Interview with Hisashi Koinuma
Koinuma has recently been promoted from Vice President to COO within Koei. He started out in the company as a programmer and has worked on numerous titles and game series, he is most well known as the creator and producer of the Samurai Warriors series. This interview looks at the FY2014/15 results and discusses Koinuma's role in the future as well as Koei's plans for 2015/2016.
Famitsu: First you were promoted to vice president in April 2013, this month you've become COO?
Koinuma: Yes, When I look back now it almost seems as if the vice president promotion was to prepare me for this role. Whilst I still focus a lot on development of games like I used to, I can certainly tell that Mr Erikawa (CEO) has started giving me more authority within the company which has now led me into entering the COO position.
Famitsu: So from that first promotion, was it known that you'd get a second promotion to COO?
Koinuma: No, that wasn't concrete. But there was predictions that I would be promoted higher within the company. The reason for this is because Erikawa and I shared the same vision for the company, he started giving me more authority little by little as if he's trying to say that "I'm leaving it to you". For example, since I became VP In 2013 I was given an extra role to approve the Alpha and Beta development versions of all our company games. And now with my new role I'm given more authority and am taking time to inherit Erikawa (CEO's) tasks.
Famitsu: Koei Tecmo is considered a veteran in the game industry and has a very long and excellent history. Do you feel pressure and heavy responsibility by becoming COO and later perhaps CEO of such a company?
Koinuma: Until now I've mostly focused on creating and developing games as a game creater first. The company has of course grown to be much larger compared to when I joined the organisation and so now, of course, i feel that the responsibility is on me for my staff and their families. I'm still looking to have the responsibility to create games that customers will enjoy though. However, because I'm the COO of a veteran game developer I feel the more responsibilty and pressure comes from continuing to create games that customers will enjoy. I guess in that case I don't feel pressure like a normal company head who's pressure comes from staff, mine still comes from the game creation side. (laughs)
Famitsu: (Laugh) We also thing you have a stronger image as a game creator. Will you be changing to a more business focused role?
Koinuma: Since I've become COO the work I do will surely be at a higher level and more managerial tasks. However I remember that Mr. Hamamura (Director of Kadokawa-Dwango, used to be Famitsu's chief editor) once told me "Even after you become a great person, please never stop making games". So even if my managerial tasks get to a high level of proportions, I'd still like to be directly involved in game development. I've always worked in game development within Koei and so by continuing in game development I'd be glad if it can propel the company forward.
Famitsu: As a fan of games and your games that's a very pleasant thing to hear.
Koinuma: Thank You, I do feel like my power in game creation has dropped since I've become VP (Laughs). Depending on the circumstances these days it may be that I'm unable to focus on game development have to focus more on management and that can leave me feeling lonely. I plan to focus on both management and game development and dividing time between them. I hope this is something I'm able to balance in the future, I'm still new as COO so am still learning, hopefully I can do both easily.
Famitsu: Promotions of other game creators like Mr. Kenichi Ogasawara (Toukiden's team leader) and Mr. Yosuke Hayashi (Team Ninja) are also astounding.
Koinuma: Our company has a tradition of promoting within and this is something we are seeing more of. If we don't move to a new management structure then we won't be able to catch up with the game industry that is rapidly changing. Ogasawara has succeeded with Warriors games, Toukiden and Dragon Quest Heroes. Hayashi with his Team Ninja, other than DOA, were also involved in making Hyrule Warriors and Dissidia FF Arcade. We'd also like to place young leaders in Gust's dev team, so we appointed Keisuke Kikuchi there. We think these are proper promotions, so I look forward to them. Koei & Tecmo signed a merger contract in 2008, and in 2010 it became Koei-Tecmo, but after the merger there was a time where our business grew bad. But after Erikawa (Kou Shibusawa) returned as company head, there was an impression of raising both company and human resources well. I had a conversation with Erikawa that "We can grow better by putting IPs at center of management". With that direction, our whole company could grow these 4-5 years. But in order to advance even further from now, our generation also needs to do their best.
Famitsu: I seem to get the impression from Koinuma-san that trustable people are gathering around you?
Koinuma: It doesn't mean that, but indeed I want to see people who can work hard get promoted.
Collaboration titles:
Famitsu: Tell us about the titles you released in 2014.
Koinuma: There were some titles getting delayed, and some others bothered fans, but we created many titles firmly for this whole year, be they brand-new, collaboration or from existing series. Especially Hyrule Warriors & Dragon Quest Heroes contributed very largely; they were really favored beyond expectations. So I need to do something this year as my first year becoming head of company, I don't want to let it become a minus growth (laughs)
Famitsu: Hyrule Warriors' overseas popularity is really beyond expectations.
Koinuma: Yes. It keeps selling until now including its DLCs.
Famitsu: And Dragon Quest Heroes is really getting strong.
Koinuma: Thank you. DQ Heroes is being expanded in Asia and overseas shortly. It gets attention because it's an action game, so I look forward to how it goes through.
Koei-Tecmo's strategy for 2015:
Famitsu: Please tell us the plans for 2015
Koinuma: You'll be pleased to know that we plan to focus on game software even more this year, we will still firmly continue to create games such as new IP and expansion on our existing IP. There is still the need for collaboration games so we are still making them. Recently we've released and announced a lot of collaboration titles so some people may think we are just an outsourcing developer haha, I want to assure that we have our on IP and will be making brand new IP. We are also planning more social and mobile games, look forward to announcements for all this.
Famitsu: Yes, there are lots of collaboration titles recently announced please tell us more-
-On Yokai Sangokushi, collaboration between Yokai Watch & ROTK-
ROTK series is having its 30th anniversary in 2015, so the whole company are excited on it. To end the anniversary year, I think Yokai Sangokushi would be suitable for that. But what's most pleasant is that Level-5's head Mr. Akihiro Hino also likes ROTK.
Yokai Sangokushi's image power is strong indeed (laughs), but it doesn't mean we'll be creating a full-blown historical simulation game here, instead we'll put in one of ROTK's interesting factors of "Three-sided battle" that would be enjoyable by Yokai Watch fans too.
As for game contents, it's still being decided from here, but this should be an entry-level game to ROTK games.
-On Dissidia FF Arcade-
Team Ninja has experience of making arcade games, so I think this is a very interesting collaboration.
-On Dragon Quest Heroes II-
Square Enix ask us to make DQH2, which means they think it has really good contents, and I'm relieved for that. Since it's a collaboration, we need to have negotiations with the other party from long ago. But we also just had the chance to make the announcement. As a result, there's like a commotion in our company (laughs)
Famitsu: I thought you were aiming for that. (laughs) [snip] Anyway I feel like the collaboration gets through if both sides have an equal basis.
Koinuma: We're like "Let's do it" if we can stir it up together with the other party. If there isn't interest from the other party then there's no meaning in doing the collab. Thankfully with DQ they were more than happy to collaborated on a second title. And it's not just being a collaboration, we also need to properly expand our IPs (musou) [through these collabs]. That's where I want to have a balance.
Famitsu: The series of flow starts from Gundam Warriors where Koinuma-san became the core of all this, and from hereafter you'd still like to focus on this.
Koinuma: Ah right. From hereafter we plan to not only make games, but also actively expanding to cross-media with anime, light novel, movies and more. If we don't firmly expand to such media, nobody will look at us. Rather than a simple collaboration game, we need to make it a complex collaboration expansion. With this way, industries we didn't had connections before started to contact us, and I think that would further increase the branches of collab contents.
Famitsu: DQ Heroes was also able to boost PS4 sales, so that was quite the ideal collaboration rarely seen before. I'm looking forward to what kind of collab might be next (laughs)
Koinuma: When we're expanding collaborations, we need to see 2-3 years forward to that. Things that we can make collaborations of are everywhere. We're finding contents that are currently trending and popular in the world, and make them fun.
Famitsu: I see. And of course brand-new IPs are being expanded too right.
Koinuma: That's right. This period there are titles that haven't been announced yet, both from our own company and collabs, so please look forward to them.
-About IP Project Promotion Department-
As a connoisseur to collaboration offers, the company set up a new "IP Project Promotion Department" as an environment to handle this organizationally. They become a contact window for other companies offering collabs, and manages the whole collab projects. Offers can come from publishing companies, game companies, and copyright holders.
This department is perhaps the biggest centerpiece of our organizational change. After all what made our company grown these last 5 years are collaboration products. So we're clearly continuing to do that.
However I also want to show existence of our own brand-new IPs and social games. On the process of how a new IP is made, first we have a Marketing Meeting where we put budget on titles. Since we have many development producers as department heads, the usual process of having producers report to department heads can save much more time. Ultimately it's even more convenient if the president knows about development too (laughs).
If you understand both technology and management, the management efficiency gets better. That's why we've been promoting game creators because we want them to understand managerial sense too other than just creating games. In collaborations too, a lot of people are involved, and if we don't have a sense to make all of them happy it will be difficult. That's why only creators who have such sense may take charge of those positions.
Famitsu: I see. I understand very well. So now please tell us Koinuma-san's vision of Koei-Tecmo in the future.
Koinuma: I'd like this company to continue adding new contents to both console and social games. In that meaning, we also continue collaborating. We include new IPs, involve various kinds of people, and I'd like to always provide interesting things.
Famitsu: KT recently is full of surprises. Collab titles are of course, but you're also aggresively challenging it with your other [in-company] titles, so I feel like it's connecting to that.
Koinuma: I can't betray my inner circle (laughs), but like Yokai Sangokushi, we've prepared a top secret titles and collabs that even most people in the company don't know yet and will be surprised when we announce it. Please look forward to those surprises.
Found this on GAF and decided to post the translation.
DOA5 has made a SHITLOAD off DLC. DOAX3 is coming be ready bros. :E
