Drakengard and NieR series creator Yoko Taro is known for being fairly unconventional – both in the sense of his self-presentation and the stories he tells through his games. However, hiding behind the creepy mask and enigmatic persona is an avid X user. Recently, he has opened a Q&A box for fans, answering questions on various topics – ranging from restaurant recommendations and life advice to industry insight. One fan asked a question about whether the gaming industry has a lot of weird people, to which Yoko Taro responded – not as many as there used to be. But how important are the actual “weirdos” of the industry, and what does it even mean to be a weirdo nowadays?
“I was reading The True Biography of Game Creators and laughing like ‘lmao, there sure are a lot of people with strange personalities.’ Is it true that there’s actually a lot of weirdos in the game industry? If it is, which sectors have the most of them?” the fan asked in their message.
Yoko replied on his X account: “I’ve been a part of the game industry for 30 years, but I feel there’s less ‘weird people’ now. I don’t know if this is something simply happening in my field of view, if the game industry ended up like this, or if the whole world is like this now.”
To be weird is to be free, and it’s no exaggeration to say that Yoko Taro himself is a weird guy. He has even called his own games “Weird Games for Weird People” in his past talks. This emphasis on weirdness seems to be the foundation he builds his games on, focusing more on the niche tastes of the author rather than having elements that could be considered marketable. In an amalgamation of talent, luck and rebellious spirit, this seems to have ended up being a recipe for success. According to Yoko, the first NieR games were treated as experimental projects, and nobody expected the series to become a hit.
Yoko Taro has also previously suggested that creators who go against the mainstream, like ICO’s Fumito Ueda, are the ones who make new epochs – and he always emphasizes the importance of being different and going against what everyone else in the industry is doing. In a joint discussion with directors of Stellar Blade and Goddess of Victory: NIKKE, Yoko explained his process of creating characters for the Nier series. “Our concept is always to do something that’s ‘not like anything else’ […] If Western sci-fi is filled with marine-like soldiers, we might go in the opposite direction and use Gothic Lolita outfits, for example. We tend to take the contrarian route.”
If what Yoko said in his X post is true, and there are actually less “weird” people who would challenge the norms and create games which go against the expectations and demands of the market, what does that mean for the gaming industry? Yoko has already shared some of his predictions on the future of the gaming industry – saying that game developers probably won’t be able to make a living in the future if AI takes over, and that, in around 50 years, they will be treated like bards. However, he advises his fans to take all his predictions with a grain of salt.
I feel like the lack of weirdness + the rise of AI is going to go hand in hand with making the gaming industry more Sterile.