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[BluePikmin11]

This is a very interesting interview with Akihiro Hino. He talks about his goal of wanting to be a video game creator growing up, his response to people saying he's milking his franchises, his experience of being a CEO and a creative director, augmented reality, and Megaton Musashi. This is my first time sharing an interview on NeoGaf, and no one has posted the interview thus far, so I thought I share.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ollieba...ss-and-how-super-robots-are-now-a-blue-ocean/

Hino's goal growing up:

“I decided to become a game creator as an adult. However, I knew I wanted to be involved in games ever since I was an elementary school student and I even started studying programming during my final year in elementary school. Among the games I played, Dragon Quest III was the most influential. In addition, The Black Onyx and Wizardry were addictive games for me.

“In general, I really enjoy role-playing games. They are great because you can enjoy the gameplay and story for a long time.”

On Professor Layton:

“Professor Layton was the first title we released as a publisher, so we were thinking that we absolutely had to make it a hit. To that end, from a PR and user perspective, we designed the game to appeal and be interesting to casual players. While it may have exceeded our expectations, we worked hard to make it a hit."

“I have strong feelings for all our games but if I have to choose one title, it would be the Layton series as my favorite. It has a soft spot in my heart because it was the first title Level-5 published and it was so successful."

On milking:

“We do not believe that our titles have oversaturated marketing in Japan, and we don’t attribute our success to only marketing initiatives. Alternatively, what I would like to speak about are the key factors to our titles’ success. We thoroughly research what children are into now and even as generations change, we adapt in real-time to create content that speaks to kids. For example, we like to incorporate current trends and popular culture into our content to make it relevant.”

His role as CEO and Creative Director:

“I design a draft scenario and create the story, usually around 40 A4-size pages. I then share it with the Level-5 staff, and create a cross-media model incorporating all of our company’s feedback. For the main titles in the Yo-Kai Watch and Layton series, I put a great deal of effort in creating the drafts and then handed the project off to roughly 50 staff members to take to completion but I stay involved throughout the creative process and am continually giving feedback and instructions.

“As I am quite busy fulfilling the roles of both CEO and Creative Director. Since it is impossible for me to look at all the details of each individual project, there are many supporting staff members that manage portions of the projects and routinely present updates for my approval. Things are functioning well because each individual staff member is proactive and independent in their work and takes ownership of the titles we develop and their own work/performance. Therefore, the structure of the organization enables the company to function well.

“Furthermore, Level-5 is not content to be just a video game creator. We are striving to become a full-fledged entertainment company that also produces animation, toys, games, etc. To do so, we continue to evolve as a company and teach every member of Level-5 to be able to function in all fields of entertainment.”

On AR/VR:

“As for our future games, I would like to make a title that utilizes cutting-edge technology like VR, AR, and so on.”

On Megaton Musashi:

“We are intentionally diving into less popular and so-called “blue ocean” genres. For example, the Inazuma series is our foray into the soccer game genre, even though soccer’s popularity is declining in Japan and Little Battlers eXperience was our way of challenging the robot genre, though the popularity and production of plastic robot models is declining.

“For Megaton Musashi, we are applying the same strategy. When I was a child, there were a lot of giant robot anime produced and I was really into it but currently, there are hardly any super robot intellectual properties, and it is difficult for them to catch on. So for Musashi, I want to use the latest technology to create a nostalgic but new robot that will reverberate with children and adults alike.”

My personal thoughts? I highly respect Hino for his huge effort into pushing his franchises to make them very popular, even if they are short outbursts. He must be extremely exhausted after such pushes and I highly admire his effort. I realize his talent with running an entire company and being creative director, and I can only respect him more.

I hope I did this interview sharing right. Sorry if I made a mistake.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

"Milking" brings about such a terrible mental image

 

[Jarod McChicken]

I guess that Ni no Kuni 2 announcement was a collective hallucination, or something ?

 

[Celine]

Level5 strategy to quickly produce sequels of a hit game is correct especially because their hits are geared towards kids so it's important to reap the profits before a new trend arise.

To be sincere I'm not a fan of Level 5 games but I have a high respect for the company.
Think about it:
Level 5 is by far the youngest among the big japanese publishers (established in 2008 with the first Layton if memory serves me well).
All the other big japanese publishers were key players during the Famicom age or are a fusion between old publishers (Sega-Sammy-Atlus, Namco-Bandai, Tecmo-Koei) instead Hino successfully transitioned his company from a simple developer to one of the bigger player in the japanese market in a time when the industry was already heavily consolidating.
And he could do it because Level 5 created in a relatively short period of 5-6 years three new IPs that were big hit on Nintendo handhelds.
Creating a new IP which in a short time period has an episode that become a million seller in Japan is extremely rare and yet Level 5 did it 3 times (Professor Layton, Inazuma Eleven, Yokai Watch).

 

[RangerBAD]

Founded in 1998. So not that old, but not that young either.

 

[salromano]

I guess that Ni no Kuni 2 announcement was a collective hallucination, or something ?

Right? Ni no Kuni II is the first thing I would've asked about.

 

[watershed]

Hino is a once in a generation kind of creative leader. Level 5 have been incredibly successful and with multiple IPs that go for multiple sequels. Their success right now reminds me of early Nintendo creating IP after IP that resonates with large audiences. I've been impressed.

 

[Iva Demilcol]

I like Level 5 a lot. Both inazuma eleven and the Layton series were pretty entertaining, innovative even. And even before those series they made incredible games during the ps2 era. Hino has all my respect.

 

[Celine]

Founded in 1998. So not that old, but not that young either.

Founded in 1998 as a developer but began as a publisher only in 2007.

 

[sublimit]

I'm disappointed that they didn't ask him about Ni no kuni 2. :/

 

[casiopao]

Level5 strategy to quickly produce sequels of a hit game is correct especially because their hits are geared towards kids so it's important to reap the profits before a new trend arise.

To be sincere I'm not a fan of Level 5 games but I have a high respect for the company.
Think about it:
Level 5 is by far the youngest among the big japanese publishers (established in 2008 with the first Layton if memory serves me well).
All the other big japanese publishers were key players during the Famicom age or are a fusion between old publishers (Sega-Sammy-Atlus, Namco-Bandai, Tecmo-Koei) instead Hino successfully transitioned his company from a simple developer to one of the bigger player in the japanese market in a time when the industry was already heavily consolidating.
And he could do it because Level 5 created in a relatively short period of 5-6 years three new IPs that were big hit on Nintendo handhelds.
Creating a new IP which in a short time period has an episode that become a million seller in Japan is extremely rare and yet Level 5 did it 3 times (Professor Layton, Inazuma Eleven, Yokai Watch).

LBX is also one that is quite successful when it is released there. Just sad that it fall faster vs all those other 3 title.

I'm disappointed that they didn't ask him about Ni no kuni 2. :/

Well, except for West market, i don't think many care about that IP lol. Not to mention, Ni No Kuni is not one of their big IP at any front so it is useless to ask for that title lol.