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Danganronpa series creator Kazutaka Kodaka and Zero Escape series creator Kotaro Uchikoshi recently had an interview, where Kodaka talked about why he left Spike Chunsoft to form Too Kyo Games. [Thanks, DenFamiNicoGamer!]
Here are the highlights:
- Kodaka half-jokingly says that even after all this time since forming his own independent studio, he and the others are still quite unsure why they felt the need to form Too Kyo Games. However, he says firmly that it wasn’t due to dissatisfaction with Spike Chunsoft, or feeling a need to compete with them.
- In fact, Kodaka states that in their current position and with the content they want to make, “they can’t win”. What he means is that no matter how successful they get, they will never become a big company like Cygames, Level-5, or Type-Moon.
- That said, perhaps it’s because of this positioning that he decided to go independent. As part of a company working with publishers, there is outside pressure to “make a hit”, and he felt that more and more while working on the Danganronpa series. In Kodaka’s case, it wasn’t the pressure of being promoted to managerial work, but the increasing pressure to produce results as a creator.
- After a certain point, Kodaka felt the need to create something he would find interesting from the bottom of his heart. In the world of game creators, no matter the working environment, your next work failing could very well mean the end of the line. Kodaka felt that since that was the case, he may as well try to do it freely, in the way he wants it to be made.
- Kodaka quite likes the current positioning of Too Kyo Games as an A to AA game developer, as they are able to control what they want to do next, even if a game sells well enough to spark demands for a sequel. Back at Spike Chunsoft, Kodaka felt that Danganronpa didn’t feel like “his brainchild”, and with the IP being owned by the company, things like making goods and IP spinoffs like pachinko would happen without his knowledge. He wanted to be able to “take responsibility” for his own work in this regard.
Too Kyo Games are currently working on four projects, which we’ve detailed in our previous report here.
