The long-time head of Team Ninja and creator of the Dead or Alive fighting games, Tomonobu Itagaki is leaving Japanese publisher Tecmo, where he not only lead development on several games but served on the Board of Directors.
Whatever the ultimate cause of the split, it doesn’t appear to have been an amicable one. Itagaki has accused the President of Tecmo, Yoshima Yasuda, of not paying bonuses as promised and demeaning Itagaki in front of his co-workers and subordinates. Itagaki complaining about being trashed talked to is funny in its own right as Itagaki is famous for his harsh commentary on video games not made by him. Itagaki has now sued Yasuda in a Tokyo District Court for 148 million yen ($1.4 million).
On a personal note I can’t say I care much, Itagaki has always come off as a pretentious prick to me. One who thought that because his games were difficult they were great. His argument that can only be taken so far, I imagine sticking your head up your own ass is very difficult too; I don’t imagine it’s that much fun though… Ninja Gaiden is attractive to a certain subset of gamers who enjoy a high level of difficulty, that’s fine. To pretend that your audience is “better” in some sense because of their preference is not fine though. People come to game from a variety of backgrounds and an almost infinite number of reasons, being belittled for their game choices isn’t one of them. Itagaki might be a genius and a great game developer, he doesn’t seem like much of a nice guy though, and this? This seems like karma to me.
(Thanks, GamaSutra.)
