Full interview:
An Audience With: Yoichi Wada
In many ways, Square Enix could be considered the most unashamedly ‘Japanese’ of Japanese game developers, with a long history of titles, created for the Japanese market first and foremost, which seem to have become internationally successful almost by surprise. Overseas releases have generally only come after months of slow localisation, with few changes to suit local tastes outside of bug and interface fixes.
But that position doesn’t seem sustainable in the modern marketplace. President and CEO Yoichi Wada has spearheaded a big change in the company’s direction, from its takeover of an unashamedly western publisher, Eidos, to planning the global release of Final Fantasy XIII for within three months of the Japanese launch – a record for the series. We sat down with Wada to discover the origins of this impetus for change, the future of Square Enix and Eidos, and the personal tastes in gaming of this otherwise enigmatic industry force.
How did you decide to begin working in the videogame industry?
Ever since I was a student I wanted to manage a company. In Japan what normally happens is you’re recruited as a freshman into a company and you go through your career with the goal of reaching the position of president; the president, in that sense, is only a goal. I felt that setting out to be a president as my profession was possible, so I intended to become president of a company by the age of 40.
However, it’s not possible to just become a president without a track record! So I thought that it would be best to go through some kind of an apprenticeship at a company and the toughest apprenticeship, or the most demanding company at that time, was a securities house. So I joined a securities house. But ultimately I wanted to run a company with a ‘theme’. The fundamental themes in the 21st century are creating life or creating society. A company that creates life is a biotechnology company, a company that creates society would be an IT company or a game company. Well, of course, I loved games and I played them a lot, so I decided to join a game company, Square. However, back then I was really an uneducated consumer – I was a big fan of Final Fantasy but I hadn’t realised it was made by Square!
What other games were you a fan of before you joined Square Enix?
There are a lot of games that I like. And there are a lot of games that I loved. Especially when 3D games started to become popular. One that’s really stuck with me is Kenji Eno’s D. I also really liked the Myst, Resident Evil and Metal Gear titles from that period.
That period really set in stone a certain style of Japanese development, which some might say has reached its culmination with Final Fantasy XIII. How do you think these kinds of big-budget, long-in-development Japanese games stand up in the current climate?
I believe Final Fantasy XIII is going be something special, and that it’s going to be well received by the audience. But whether we are going to continue to internally create this type of game remains to be seen, because I actually feel that the team that was involved with Final Fantasy XIII should next move on to create and generate some ‘next generation’ forms of play. Internally and externally I feel there’s an expectation of Square Enix to offer something new, and I really think that the Final Fantasy team could create something completely different, but at the moment they’re strictly catering to the particular audience they have now.
Are you interested in catering more and more to the global market? It’s particularly notable that the localisation and overseas release of Final Fantasy XIII is being handled a lot more rapidly than has been the case with previous titles.
From the early stage of the development, our target was to be able to have the release gap as little as three months between the Japanese release and the United States release. So the team has been able to make that happen, although it was a very challenging feat. The work itself it is an accumulation of small tasks. For example, if we look at the text localisation, even before the game is completely done they are simultaneously translating. One major difference now is that in the past there were many different TV formats – NTSC and PAL, and so on – and that at least meant we’d have to add another month’s delay for theEuropean release, but now most TVs are digital, and it’s far easier for us to work with that.
Square Enix is often perceived globally as ‘the Final Fantasy company’ – since you’ve purchased Eidos, are you looking to alter that perception?
We don’t want to be seen as the company that only has Final Fantasy, or Dragon Quest, it’s true, but we would like to maintain the prospective of the audience thinking when they hear the words Square Enix that they would only think of high-quality games. So the only image that we aspire to have is of high-quality, and there is no conflict with that with Eidos in the group. Actually, the people in the Eidos studios have been more worried about the Final Fantasy connection – at their end they’re saying: “Well, actually, our game has a lot of blood in it…” [Laughs] But that’s not a problem to us – it makes their game more faithful to their vision!
But have there been any changes in the corporate and creative culture in Square Enix since you’ve joined the company?
We have planned on changes and it is starting to transform, but Square Enix is not in its final state yet. The part of that which is challenging is that people need to be willing to accept change. It’s fine that there is such a particular love of the titles we create, but there’s a resistance to accepting something different.
You’re finding it hard to get your Japanese developers to face up to new realities?
There is a bad habit of sticking too much to long-established customs. For example, let’s say there is someone who is very good artistically when drawing using a pen, and there’s another individual who can do exactly the same quality using a pencil – but the custom so far has been to use a pen. The problem is that the people who are used to using the pen refuse to even believe the pencil exists! I’m not saying I’m trying to force these developers to use pencils when all they know is pens. What I am trying to do is to make it clear to them that good work is being created using pencils, and with that acknowledgement in mind do an even better job with the pen. That’s what the substance of accepting difference is – not to force someone to use a different format but to understand that there is a different way, and perhaps a place for different techniques.
Capcom’s Keiji Inafune created something of a stir when he said during the recent Tokyo Game Show that “Japan is over” in terms of its videogame industry. What was your response to that?
To say something so extreme is surprising. I’m surprised Capcom allowed Inafune to say that at TGS. My message by proxy for the Japanese developers who would have heard such a discouraging message is that if they are willing today, then they definitely have the capability to change and face tomorrow.
Is there any level on which you’d agree with what Infune was claiming?
I’ll say that it’s a challenge. But it’s very strange to have such an extremely pessimistic view.
With major Japanese-owned intellectual properties such as Silent Hill and Dead Rising now being produced by developers outside of Japan, could you imagine using non-Japanese developers for Square Enix franchises?
That is one of the possible paths, but it’s not something that we would shift completely over to. But there are many combinations of ways to handle an IP. We’re not considering it at the moment, but there is always the possibility that in the future a Final Fantasy could be produced with the input of our western developers, overseen by our Japanese developers.
Are you currently handling Square Enix’s European and North American developers differently from your Japanese staff?
Our studios, until the very end, are independent. So, for example, Eidos Montreal is continuing the way it has been. But our business backend is being centralised. We want to make the best of the local talent without interfering on that level, but to manage our revenue to the best of its potential by controlling our business decisions and seeing the big picture. Eidos, for example, has some very good IP, and they have diversified into different areas in the way that we merchandise our IP at Square Enix, but they haven’t been as successful at monetising it. I think there’s a better way to generate revenue from those IPs. And, indeed, the majority of success we’ve had in merchandising our IP with Square Enix has been within Japan, but in future expect to see us to expand this globally in a more aggressive manner.
Speaking from the perspective of the head of Japan’s Computer Entertainment Supplier’s Association, what challenges have you faced with piracy within Japan?
Piracy does a lot of damage, but within the Asian region the majority of damage comes from outside of Japan – not including the Nintendo DS. The R4 continues to inflict tremendous damage to our business. So in tandem with Nintendo, we have brought the issue to court. And we have been able to reach a certain degree of success from the court rulings.
During your talk at the Montreal International Game Summit you seemed to imply that creating a ‘connection’ with the content – such as pride over finding maps in Dragon Quest IX – would be a way of making consumers feel that games aren’t as ‘disposable’ as they do right now.
That is one of the solutions, I think. But no matter what happens, what can be copied will be copied. So we need to base our business on something that cannot be copied; that, as I mentioned, might be the personalised save data, for example. Or it might be the worth of the human relationships in the communities that build around the games. As a result, those are the areas that need to become the source of the revenue. That’s how the business model needs to change accordingly.
Do you see online distribution as a possible solution?
That’s an open-ended question, but it does offer a valid solution, at least partially.
Obviously you must have your hands full, but do you still find time to play games?
[Laughs] Yes, I still do. I just finished Uncharted 2, and when I get back home from this business trip I’m looking forward to playing Modern Warfare 2.
Those games are very cinematic, but in quite a different way from the games Square Enix is known for. Are they the types of things you would like Japanese studios to take a look at in order to explore different viewpoints?
Absolutely. I proactively try to play as many western games as possible and I also provide comments about these overseas games to our creators as much as possible. And, with Eidos, we are the publisher of many of these western games, so I hope that we will be able to get our Japanese staff to become interested in overseas games.
Western consumers are very interested in Japanese games, but rarely vice versa. Do you see yourself pushing, for example, Eidos-developed titles harder in Japan to make the consumer more interested?
Well, actually, I’ve found the person that is prejudiced is actually the retailer and not the actual players. The retailers have a prejudice against overseas titles, and they won’t procure them. But something like Batman: Arkham Asylum, for example, is something that is very like the Japanese taste in games, in fact it caters to very much the Japanese taste. Arkham Asylum is like the best aspects of Metal Gear Solid, but evolved.
This article appears in E210, which is available in shops now.
