil May Cry brand. Also we're launching new IPs on new platforms such as Dead Rising and Lost Planet. At the end of the day all I will say is there is a continuation of that same strategy of a mixture of strategies on each platform and with the different brands we've got.
GS: Do you feel it's harder for a Japanese company to sell games in the current U.S. gaming market? CB: No. Not for Capcom. GS: For Japanese companies in general? Well, although I spent six years at Sega, I can't really speak about other companies at the moment. My perception on the globalization, I suppose, of the industry – this is my third Japanese company I've worked for – I think Game Informer had an article on this about three or four months ago on what it's like to work for Japanese companies. I've always felt that the challenges of working for any company in terms of suceeding between development and marketing to have successful titles is not one of distance within an organization, it is not one of differences in languages within an organization, and it is not one of different cultures within an organization, but it is an issue of mindset between the key individuals within an organization. If you have an understanding of how to integrate the development talent with the marketing talent, the understandings of markets outside of your own home territory, with a willingness by marketing to accept creative visions of the developers we've got, and alternatively, a willingness by the development teams to accept that the marketing individuals have an important component in the development products, then you make successful products. GS: How different is it marketing a game that might have more Eastern influence for a Western audience? There are interesting ones, certainly – and I can't speak for other Japanese publishers – but for Capcom there are three things we focus in on on marketing our titles in the West. The first one is stay true to the creative talent – stay true to the vision that the developers and producers and art directors have got for their titles. The second one is being relevant to the market you're selling to – understand who is your consumer both pre- and post-ship. Pre-ship is basically really giving the information to the development talent so they understand who will be playing and buying the games they are creating. The third area, essentially, what's happening now, is engaging with the consumer on a one-to-one basis. The philosophy that Capcom has behind this is instilling an idea within the consumer's mind and within the community out there that they're part of the development process. I'll give you some examples there: Though the Lost Planet demos that were out we were able to address specific issues the consumer had, but also with marketing programs, again with Lost Planet, we issued, about four months before the game shipped, a bunch of different creative assets online to allow consumers to create their own fan site for the game. Everything from logos to videos to soundtracks to art files, we put a ton of stuff online. We basically gave it away without any need to sign an agreement or contract with us – you can take our assets and create your own fansite. What we then did, a month before the game shipped, se selected the top three fansites that were created for lost planet, we printed [the URLs] for those top three in the manual itself. So we actually wanted to inspire the consumer that they can be part of the Lost Planet experience and the Lost Planet game itself -- create your own fansites and we'll actually promote it inside the manual. The third area is all about having that connection, that direct connection with consumers so that consumers can feel they're part of the development process. GS: How much of that connection is organic – from actual consumer interest in the game -- and how much can be manufactured on the part of the company. Would there have been any interest in these fan site kits, for instance, if they weren't already interested in the game. CB: It's an interesting question, and there are two ways to answer it. The first angle is you can never manufacture a false community. I'll give you an example: there was a certain company before Christmas that did a viral campaign that they said was consumers making content about their product. Ultimately, at the end of the day, it was proven that that content was actually done by an agency on behalf of the company. That questioned their credibility in terms of their community programs. Whereas our philosophy is to give the tools, the information and the communication with the consumer and the community to allow them to do what they like and not actually create that false programs and artificially manufacture community. I think the key difference here is, if you have some content or a game that inspires consumers with a brand they want to be associate with, the community will develop in its own way. I'll give an example: With Okami and Godhand, which were both Clover studios games, we did not change the marketing strategy at all. It was completely based on the creative vision of the team in Japan -- so much so that, taking Godhand as an example, we didn't change the packaging; we did exactly what the creative team in Japan wanted to do. Same with Okami, the team created the packaging and the community for those games, particularly for Okami, has developed in its own organic way. Lost Planet obviously has more marketing behind it, but I think the bedrock with Lost Planet was engaging with the consumer early enough with content they could play for free, give them a communication channel to be part of the marketing while the game is in development,and they rewarded us by creating their own fan sites, having their own community and having a conversation with their peers about the Lost Planet games experience. |
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