In a recent interview with Famitsu, Capcom veteran and CEO of GPTRACK50 Hiroyuki Kobayashi talked about his decision to market his studio’s unannounced new game to the overseas market, sharing insights into how his extensive experience as a game producer has shaped his views on how to successfully market a game.
Prior to becoming head of NetEaseGames’s GPTRACK50, Kobayashi spent 27 years at Capcom. He debuted as a game producer with Dino Crisis 2, and went on to be producer for the Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, Sengoku Basara and Dragon’s Dogma series.
When asked about how the role of game producer has changed with the times, Kobayashi comments, “In the past, we used to start work on a game with just a vague idea of ‘this seems interesting.’ If we had experienced developers working on it, we’d be able to make it a success somehow, but now, it’s no longer possible to sell a game only because it’s fun.”
Commenting on how things have changed, he notes, “You have to do proper marketing in advance and analyze the target audience you’re trying to appeal to. We are now in an age where you will not be accepted if you don’t clearly define your target.”
Kobayashi mentions that the unannounced game GPTRACK50 is currently working on happens to be targeted towards the overseas game market. As such, he does not expect it to sell very well in Japan. Kobayashi accepts this and does not plan to make midway changes to the game to try and appeal to the Japanese market in a half-hearted way. “If we were to incorporate such changes, the game’s development would steer into the wrong direction.”
Narrowing down the target in this way, Kobayashi comments, “is the job of game producers.” Although it depends on the person, Kobayashi says that he is the type of producer that lets the game director “do whatever they want” for the most part, but that he makes sure to step in when a decision seems like it will resonate badly with the chosen target audience. This includes practical points such as ensuring the game won’t include depictions that could earn it a higher age-rating than intended.
As for GPTRACK50’s upcoming game, Kobayashi says that the gameplay likely doesn’t match Japanese tastes. “Of course, there will surely be people thrilled by the game and willing to play it, but in a world where games are evaluated by how much they sold, it would be risky to start altering it so that it matches Japanese tastes.” He stresses that he is not attempting to neglect the Japanese market, but simply making sure the given project stays on course.
