The Cost of Creativity: Why Hideki Kamiya Needed to Leave Platinum Games
Additionally, there exists the potential behind the new studio, Clovers, led by former Okami creators.
Hideki Kamiya has expressed that if he had continued his career at Platinum Games, his “creative spirit [would] perish”.
The former vice-president of Platinum has established a new studio alongside another ex-Platinum employee, Kaneto Koyama, as shared in a recent interview with the Japanese source denfaminicogamer.
The duo has founded Clovers, which aims to produce a sequel to the beloved Okami, originally developed by Kamiya at Clover Studio.
“This is simply my personal perspective, but I thought, ‘If I keep working here, my creative spirit will wither away’,” Kamiya commented on his rationale for departing Platinum last year (via machine translation).
“I can grasp the nature of PlatinumGames as a corporation and its rationale, as I was once vice president myself, but as an individual called Hideki Kamiya, I couldn’t adopt that mindset.”
In his role as vice president, Kamiya was driven by a “field-first” approach at Platinum Games—he characterized himself as the muscle while CEO Atsushi Inaba was the intellect.
“The messages sent from the brain are crucial for the muscles,” Kamiya elaborated. “At the same time, these messages must be dependable for the muscles. Previously, I had received those signals, trusted them, and worked to enhance my own capabilities… but regarding the future direction of Platinum under Inaba’s leadership, I could no longer place my faith in them and wield my abilities as a muscle.”
Kamiya has been quite candid about his decision to exit Platinum Games, even previously stating there were issues of “trust”.
Subsequently, he started a YouTube channel to discuss his upcoming project. “I already possess a clear concept,” he mentioned. “I aim to translate this vision in my mind into a complete proposal as soon as I can. Naturally, I also have a notion of what I can do to bring this project to fruition. But if you inquire specifically about the type of game it will be, all I can say at this point is, ‘It will definitely be a Hideki Kamiya game’.”
It remains to be seen if this project pertains to the new Okami sequel, which was revealed to be in development during this year’s The Game Awards last week.
In this recent interview, Kamiya and Koyama elaborated on the Clovers name of their new studio. Some have interpreted it as “C lovers,” with the four Cs symbolizing the four leaves of a clover.
However, only three Cs are firmly established: challenge, creativity, and craftsmanship.