The interviewee - speaking under the catch-all pseudonym Hideo Nanashi (the interview in question is in fact an amalgamation of several interviews with different people) - talks to Szczepaniak about cancelled titles and other topics before addressing what has to be one of the most explosive stories in the entire book - his sibling's abduction by gangsters at the behest of a leading Japanese game maker, which shall remain nameless:
My younger sister was kidnapped. [REDACTED] hired some gangsters to do it. They did it to make me stop cooperating with Nintendo.
While this all sounds stranger than fiction, a little context is called for. In Japan, the arcade industry had links to organised crime - namely the Yakuza. Nanashi explains:
In Japan, you have these evil companies that always crop up, and unlike the West, in Japan there's a perception that "play" is bad, the opposite of hard work. So amusement-oriented industries inevitably become infested with evil companies and ties to the underworld. Take arcades, for example. In legal terms, they're covered under laws regarding the entertainment and amusement trades. So they're managed under the same laws that regulate the adult, or "pink", industry. Because of that, the underworld gets involved. The only companies that have been able to do business while staying clean are probably Nintendo and Namco.
Nanashi then recounts the amazing kidnapping story in more detail, explaining that he hired a truck-mounted crane to drop an arcade machine in front of the company's offices to show he meant business:
It was one of their game machines. I dropped it in front of their offices, smashed it. And I told them that one of their employees would be next. To show them that I was serious. That way they would feel ashamed of their actions, you know? It was easy for me to get a [REDACTED] arcade cabinet cheaply, so I bought one from a distributor. I thought about robbing a [REDACTED] arcade, too, but that's much more difficult, and that would make me a criminal. With what I ended up doing, I could have been charged with something like unlawful dumping of garbage, but that's a minor offence. Whereas if I had robbed a [REDACTED] arcade, I would have been arrested. [REDACTED] was well-versed in using the underworld to get what they want, so if you're going up against them, you have to be smart. They're a big company, so if you try to fight them with ordinary methods, they'll work with the police and get the legal system to come after you. They might even pay off a politician, like a member of the National Diet. Who knows what they're capable of?
