It’s been three months since RGG Studio released Infinite Wealth’s pirate-themed spin-off Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. While post-launch concurrent player data and Sega’s financial statements have suggested that the latest Yakuza game is doing well, RGG Studio’s director Masayoshi Yokoyama recently shared some new insights about the game’s performance.
Talking to Denfaminicogamer, Yokoyama reveals that Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii has been selling particularly well in Europe, and unlike the Like a Dragon series’ past entries, it’s actually doing better overseas than in Japan.
Last year, when RGG Studio celebrated Infinite Wealth becoming the franchise’s fastest-selling title in history, Yokoyama highlighted the massive role domestic sales played, commenting, “The game is incredibly strong in Japan. Sales in the rest of Asia are also quite strong, but the momentum in Japan is even greater than in the past.” The release of Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name the year before was followed by similar comments, with the developers describing domestic sales as “astonishing” and indicative of the series’ popularity reigniting in Japan.
However, it seems Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii has turned this tendency around, with Europe and the UK in particular becoming a major contributor to sales. “I’m not sure if it’s the influence of pirate culture or what, but the game is selling especially well in the UK. From our perspective, we didn’t really set out to make a full-on pirate game – we simply saw it as making a Yakuza side story – but I think players saw it as a game belonging to the genre and appreciated that side of it,” Yokoyama comments.
The experience of making Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii – which is full of mechanics RGG Studio has never tackled before, as well as this positive response, have helped the developers realize how important it is for RGG Studio to keep trying new things. Yokoyama notes that, “In this sense, this title has become something that will likely influence our future projects.”
While Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii hasn’t become a massive global blockbuster, it “managed to greatly expand our possibilities even though there was a risk of it becoming a huge failure.” In that regard, RGG Studio’s director comments, “I’d say it was a major success.”
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