[PT#09] Why I Insist on Calling Myself a “Planner” (Patreon)

After leaving CAPCOM, I joined a newly established company called TAKERU. At that time, the owner asked me to create “a game like Mega Man.” Of course, this did not mean that the owner was a fan of Mega Man. What he meant was “an action game that could sell.”

So how should we interpret the phrase “a game like Mega Man”? At the very least, I understood that it did not mean simply reusing the same ideas and settings—an action game with stage selection and the ability to acquire the weapons of defeated boss enemies.

When creating a game, what is the very first thing you think about? The story? Or the game system?

Back when I was at CAPCOM, when I was referred to as a kikakuman or a planner, my first job was to create a game proposal. In that proposal, I would first establish such things as the type of game, the story, and the characteristics of the player character.

Once actual development began, the work shifted to creating design documents or specification documents.

The rules of the game

What the player actually does for fun

Stage structure

Enemy and item specifications

Character abilities

The design of game progression and reward systems

Other event settings

And then, in the role of what is generally called a “game director”:

The overall fun of the game

The direction of the graphics

Difficulty

The overall pacing of the game

How to bring the various staff members together

Changes to the game plan

Presentation from the player's point of view

These are the kinds of tasks that take something like a blueprint for a game and turn it into an actual product.

However, when beginning Mega Man 2, there was something even more important that needed to be established before creating that blueprint.

It was…

“Why was there a need to make Mega Man 2?”

Of course, I already had an answer to that question. But until then, I had never been required to explain something like this about a game I was going to create.

All of these tasks may be broadly described as game planning, but creating the blueprint for a game and product planning—which defines the direction of what kind of product should be made—are actually different kinds of work.

So who is responsible for this work of product planning today?

Is it the game director? The game producer? Or is there an independent department specifically responsible for product planning?

Product planning is the first step in considering such things as a game's competitive advantage in the market, the expectations surrounding it, and projected sales.

Why do we believe this game will sell? Why does it need to be made now?

These things need to be explained before the project is even launched.

Then what is the role of a “game producer”?

Development budget

Development schedule

Securing staff

(Coordination with outsourcing partners)

(Contracts with development companies)

Explaining the project to upper management

Sales planning

Promotion and marketing

Release timing

Project risk management

Depending on the situation, some of these conditions may be presented by the client or the management side.

The scale of the development company, the budget, the number of staff, and the development period. Taking these factors into account, a project may sometimes also be given a particular game genre or overall image.

Within this range of responsibilities, then, who actually decides what the product should be?

For example, suppose there is a proposal to “make an action game for children under the age of twelve.” Whether that proposal comes from the client, the producer, or the director—regardless of which level it comes from—the question is: who actually comes up with the game that fulfills that proposal?

Does everyone think about it together?

Can that really be done?

All of the developers are adults. No matter how many adults gather together, they cannot truly understand how children under the age of twelve feel.

So what do you do?

Do you make predictions based on past data? Do you rely on imagination? On intuition?

Once it comes down to that, it is little more than a gamble.

I believe that deciding what kind of game to create in response to a particular request or concept is a job that only a game creator can do.

The knowledge and techniques gained through that individual's own experience, along with the emotions they felt when playing games themselves, are reflected in the game's settings and presentation. Through this process, the game gradually takes the form that it was intended to become.

I believe that this kind of work is the true essence of game planning.

Thinking about what kind of game to create in response to the request, “Make an action game like Mega Man,” is an extremely difficult task. However, I was able to quickly decide what kind of thinking I should use to determine its direction. That was because I had the experience of launching Mega Man at CAPCOM.

Mega Man was never a game created simply as a reflection of my own personal tastes. As I have explained here, it was a game born from a variety of different requests and requirements.

The game genre, the character image, the enemy settings, the player's abilities, stage selection, the first and second halves of the game, a world of robots…

Every element had a reason behind it.

There was Sandlot baseball, Marbles, Menko (Japanese cardboard flipping game), Kite flying, Handmade bow and arrows, DIY motorized toy cars, Exploration, Secret hideouts…

There was excitement and suspense, the challenge of overcoming difficult obstacles, and the sense of accomplishment that followed. By bringing the emotions found in those childhood games and activities into the field of video games, a new kind of modern toy was created.

COCORON was developed in that way.

This game contains the same variety of play found in Mega Man, as well as elements that make you want to play it again and again. Although its game structure is different, I think that if you actually play it, you will be able to feel that concept.

Unfortunately, however, development did not go as well as I had expected, and in terms of the level of completion I had envisioned, it ended up being only about 30% complete…

In the game industry, people used to be called planners, but these days the term director seems to be more commonly used.

Certainly, I believe that most of the work falls within the scope of a director. However, I deliberately refer to myself as a “former planner.” That is because I believe that the most important part of creating a game is product planning.

Game planning has always been the foundation of the games I have created, and from that foundation, games of many different genres have been born.

Anyone who enjoys making games and gains enough experience can become a game director. However, a game planner needs the ability to create ideas, as well as the conviction and courage to turn those ideas into reality.

You have to look at a game that no one has ever seen before and say, “This is going to be an interesting game.”

You have to explain why it is interesting.

And at the same time, you have to show how it can actually be made.

I feel that many games today offer very similar kinds of play. By changing the visual image of a successful game, changing the controls, or changing the story, a wide variety of games continue to appear.

They are, in essence, following successful examples of competing products.

I believe there are many factors that have increased the risk of creating something new, such as:

Rising development costs

Longer development periods

The need for larger development teams

The risk of recovering the investment

The use of sequels and existing IP

Planning decisions based on market data

However, I believe there is an even greater cause.

It is the question of who bears the responsibility of being a game planner.

Creating what is considered a major title involves a large number of staff. However, at the beginning of such a project, an individual's idea is absolutely necessary.

If several people begin by discussing from the outset what kind of game they should make, the result will only be a safe game that feels familiar.

A game planner's job is to create possibilities.

Their role is to establish the starting line by showing the direction of what is interesting, so that the staff can all begin running in the same direction.

And whether there are mountains or valleys ahead, the game planner must always remain at the front and continue pointing toward the goal.

I do not approach game development with the idea of simply making the games I personally want to play.

Of course, there are ideas I personally like and games I would like to try making. But even if they became products, they probably would not sell.

The games that I believe should be made are games that are needed.

However, as I have said many times on this site and on Twitter (X), I believe there is one point that may have been somewhat misunderstood.

A “game that is needed” does not mean a game that users themselves are asking for.

How we should engage with users is another major issue in itself, but I believe that professionals should remain firmly on the side of those who provide.

Users are amateurs.

The games they ask for are entirely covered by their surface-level expectations. From the outside, it may appear that everyone agrees on wanting a single particular game.

However, what lies beneath that is filled with each individual user's memories, preferences, tastes, and personal fetishes.

Even if a game were created exactly as users requested, more than half of the responses would be, “This isn't what I wanted.”

But that is only natural, and it is not the users' fault.

It simply means that the people making the game based it on the opinions of amateurs.

A professional's job is to analyze the game that users are expecting, extract only the parts they truly desire, and reflect those elements in a new concept.

By doing so, users can experience both the new kind of fun and the kind of fun they had originally been hoping for.

This, I believe, is precisely the role of a game planner.

The games that clients or company management believe are needed can also often come from amateur ideas.

However, at their core is the expectation that the result will become a product that sells.

Receiving that expectation, understanding what lies behind it, and turning it into a product is also one of the planner's roles.

There are also several other things that I believe are needed.

They are the kinds of games that the game industry itself must begin creating from now on.

There is no denying that the development of the game industry has been driven by advances in hardware. Games, in turn, have evolved by following and taking advantage of that increasing performance.

However, I feel that it may be time to change this way of thinking.

Games that make full use of the capabilities of new hardware are certainly necessary. But when it comes to the ideas that serve as the starting point for a game, hardware capacity, the scale of its world, and even the number of characters should not matter.

The moment someone presents a game system unlike anything we have seen before—one that does not even push the capabilities of the latest hardware—the direction of the industry may begin to change.

And I believe that beyond the sense of limitation now hanging over the industry, we may find a light showing us the way forward.

Today, the term “game planner” may carry a somewhat old-fashioned image.

However, there is no doubt that coming up with new ideas is one of the most important jobs in game development.

(Automatic translation by AI)