Akihiro Hino On The Secret Of Level-5’s Success And How Super Robots Are Now A Blue Ocean

Forbes – August 15, 2016 – One of the more interesting gaming companies in Japan is Level-5. Both a developer and a publisher, it has recently had a massive success with Yo-Kai Watch. I caught up with the company’s CEO and president Akihiro Hino to find out more about where the company is going and why the sudden interest in super robots.

Over the years, Level-5 has made a name for itself by creating a wide variety of hugely successful games. From Ni no Kuni to Professor Layton, the studio’s games cover a large selection of genres.

It seems that Hino always wanted to work in games though, “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.”

In recent years, Yo-Kai Watch has become somewhat of phenomenon in Japan and now across the world. I was curious as to how the studio comes up with and manage these large cross-media projects and Hino was more than happy to explain, “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.

“So in that regard, Yo-Kai Watch wasn’t our first cross-media project, we already had Inazuma Eleven and Little Battlers eXperience, so we already had a successful model to follow. Due to our previous experience, the team formation and project frame were already in place and we were able to focus on how to make this title a success during development. Because of our preparations and previous experience, it was not a surprise to us that Yo-Kai Watch was so successful.”

Yo-Kai Watch has been a huge success for the studio. (Photo credit: Level-5 Inc.)

However, Yo-Kai Watch took a bit of a dip last year, as it seemed the marketing was oversaturated and there were production bottlenecks with merchandise getting to stores. Hino thinks otherwise, “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.”

With such large and complex cross-media projects all on the go at once, I wanted to know more about how the games were structured in terms of their production and design. As I expected, there is a great deal of delegation involved, as Hino explains, “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.”

Looking to the future though, Hino still wants to try out things like VR, “As for our future games, I would like to make a title that utilizes cutting-edge technology like VR, AR, and so on.”

The titular Megaton Musashi, a new super robot property created by the studio. (Photo credit: Level-5 Inc.)

This is what brought me on to one of the studio’s latest endeavors, Megaton Musashi. Previously the studio has dealt with mecha-based properties, such as Little Battlers eXperience and Gundam AGE. However, both series had their flaws upon release and were both primarily real robot in focus.

Megaton Musashi is an all-new super robot property and I wanted to know why the studio was going down the mecha route yet again and with an approach that’s arguably already very mature.

“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.”

While I happily endorse this type of enthusiasm, there have been quite a few recent super robot properties in recent times, with Gurren Lagann being obviously notable. So it’s not entirely a “blue ocean”. I only hope that Megaton Musashi succeeds where Level-5’s prior mecha based properties have failed but at the very least Go Nagai has blessed the project and that’s by no means trivial.

As always, I am glad that companies like Level-5 are still making a variety of games. It’s obvious that there is no such thing as a game for everyone, only each and everyone. Level-5’s enduring success only seems to prove that maxim. I only hope that the super robot ocean that Hino and his team have set sail upon will treat them fairly.

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