While he’s moved on from the genre in recent years, Valhalla Game Studios’ Tomonobu Itagaki played a huge part in getting one of the longest-running fighting game franchises off the ground with the release of Dead or Alive in 1996. His outspoken nature has seen him take other studios to task, most notably former employer Tecmo Koei after parting on less than amicable terms.
Dead or Alive fan and frequent content contributor Emperor Cow recently had the opportunity to visit with Itagaki at his studio in Tokyo, Japan, and discussion quickly turned towards Dead or Alive, starting with their goals when developing the first installment.
“There are four main pillars that I concentrated on when designing Dead or Alive. On two ends of the spectrum you have Casual and Pro, and on the other ends you have Sex and Violence. The main goal was to find the perfect balance between all these four pillars. The game should not be too difficult in order for casuals and newcomers to enjoy it and it should not be too easy in order not to lose the pro players,” Itagaki explained. “It also should not be too violent in order not to scare off any of the sensitive players and it should not be too sexy in order not to turn it into an “Ero-game” (an erotic game). This is why I put a firewall on all four pillars, so that no one pillar overshadows the others and a perfect balance could be achieved.”
Itagaki would go on to describe what he sees as the downfall of the genre: becoming too technical for newcomers. In the case of Dead or Alive 5, he believes the difference between novices and those who have been playing the game for years is so large that, without help from the system itself to reinforce the idea that winning is possible early on, they won’t have much desire to keep going. “A game like that would never sell. This is why they thought they can overcome this by making the game more erotic and milk you loyal players all out of your money with erotic downloadable content,” he concluded. “It’s disgusting.”
For more of Cow’s talk with Itagaki, be sure to visit Orochinagi for the full interview.
Source: Orochinagi via NeoGAF