Frank Miller and I on the main stage. Words canât describe how this feels. Frank is the single most influential writer of my career. Iâd spend endless nights at cop bars (as a crime reporter), rowdy strip clubs and hostess bars monologuing to myself drowning in whiskey and smoke. Sin City could be anywhere. In Frankâs writing, I saw a reflection. It lit up the dark theater in my mind, loud and electric. I am grateful to have lived through it all for this moment.
and i had the format anxiety too! itâs like being a gamer. you want to play the best possible âportâ of it. but donât digital foundry yourself into missing out. the movie looks incredible.
The Duskbloods Closed Network Test will take place at the dates and times shown in the image below. Starting on July 22 (Wed.), please register using the official network test website: https://t.co/unWxOdkAzX
Released in 1967, Viy was the Soviet Union's first officially released horror film. Its breathtaking practical effectsâcreated by fantasy pioneer Aleksandr Ptushkoâremain among the most imaginative ever put on screen, culminating in one of horror's greatest supernatural finales.
Hace unos meses, Claudia Sheinbaum entregaba estas viviendas del Bienestar en Veracruz, en el fraccionamiento Bosques del RĂo Medio en conjunto Infonavit. Ayer con la primera lluvia el lugar quedĂł destrozado. Te explico esta tranza de Octavio Romero.
From my perspective, Miyazaki is a rather unique, yet extremely serious game developer.
His career did not begin in the game industry. In fact, he didnât become a game developer until he was almost thirty years old.
Even among developers of my generation (those of us born in the 1970s), I think itâs remarkable that someone who wasnât even a game developer during the dawn of the polygon era eventually became one of Japanâs most representative game creators. (In other words, compared to the rest of us from the same generationâincluding myselfâhis career path is exceptionally unusual. Most notably, unlike many of us, he was not working at one of the major development studios that held a significant technological advantage during the early polygon era. That, more than anything else, is what makes his path so unique.)
Next, regarding my impression of Dark Souls.
People often focus on its difficulty as a game, but I believe Miyazakiâs true creativity shines through in the world he created. (By the way, I personally think Dark Souls has fairly simple action mechanics, and I donât actually consider it to be an especially difficult game.)
If you look into my own career, youâll see that I was personally involved with the Dark Souls series and Elden Ring as the General Manager overseeing both production and marketing (Just to clarify, I wasn't part of the development team itself. My involvement was simply as the General Manager of the publisher-side department overseeing production and marketing). From that perspective, I can say that Dark Souls didnât suddenly become a massive success overnight. It was the result of everything Miyazaki and his team had built up through their previous titles.
Today, he receives offers from all over the world, but when I think back to the days when he and his team were struggling the most, many of those offers seem like theyâre coming from people who only know who they are today. Some of them almost feel like complete reversals in attitude. Well, thatâs just my personal perspective.
Personally, I had grown tired of people who would simply compare games by saying things like, âThat title cost X billion yen to make and sold Y million copies,â and then use nothing but those numbers to judge them against other games. There were so many people who couldnât appreciate the journey or the growth of the developers themselves. Anyone can look at the current numbersâtheyâre available to everyone. Whenever I heard those kinds of opinions, I always thought, âThatâs exactly what youâd expect from someone whoâs never actually developed games.â
What surprised me even more was that, even if people couldnât properly evaluate that journey, almost nobody even seemed interested in trying to understand the process of how those developers gradually reached where they are today.
(I'm NOT talking about the fan community).
Now, going back to Miyazaki, there are two things about him that have always stayed with me.
The first was back when I was developing Summer Lesson for VR, around the time it was generating a lot of buzz.
One day, he came to try an early build of Summer Lesson along with people from several other game companies.
While everyone else was laughing, chatting, and having fun with it, Miyazaki alone played it with incredible seriousness. Then, after everyone had finished and started discussing their impressions, he remained completely silent, staring intently at the preview monitor, deep in thought.
Everyone became curious and finally asked him, âMiyazaki, what are you thinking about?â
He suddenly smiled and said,
âOh⊠I got completely absorbed in thinking about what I would do if I were making this, and what kind of game Iâd create.â
What he talked about after that was, in the best possible sense, completely insane.
It was one of those rare moments when I caught a glimpse of what Iâd call his âmad scientistâ sideâhis deeply serious, obsessive approach to creativity.
The other thing that left a strong impression on me was that he generally dislikes video interviews (including live streaming).
I once asked him about it by email, and he replied with quite a long explanation. After reading it, I completely understood where he was coming from.
Simply put, he doesnât like watching himself moving around on video. (Psychologically speaking, itâs actually a bit more complicated than that.)
But there was another reason.
According to him, there are naturally many people in this industry who know games far better than he does. Whenever he listens to those people speak, he realizes that his own understanding is still shallow, and it makes him feel that heâs not yet in a position to be the one talking about games.
I mean⊠itâs common for well-known developers to say, âI still have a long way to go.â
But whenever someone like him says that, my reaction is always,
âCome on⊠if you say youâre still not there yet, then the rest of us wonât feel qualified to talk about games at all.â (laugh)
Anyway, thatâs one of the reasons why video interviews with Miyazaki are extremely rare. And conversations with him on cameraâespecially long-form discussions with another developerâare even rarer. They almost donât exist at all.
By the way, the other game developer in that photo is Masahiro Sakurai.
If you ask me, heâs basically:
âA Saiyan who genuinely believes heâs just another ordinary human.â
Every now and then, when the rest of us are struggling with some problem, heâll say something that sounds exactly like Goku saying,
âWell⊠why donât you just fly?â
And Iâll reply,
âBecause we humans canât use Flight Technique.â
Then he just stares at me with a completely puzzled look.
To put it in terms of Demon Slayer, Iâd describe him as:
"Like Muzan Kibutsuji casually showing up at a drinking party where all the Hashira have gathered, genuinely believing he's just another ordinary guest".
Thatâs the kind of person he is.