During the Busan Indie Connect Festival 2026 held in South Korea from August 14 to 16, former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida held a lecture to indie game developers, offering insight on how to choose a publisher and successfully pitch your game (as reported by 4Gamer). As part of the presentation, Yoshida also cited anecdotes from his own career as an advisor to publishers, including Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 publisher Kepler Interactive.
When asked how much game publishers care about chasing trends, Yoshida says that, in his experience, it tends to depend on whether the specific publisher picks up games that are nearly finished, or spends several years building projects from scratch. The former is often mindful of pursuing trends, while the latter is not – given that whatever is trendy at the moment is anyhow bound to be outdated by the time of launch.
Yoshida illustrates this point with an episode from the development of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. As an advisor to Kepler Interactive, Yoshida played a demo of the game about two years prior to its launch. He was immediately impressed by the combat, which he describes as a “combination of turn-based JRPG mechanics and real-time action inputs reminiscent of The Legend of Dragoon” (which he was the producer of).
However, despite being personally impressed by the gameplay, Yoshida observed a tendency for turn-based JRPGs to be dismissed as outdated at the time, so he advised the developers at Sandfall Interactive not to label it as one. “It’s incredibly well-made, but it would be better not to call it a turn-based RPG. That alone might cause players to overlook it.” Consequently, the branding was adjusted to terms like “reactive turn-based battles.”
After Expedition 33 became a breakout hit, Yoshida says, publishers have apparently started receiving a steady stream of pitches for turn-based RPGs. He sees this story as a prime example of success not being guaranteed just by pursuing market trends.
