Keiji Inafune on the Perils and Potential of Kickstarter

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Comcept's Mighty No. 9 has become a landmark of crowd-funded game design. Its campaign ranks among the most successful Kickstarter has ever seen. It was one of the first crowd-funding efforts by a high-profile Japanese developer, former Mega Man and Onimusha producer Keiji Inafune. And since the beginning, the Mighty No. 9 process has been defined by the developers' startlingly open relationship with the game's community.

We recently had a chance to catch up with Inafune at Game Developers Conference. Besides discussing Mighty No. 9's Mega Man connections, we also talked about the challenges and dangers that come hand-in-hand with the Kickstarter approach to development. Trust, self-motivation, and knowing the boundaries – all tasks that differ greatly in a crowd-funded situation versus the traditional publishing model.

USgamer: How have things changed since we spoke last year?

Keiji Inafune: Since the Kickstarter was successfully funded, the development has gone pretty well. What I’m thinking now is, how can I use this experience, use Kickstarter and crowdfunding and the relationship with backers, to make even more things for the backers, provide more things for the community and the industry. That’s what I’ve been thinking about lately.

US: Do you mean you’re considering additional Kickstarter projects, creating other games or products through Kickstarter, or are you just talking about finding ways to take the existing Kickstarter backers and give them richer rewards?

KI: Both, for existing backers and new projects as well. The way I see Kickstarter, it’s a place to provide dream projects or dream games for both sides, backers and creators. Backers want new games and creators want to make new games. I want to provide that new dream and enhance the existing dream.

US: Would you have multiple Kickstarter campaigns running at the same time? Would you launch a new one before Mighty No. 9 became available to the public?

KI: Normal publishers, they’ll usually have multiple projects running at the same time. The way we think, working through Kickstarter, we became a publisher, if a small publisher. In that sense, definitely – we want to think about multiple projects at the same time. The difference is, we’re using Kickstarter. That makes it harder for us to present a project to backers. It’s something we should think about, though. We should be very careful.

US: I find that there’s a lot of distrust in the gaming community now, because of so many Kickstarters were people have gone out and earned a lot of money and made big promises and failed to deliver.

KI: The trust part is something I really value in this Kickstarter project, in Mighty No. 9. The backers trusted us with their own money, and we trusted the backers to support us to the very end. In that sense, we’re showing every milestone we’ve had so far. We’ve shown the backers what’s going on and what’s new in the game. We want to earn that trust from the backers, from the very start of making the game.

To answer that question of whether I’d want to start another project while Mighty No. 9 is still in development, I’d say yes, but I won’t reveal another project until I’m completely sure that the backers trust us and trust that the game can be made. Then I can maybe think about starting another project. Our developer at IntiCreates, and the backers as well, are both very motivated. I think that relationship, the trust between the backers and us, is going pretty well at the moment.

US: What would you consider a metric for reaching that point of trust, where you’d feel comfortable crowdfunding a new project?

KI: I think the line that you’re asking about is pretty much up to the backers. When they feel like they’re comfortable enough, they’ll show us that they want something new, something else. Most of the Kickstarter projects I’ve seen so far aren’t doing so well with the trust part. If the backers are the publisher and we’re the developer, then normally, when you’re making a game, you have to set up milestones and present milestones to the publisher. Then, when they’re okay with the milestones, the publisher pays you.

With Kickstarter, you get paid in the beginning, everything at the beginning. As a result, a developer can tend to slack off. If you have the money already, you don’t need to present anything. As long as you have a master date, you can say, we’re making it according to this date, and everything’s fine. But I think that’s a trap, for both the backers and the developer. We want to avoid that. That’s why we’re showing everything during each of our milestones.

US: You’ve mentioned milestones quite a few times. My understanding is that traditionally publishers set up milestones, and say, "This is what we want to see at this time." As you’ve said, though, this is a different arrangement. I assume, in this case, that the milestones are all internally generated. They’re what you decide they will be. How have you picked out those milestones and said, "These are the points where we’ll show the project to the public and let them see our progress?"

KI: The unique thing about our project is that even though we are the developer, we’re using IntiCreates as our partner to actually develop the game. In a sense, the concept is like we’re acting as a publisher toward IntiCreates. With my experience back at Capcom, working as a publisher, we know where we should set our milestones. With the relationship we have with IntiCreates, we can talk to them very frankly about setting up this kind of thing.

Another thing is, the way we set up our milestones, we align them with major events in the game industry – E3, GDC, those kinds of things. We try to make sure that we can show some kind of big announcement at those times. That’s how we set up those milestones. Another thing, though... I really hate is to break any promise. We promised the backers we would deliver our game in the spring of 2015. That will be our final deadline. Having that in the beginning really helps us to set up the rest of the milestones.

US: Do you plan to show the game publicly – not just online, but to take it to events like E3 and the Tokyo Game Show later this year, to let the public play it and see it for themselves? Do you plan to release any publicly playable demos as downloads?

KI: We definitely want to show the public our game. We want as many people as possible to see it and play it. But even though we’re being sort of the publisher of Mighty No. 9, we’re not actually a publisher. We don’t have the strength or the resources to set up a booth in those events. Based on that, we have to talk to first-party publishers and have them help us set up presentations or displays. So yeah, we hope to do that, but it’ll be hard for us.

US: Have you been in talks with any of the hardware makers, with E3 a few months away?

KI: We’ve already been talking to some first party companies, yes. A presentation or a booth could be possible at E3. But to be honest, E3 is the toughest one to make as far as the stage of development. It’s right in the middle. At TGS, we can definitely have something to show to the public, but during E3, we’re not sure yet if we can make that line. We’re definitely talking to first parties already, though.

US: You’re working with IntiCreates as a partner on Mighty No. 9. You’re also working with them on Azure Striker Gunvolt, which you recently announced. Why did you go with a traditional publishing model there? The game’s just three months out. It’s not crowdfunded. Why not take the same approach as with Mighty No. 9?

KI: There’s no very special reason why we split the two approaches. To be honest, Gunvolt came up first. IntiCreates is paying for everything on Gunvolt. We’re basically just consultants. We’re not doing that much of the development on our part. We’re just helping out. During that time, when we were working together on Gunvolt, I became more confident about having IntiCreates work on Mighty No. 9, because I saw what they could do. I knew them from a long time ago, but still, Gunvolt made me more confident about using IntiCreates as a developer.

US: Something you mentioned before was that your experience as a publisher, working with Capcom, has helped guide the milestones and keep Mighty No. 9 on track. Most independent developers don’t have the experience that you do, though. You have a depth of knowledge that they don’t. Are people looking to you for advice? Do you think that they’re aware that the experience you bring to the table is helping with your project in a way that they may not be able to replicate as less experienced developers?

KI: I’m getting a lot of questions, not only from Japanese indie developers, but also from westerners as well. Most of them, even with a successful Kickstarter campaign, they’re doing their projects as a developer, not as a publisher. In my opinion, you have to think like a publisher if you want to do a successful Kickstarter project. You’re creating a product, not just a game. Even if you don’t like thinking about the business side of the project, you have to. You’re delivering a product to the gamers that are helping you. That’s not something you can slack off on. In that sense… If you’re thinking about making a Kickstarter project, you have to think about production and marketing from the start. If they ask me for advice, that’s what I have to say.

US: Sounds like you should set up a side business as a Kickstarter consultant.

KI: If I can make that into a business. Right now I’m doing everything for free.

US: I was wondering if you’ve spoken to Koji Igarashi, since he’s cited Mighty No. 9 as a motivating factor behind breaking away from Konami and starting his own venture.

KI: Actually, I’ve never spoken to him before. So for I haven’t had a chance to meet him yet.

US: He’d probably appreciate some free advice as well.

KI: The way I see Igarashi, he’s been working in Konami for 20-some years, the same way I worked at Capcom for 20-some years. I feel like we were in the same situation, working in the same company for so many years and then breaking off to start our own companies. I think that it’s a big challenge, for sure. At the same time, it’s good for the industry. These are true creators with experience as publishers, and we’re starting our own things. I’m hoping to see more of this happening. It’s not necessarily good for publishers, though...

US: Talking a bit more about Mighty No. 9, if you don’t mind getting into the particulars of the development process… We’ve talked a lot about the business side of things, the publishing side of things, and how Kickstarter has affected that. But on the more creative side, could you talk about how the relationship with the backers and the openness you’ve taken with the project… How has that changed the process of development from what you’re used to?

KI: Being this open to the backers is… If you think about it, we’re doing extra work on top of development, because we have to prepare the updates and prepare the materials to show to the backers. In that sense, it’s something that takes up our time, but at the same time, we definitely think it’s worth it. We can get a direct reaction from our backers right there. It’s a very motivating thing, to hear all these reactions from the backers during development. Sometimes, we really are torn between two options. When that happens, we can ask them, because they’re right there to make this game together with us and help us. It’s definitely a good resource to have.

A couple of weeks ago we announced one of these questions to the backers, about the starting message. The reaction we got so far was a tremendous amount of feedback from the backers. That active movement is really motivating the team. They know that this many people are looking forward to the game.

US: Where do you draw the line, when you’re being very open with the community? As much as people love to see what’s happening -- and it’s very exciting for fans and backers to see that sort of transparency – I feel like as a creator, you still want to hold on to something so that in the end, when people play the game, they’re surprised. They don’t know everything in advance. How do you find that balance?

KI: That’s a very good question, and a very tough thing to do for us. In a sense, showing everything is not necessarily a good thing as far as the surprise part. Everyone can see the game from the beginning, and there won’t be any surprise once the game is made. The way we see this, it’s also a PR duty. Naturally, the director doesn’t want to show anything to the backers. But we promised the backers that we would make the game together and show them updates. So that’s PR. It all mixes together. Often we fight with each other – some people say we should show this, and others say, no, we shouldn’t show that. But when it comes to that, everyone comes to me and I’ll make a final decision, to show or not to show. We want to feed the backers lots of information, as much as possible. But some things, we just can’t do it. It’s a tough decision to make, every time.