"If I want to keep producing games as a business, then staying at HAL would be a more stable place to do that. HAL has its advantages. I get a reasonable amount of pay, living in Yamanashi prefecture isn't that bad, the rent's cheap, and I get national insurance, you know?
But I don't care about that sort of stability. Right now I'm far more concerned about the fact that the game industry, which is built from the balance between developers, publishers, and users, is beginning to fall apart at the seams. I think it's possible for me, as a developer, to have people think about this problem through the development work I do. If I stay in one spot, then I can only communicate this to a limited number of people around the company, but if I can go out and reach more people
I think there are lots of people with far greater abilities than myself out there in the world. I mean, I'm entirely focused on games and I really can't do all that much myself, but if I can get in touch with people that have other great talents, then I think that will set off a chemical reaction and in the end we'll have a chance to make new games and better things. People with these talents might be at a loss at what games to make, and perhaps I can help make up for that in exchange for lending me their talent. This may sound idealistic, but it's really what I think."
"If one game sells 40,000 copies and another one sells 20,000 copies, then one sold twice as much as another, right? But if you work for a company, this isn't reflected much in your salary. No matter if your game sells or not, you'll get money deposited in the bank every month on the month, so sometimes you see cases where developers get indifferent towards money and lose the feeling that they're really earning what they make. On the other hand, gamers take money out of their wallets and use it to buy your game. This difference is making gamers and developers drift farther and farther away from each other.
I talked with different people from around the industry about this, and it always seemed like the people who understood what gamers want the most are the guys in sales or the guys working in the stores. But isn't that messed up? It's completely messed up that the people actually making the games are the farthest away from what gamers want. I want to do something about that.
