{"id":68475,"date":"2026-06-19T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=68475"},"modified":"2026-06-19T17:41:53","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T08:41:53","slug":"resident-evil-creator-shinji-mikami-says-if-watching-a-playthrough-is-enough-the-game-wasnt-good-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/resident-evil-creator-shinji-mikami-says-if-watching-a-playthrough-is-enough-the-game-wasnt-good-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami says \u201cif watching a playthrough is enough, the game wasn\u2019t good enough\u201d\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Japanese comedian and\u00a0YouTuber\u00a0Eiko Kano,\u00a0famous\u00a0for his\u00a0spectacularly chaotic\u00a0playthroughs of the\u00a0Resident Evil<\/strong>\u00a0series, recently\u00a0talked about an exchange\u00a0he had with Shinji Mikami\u00a0\u2013 director of the original RE and RE4\u00a0\u2013 on the topic of\u00a0playthrough videos and gaming streams.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As reported by\u00a0Nikkan<\/a>,\u00a0on June 18,\u00a0Kano\u00a0appeared on a TV program\u00a0dedicated to sharing \u201cbadass\u201d anecdotes\u00a0from his life, and the\u00a0moment he\u00a0looked back on as exceptionally cool was his encounter with\u00a0Mikami.\u00a0Gaming\u00a0streams can be a sensitive topic among game developers (particularly in Japan<\/a>),\u00a0with opinions divided on whether\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0simply a\u00a0beneficial form of \u201cfree marketing,\u201d\u00a0or\u00a0conversely,\u00a0lead\u00a0to a loss of\u00a0opportunity\u00a0as people \u201cconsume\u201d\u00a0games\u00a0through\u00a0viewing and don\u2019t end up buying\u00a0them. Given these circumstances,\u00a0Kano\u00a0had been concerned about his own streaming activities\u00a0at the time.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although he had explicit permission from Capcom, the fact that he was essentially spoiling the stories and puzzles of Resident Evil titles made him anxious about whether the creators behind them felt uncomfortable with it. When he later got an opportunity to meet Mikami in person, he decided to ask him directly about his stance. Although Kano was fully prepared to stop streaming if he got a negative answer, Mikami reportedly responded, \u201cIf viewers watch a playthrough of a game all the way to the end and are satisfied with just that, then it was only that good of a game.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Resident<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

He went on to explain, \u201cOur job\u00a0is to make games that leave people wanting to clear them with their own hands, even\u00a0if\u00a0they\u2019ve watched\u00a0someone else do it, so keep streaming.\u201d\u00a0This suggests Mikami considers developers fully responsible for how exposure through playthroughs will affect their games.\u00a0Incidentally,\u00a0Kano adds that he has received\u00a0almost the\u00a0exact same response from Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii on the matter\u00a0(although this\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0seem to be reflected in\u00a0Square Enix\u2019s streaming guidelines for the series<\/a>\u00a0so much).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interestingly, Square Enix\u2019s Naoki Hamaguchi, who\u2019s directing the Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy, expressed a similar sentiment not long ago<\/a>, commenting that with playthroughs becoming increasingly popular nowadays, RPGs need to evolve in a way that makes viewers itch to play them themselves, rather than just consume the story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related: \u201cStreamers earn more money from playing games than we do from making them.\u201d Japanese indie devs voice need for revenue-sharing with content creators<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Japanese comedian and streamer Eiko Kano recently talked about what happened when he asked Shinji Mikami if he was okay with his Resident Evil playthroughs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":68477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","autoblue_publish_document":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-68475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nResident Evil creator Shinji Mikami says \u201cif watching a playthrough is enough, the game wasn\u2019t good enough\u201d\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Japanese comedian and streamer Eiko Kano recently talked about what happened when he asked Shinji Mikami if he was okay with his Resident Evil playthroughs.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/resident-evil-creator-shinji-mikami-says-if-watching-a-playthrough-is-enough-the-game-wasnt-good-enough\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami says \u201cif watching a playthrough is enough, the game wasn\u2019t good enough\u201d\u00a0 - 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