The Video Game Industry

Inafune forgot that while there's an "I" in Inafune, there's no "I" in team. He forgot that while he was a big part of what made Mega Man work, he was far from the only one who made Mega Man work.

He also failed to realize just how hard it was to make that many ports. Trying to make all of those ports was a big part of what screwed over Mighty No. 9.

What was his reason for leaving Capcom anyway?

He thought Capcom was getting too stagnant and comfortable with itself and he thought the videogame industry needed to change.

So parts "I don't like what this company has become" and parts "I can fix this" sorta thing?

Didn't help that Legends 3 was stuck in Development Hell and later canceled after he left.

Ironically, Capcom did get better later in the steps forward, steps backwards sense but a whole lot better than he ever did.

Edited by terumokou on Apr 9th 2024 at 8:23:09 AM

Yeah, just general dissatisfaction with his job and a somewhat egotistical belief that he could spearhead change.

And as mentioned, his pet project being stuck in limbo before being killed off didn't help either.

Edited by M84 on Apr 9th 2024 at 11:24:06 PM

To be more specific, the Capcom Sequel Stagnation was a major reason why he left. Didn't want to keep making sequels and wanted to make some original games.

He had to go a bit rogue back then to get Dead Rising and Lost Planet to be made by overspending on budgets for the demos so his bosses would get some sunk cost fallacy.

There's been some speculation that Mega Man 11 was only made by Capcom to spite Inafune after the failure of Mighty No. 9.

Which considering he burned bridges badly, is very plausible.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Apr 9th 2024 at 11:27:33 PM

To put it all together: There was a period around mid to late 2000s where Capcom was so risk-adverse that they were intent on only making sequels. According to Inafune there was a policy from the execs that new games had to be about 80% sequels and 20% new IPs, but in practice every pitch for a new IP was shot down by those execs. So Inafune forced the developments of Dead Rising and Lost Planet through by getting a team together to make a prototype using the budget allotted for prototypes, and when the pitches were shot down he just continued having the games made anyway until they were over halfway complete and 4 times the prototype budget had been used in order to force the higher ups to greenlight the games.

Mega Man Legends 3 was basically made the same way. The execs had no interest in signing off on it, so Inafune just grabbed people who weren't too busy with other things and had them start making the game anyway to show off and force Capcom's hand. It seems with led to some backstage drama that in addition to other general dissatisfaction Inafune had with Capcom, he decided to leave and form his own company that would basically pitch game ideas to other companies. Legends 3 had no one in the company pushing for it anymore, it technically wasn't even "supposed" to be made, and supposedly there was little to no direction among the team as to where to go with the game without Inafune guiding them, so Capcom officially announced it canceled and dissolved the team to work on other things.

Inafune shrewdly used the bad will Capcom just generated for themselves (not helped at all by the really stupid comment their EU branch twitter account made blaming fans for the cancellation) and his reputation as Mega Man's creator to make himself look like a savior by announcing a Mega Man successor in Mighty Number 9, getting record-breaking amounts of Kickstarter funds in the process. But the project - whose actual development was handled by Inti Creates while Inafune's company came up with concepts and managed things - was poorly managed on several levels, mainly in the Kickstarter way overpromising on features, the biggest issues being promising 10 ports and online multiplayer when Inti Creates had literally never made a game with online mutliplayer before. They also massively miscalculated how much money they would have after certain fees they would have to pay to places like Kickstarter, leaving development with about 60% of the funds it was supposed to have. There were several delays too because of multiple issues, which ground on people's nerves.

The result was a buggy, mediocre game that disappointed people and completely wiped out all of Inafune's good will and turned him into the Con Man. It started to become more widely known that he wasn't really the creator of Mega Man, he just acted as the main driving head of the franchise for much of its life, managing teams but not doing much if any hand-on work. Inti Creates went on to make good games people like and have a good reputation. Inafune's company got bought by Level 5 where he hasn't particularly done anything since.

Keiji Inafune wasn't even really much of a creative, so much as an executive Producer that helped get new I Ps off the ground despite the Capcom Sequel Stagnation.

Onimusha, Devil May Cry, Lost Planet, Dead Rising, and even really early on, Asura's Wrath, were all started under his watch (the first trailer for the latter had him as Executive producer in the TGS 2010 reveal, just a couple months before he left) but he didn't actually contribute to any of them creatively.

To be fair to Inafune, if I worked on Mega Man, I'd probably be unhappy too. The core franchise pretty much ended in 2007 - And on a sequel hook, at that. Since then, the Mega Man franchise has been a dead horse that Capcom occasionally drags out to beat with Nostalgia Bait one-offs and collection packs.

I can't in good conscience be like "LOL Inafune, Mega Man's doing FINE!" The franchise's day in the sun has been over for a long time now.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Apr 10th 2024 at 8:30:43 AM

I did not back Mighty No. 9 on Kickstarter since I wasn't that interested and the Kickstarter already ended by the time I heard of it, but looking at its Kickstarter campaign page after hearing about all the troubles during production definitely served as a lesson of being careful about Kickstarters that promise a lot of stuff, especially when it comes to video games.

As others have mentioned, Mighty No. 9 is a good example of what happens when a Kickstarter promises too much and becomes a bit too ambitious.

To be fair, the remasters of the various games apparently have sold better then they did when they originally came out (the Battle Network Collection is apparently the best selling Megaman property ever).

The Latest Capcom Survey also had an overwhelming amount of people ask for more Mega Man, Ace Attorney, and Dino Crisis.

Bit late, but realized kickstarter also works really great for tabletop rpgs since the funding is usually used for covering printing and art rather than design itself.

But yeah Inafune is funny in that I think his bad rep is well deserved, but I do think people definitely now view everything he did negatively in hindsight. Like idea that capcom should learn lessons from western games is kinda portrayed nowadays as stupid idea, but problem really was execution of that being taking worst posible lessons

Edited by SpookyMask on Apr 10th 2024 at 9:25:24 AM

IIRC, back then in the early 2010s, there was a prevailing attitude in parts of the game industry and game journalism circles that Japanese games had to hide their culture and cater to western tastes to succeed.

Inafune as established was one of these devs, and I recall that Hideo Kojima stated he saw western devs as competition which was part of why Metal Gear Solid V had that V to represent victory over western devs.

Yet MGSV is ironically one of the most western looking Japanese games. Gritty middle aged man as protagonist, barely any of the series quirks, dark and edgier locations like a Guantanamo bay looking black site, ETC.

I like to say that Metal Gear has a very Western concept, but a very Japanese execution, if that makes any sense.

You want a Japanese game that feels like it could only have been made in America?

Metal Wolf Chaos says hi!

And the reason is... IT'S BECAUSE I'M THE PRESIDENT OF THE GREAT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!

Same with Ninja Baseball Batman, a game that was conceptualized by an american but developed in Japan

I mean, Japanese media has always been heavy on Japan taking a look at America and saying "oh, cool, can we try?" and coming up with surprisingly-unique spins with amazing Values Resonance (to the point where no less than Miyazaki-sensei is baffled that Western audiences can understand his work).

Which leads to weirdness because America has a pretty strong Japanophile market who like anime that's very Japanese in some way or another. It's just that the wisdom in Japan leans toward "marketing to Americans," which sometimes works and sometimes leads to abominations like Phantasy Star II's...cover...

This is the first time I'd heard that a game developed by Irem was conceived by an American!

I do happen to know that a married couple team in Taito USA designed Qix.

It would be nice if Japanese companies let their non-Japanese branches come up with more ideas. (Or for companies in general, no matter their country, to let their branches in other countries do that.) We'd get more ideas that way.

I'll say for my part I feel like Japanese devs seem to have mildly stereotypical views of American consumers.

are stereotypical are we talking about? burger-eating cowboys?

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Apr 10th 2024 at 4:36:22 AM

Wrong sentai. Shinken Gold is a sushi chef.

Yeah got it mixed up. already checked and changed accordingly, sorry

Mmm. A lot of the time, the writers of Eagleland stereotypes are doing it intentionally. Bad Dudes and Metal Wolf Chaos were Affectionate Parody by Japanese who love America. So if you're seeing a cowboy eating burgers, it's probably in the "so American, it could only be made in Japan" vein.