“When asked how he feels about there being less prolific “auetur” developers in the scene, like Hideo Kojima, Suda51, SWERY, and Kenji Eno, Niikawa suggests that this might be due to the “corporate” nature of the video game industry. “That’s a bit unfortunate, to be honest. To put it in my own words, I feel like the salaryman-ification of creators keeps progressing,” he says. For context, a “salaryman” in Japan refers to white-collar workers, employed at large corporations, who stereotypically prioritize work over anything else and are subservient to their organization.”
“On the other hand, when you’re a developer who works for a company, various other factors, like company policies and decision-making, as well as profitability, come into play, making it more difficult for “individuality” to come through…”
Isn’t this also happening in the West? In any case, AAA rarely appeals to me; almost underground-like indies/mods/Foss games are the places to find the really experimental works.
imo this and the enshittification of games are symptoms of the same root cause. games are too big and expensive now. one auteur on a 1000 person team can’t have the same level of impact as one auteur on a 10 person team. they definitely have fewer opportunities to develop their reputation/skill/style on big teams
That and stock market infinite up. That’s why Valve is doing well because they are a private non-stock company
I do think this is fundamentally still a problem of corporate structure rather than simply the size.
Control for example, is definitely one of the more experimental games that artistically pushed the envelope while still being pretty AAA in terms of budget, and its developer Remedy had nearly 400 employees. So to cope with the size of the project as well as the development team, they had 3 creative directed all working on the same game, and all 3 of them contributed greatly to the game’s incredible artistic vision.
I think the bigger problem nowadays is how many companies with nearly 400 people, would be willing to let only 3 people to entirely dictate the artistic vision of the entire project, without considering it too much of a risk to take.
Yeah, there are still indie titles with infamous creators. It’s just that the limelight is now taken by big corporations with big marketing budget.
In the west, it’s enshittification. In the east, it’s salarymanification.
😂
Something, something, pot, kettle, something, something
Both are overworked and underpaid, plus abused by middle management.
EVERY industry in Japan is a corpo cubicle slave farm. And 90% of people aren’t paid enough nor have enough free time to even think about pursuing the indie path to freedom. Also society doesn’t exactly encourage pioneering and risk taking.
Also most corpos in Japan will fire you if you have a side hustle. Even if it just a small YouTube channel. They see a side hustle as not being dedicated to the corporate mission. So many devs don’t even dare to make a game on the side
As much as I love Japan (lived there for 3+ years), their corporate culture and neoliberal political establishment are fucking awful.
I blame post-war US occupation for introducing capitalism.
Source? I can see people violating their visa conditions but, AFAIK, there are very few cases in which a company can legally stop you from working a side hustle or fire you for one. The one exception to that is conflict of interest/non-compete.
Some companies can have social media policies that would make youtube a bit more annoying, but not impossible.
Which in itself is huge because typically its impossible to get fired.
I agree with this alot, enshittification sucks.
And i feel like the only AAA company that appeals me is Valve.
I still see Kojima in meme culture aswell.deleted by creator
There’s something rich about this coming from Nippon Ichi’s former head, the company that brought us the artistic masterpieces known as the Disgaea series. Truly visionaries, lol.
(PS I like the games and tbf, they’re… unique).
