In an interview with Denfaminicogamer, Petit Depotto producer Toru Kawakatsu, who produced and directed 2019’s Gnosia, spoke about his experience working with an indie studio, and how important the balance between business smarts and creative impulses is in game development. As Kawakatsu explained, the harsh reality of the video game industry is that you can’t run away from the “business side” of development if you’re serious about wanting to sell your title to a wider audience.
“As I’ve gained experience, I’ve come to realize that idealistic beliefs like ‘If you make something good, it’ll grab people’s attention and sell well’ are almost never true. In reality, it’s difficult to make it without a certain level of financial understanding and business sense,” said Kawakatsu. “There are tasks that aren’t particularly creative that you just can’t escape from. In fact, they’re crucial. Dreams alone will only take you so far – you’ve got to face reality, follow a sound, reliable procedure and keep on researching, thinking, and moving at a rapid pace.”
“On the other hand, I think that sort of business-oriented thinking can become a kind of distraction from pure creativity.” Kawakatsu stressed that despite the essential value of business skills in a commercially driven field like game development, the Petit Depotto team are dedicated to developing works that remain true to themselves and their own creative intentions.
“I believe that creators should engage in dialogue with their own inner world before considering how it will be received by others. I think that a deeper creative philosophy can be cultivated by thoroughly engaging with a purely creative work,” Kawakatsu explained. From there, he believes that it’s his responsibility as a producer to enhance what he calls the “resolution” of a work as much as possible, developing it into a more polished, palatable form.
“To be frank, I believe that if a creator simply expresses their raw creative vision, it can result in something almost too highbrow, which makes it difficult for others to understand and connect with it,” said Kawakatsu. “Indie games usually take three or four years to develop when working on them full-time, so we naturally want them to sell and be successful. Otherwise, we won’t be able to keep creating them.”
Kawakatsu concluded by summarizing his joint role as both director and producer: “I need to understand the work better than anyone else, while also possessing the business acumen to adjust the intensity of the game’s content as necessary.”
Gnosia was originally released in Japan for the PS Vita near the end of its lifespan in 2019. The game is currently available in English on Switch, PS4/PS5, Xbox One/Series, and on PC via Steam.
An anime adaptation of Gnosia, also produced by Kawakatsu, aired from October 2025 to March 2026, and is available for streaming in English on Crunchyroll.
Disclosure: The publisher of this game, PLAYISM, is part of Active Gaming Media, the owner of this website.
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Great games definitely sell for just being good did you play expedition 33 or have you been living under a rock? Helldivers 2, arc raiders, Hades 1 and 2, hollow knight – all games with limited marketing and sold extremely well based solely being a great game. All recently. Do some research, lazy ass MF.
You can say the same thing with some more politeness, no need to offend someone over something so trivial.
Expedition 33? You mean the one that was developed by a team of professionals with a ton of experience and money, who didn’t have to worry about failure? That one? So money doesn’t matter.
Helldivers 2? You mean the one that became popular at the best possible time when the team looter shooters were all the rage, and which had support of rich publishers? That one? So timing and support doesn’t matter.
Hades 1/2? You mean the one that became popular only due to a dedicated fan base formed around the developers’ previous game that did not sell well? That one? So players don’t matter.
Hollow Knight? You mean the one that was completely unknown to the masses until a random popular streamer picked it up? That one? So exposure doesn’t matter.
All of these games you named only became popular because it happenstances. But you say they don’t matter. So then why hundreds of great games remain unknown and dead in the water? Or do they only become great when they’re popular? What a pathetic line of thinking you have.
THAT’S WHAT I SAID! These people are lazy as fuck. Man..people in flim industry and anime are so irritating. I hate seeing the same crappy stuff. Limited marketing can sell. Its hard in general for anime and flims to sell!!!!!
A great game caters to a huge population’s sense of intrigue, can’t be linear, can’t use gambling, and caters to s huge population’s dopamine requirements.
They probably might have been if this disconnect between publisher and the gamer base wasn’t a common occurrence. People are tired of these people not seeing the forest for the trees.
Making a game with a full artistic vision will always fail because a video game isnt purely art, its art through entertainment. So there has to be some entertainment value there. Where you usually find the biggest small studio successes is when something is extremely fun but does it in a new unique way. As someone mentioned Expedition 33. In addition to having a very polished game being fairly priced (in a world where AAA games were increasing in price), they were able to take old school JRPG gameplay, add moral weight to the story, and twist the gameplay to make it skill based with dodges and parries (which such mechanics were very popular last few years) and powerful skill and pictos combinations that allowed the player to experiment and get rewarded with power growth. Pictos being collectible and not random unless junk or minor world building pieces was refreshing for me and gave a real reason to explore. The art and amazing story was built on top of that. That is definitely a way to go about having a successful game. Once the game got traction the business side kicks in with marketing and all that kind of stuff but yeah it does have to be done.
Expedition 33 was only a hot because there was nothing else being released and people needed to justify buying a 500+ console with nothing to play on it. If it was PS3/PS4 days, it would’ve been buried under the weight of good game releases. This gen would praise a turd on a plate because there’s not that much being released
It can go both ways.
It’s true great games alone may not be able to sell because of poor business decisions. The amount of games that had potential that went down with the studio because of greed, marketing, microtransactions, etc.
On the other hand, great games can be sold well from great writing, fun gameplay, and appealing character design if words gets out. It’s how brand new IPs get recognition. Look at Stellar Blade.
Great games don’t sell well because most companies would rather make a s***y Fortnite clones hoping for easy money