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For other people named "Kamiya", see Kamiya (disambiguation).
"Blocked, RT."
— Kamiya's popular phrase on Twitter

Hideki Kamiya (神谷 英樹 Kamiya Hideki?, born December 19, 1970) is a video game designer formerly employed by Capcom and "Clover Studio". He is currently working with former Clover Studio members at Platinum Games.[1] As a game designer, Kamiya states that he has been most inspired by the games The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Gradius. His favorite action game is the original Castlevania.[2]

Career[]

Planning Room 2[]

After graduating from college, Kamiya applied for jobs at various game developers. He was turned down by SEGA and had an application accepted by Namco. However, Namco wanted him to be an artist rather than his desire to be a game designer.[3] Kamiya joined Capcom as a designer in 1994, and was hired on as a planner for Tokura Fujiwara and Shinji Mikami's Horror Game, later titled BIO HAZARD or Resident Evil. In his role, Kamiya and the other planners worked under director Mikami in developing the vision of the game. Game development was complicated by low morale owing to rumours of Capcom facing bankruptcy following the poor box office of their self-financed Street Fighter: The Movie, with the game at one point close to cancellation to make ends meet. The game was originally pitched as a supernatural JRPG title for the Super Famicon in the style of Sweet Home, though by the time Kamiya joined the project it had long since moved to the PlayStation and was seeing a reduction in scope from a mountain valley to the grounds of a mansion.

Despite expectations of a mild success localised within Japan, Resident Evil made several million sales internationally and revitalising Capcom. At least two sequel projects were in development at this point, one to take place in the ruins of the Spencer Mansion in 2001 and another to take place in Raccoon City suffering a larger-scale t-Virus outbreak. The latter was favoured by Capcom, and Kamiya was assigned to it as writer-director with Mikami as producer.[4] Having preferred action films to horror films in his childhood, Kamiya envisioned his game being more focused on the violence rather than suspense, akin to the transition of styles from The Terminator to Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Alien to Aliens, the latter of both were used as sources of inspiration for the game. Kamiya co-developed the characters with Isao Ōishi, attaching personalities to his designs.[5] Having only worked in game design for a short time, Kamiya lacked both the confidence and leadership skills in the work, and his decision to let teams work on what they like led to quality control concerns. In late 1996, Mikami and Planning Room 2 manager Yoshiki Okamoto negotiated for the game to be delayed several months to allow for improvements, with Mikami's game Dino Crisis shelved to bring in more staff. Okamoto and the other senior managers at Capcom were heavily sceptical of Kamiya staying on as director, but Mikami was able to keep him in the role. Tokusatsu writer Noboru Sugimura was brought in to polish the script; being accustomed to TV writing he found Kamiya's story and script unsatisfactory, and was retained as writer to replace it with one of his own, later forming the writing studio Flagship with Okamoto to help other game projects. Over the course of the game's development, Kamiya went through a series of personal problems that effected his performance, describing in interviews a break-in that left him too scared to sleep, alcohol abuse causing him to cough up blood and depression brought on by his fear of being blacklisted from career advancement in gaming. He did however form a close relationship with Sugimura, who took him on as a writing mentor.

Following his work on Resident Evil 2, Kamiya was hired on as producer for BIOHAZARD 3, a PlayStation title set on a passenger liner. Kamiya was however exhausted and lacking in confidence following his directorial debut, and soon swapped roles to become a planner again.[6] The game was ultimately cancelled when Sony announced the PlayStation 2.[7] Around the same time, he provided ideas for Tatsuya Minami's Resident Evil 0 project, which drew upon Resident Evil 2 as a design template; Kamiya's ideas drew from Sweet Home, such as the ability to switch characters on-the-fly and to swap out items without the item boxes.[8]

Production Studio 4[]

Hideki Kamiya in 2002

Kamiya in 2002, during the developemt of Viewtiful Joe. [9]

Following the announcement of the PlayStation 2, Capcom quickly acquired an SDK and began work on new AAA titles to come out in 2001. Immediately replacing the scrapped BIOHAZARD 3 was a new version for the PlayStation 2. With pressure from Mikami in his position as Executive Producer, Kamiya and Atsushi Inaba worked together directing and producing the new game, despite concerns from Capcom.[citation needed] Under Kamiya, the game was made to be completely unique to the franchise to both take full advantage of the new console's capabilities and revitalise the series to prevent stagnation. Working with Sugimura and his new Flagship studio, the two sought to explore the origins of the Umbrella Corporation and the t-Virus, which tied to the rise and fall of an ancient mutant civilisation and the apotheosis of Oswell E. Spencer. An early idea was for the protagonist to be Leon S. Kennedy, and discover he is Spencer's son and a superhuman, but this soon became an original character called Tony Redgrave. While internally the game was well liked, as development neared completion Mikami was concerned the change in gameplay was too radical a departure and could alienate fans of the series. Ultimately the game was retitled "Karnival", later "Devil May Cry", and minor changes made to remove its association with Resident Evil.[citation needed]At the end of production, Kamiya was injured in a motorcycle accident and kept in a hospital, leading to him missing the game's launch.[citation needed]

During development of the game, Kamiya was party to an internal protest of executive interference in games development. The complaint was focused primarily on a decision by Okamoto to retitle Mikami and Kazuhiro Aoyama's Gaiden game as Resident Evil 3, with Kamiya's renumbered as Resident Evil 4. This decision was related to Capcom's planned entry onto the stock market in the 2000 financial year and need for a blockbuster title on the most popular console to come out before Christmas 1999 to advertise the company to investors. Okamoto also demanded changes in how Resident Evil 3 was to work, seeing its "indie" design pitch as a hindrance to sales. In response to this, Kamiya joined Mikami and several other directors and producers in submitting resignation letters, though this was only a stunt, and they returned to work the following week.

Following the release of Devil May Cry to positive reception, Capcom began work with a sequel through Noritaka Funamizu's Production Studio 1. Kamiya was not hired for this project in any capacity, and learned of the game's production through colleagues, something he took grievance with. In 2002 Kamiya was given the role of directing a new AA game for the GameCube as a means of testing his directing skills without risking a major financial blow.[10] The title, later known as "Viewtiful Joe", was envisioned by him as a beat 'em up inspired by his love of tokusatsu.

Clover Studios[]

In 2004, Capcom established Clover Studios as a fully-owned subsidiary run by their best talent to produce new blockbuster IPs with limited executive interference. Kamiya left Studio 4 to join Clover. Despite its initial promises, Capcom was greatly interested in follow-ups to Viewtiful Joe, with Kamiya writing the stories for three further games. His first and only directing role at Clover was Ōkami, a project which entered pre-production with landscape artwork but no ideas for gameplay or story. From the nature, the idea eventually formed of anthropomorphic characters and Japan's Shinto folklore. The game sold 200,000 copies and scored well with reviewers, but was not the runaway success Capcom was hoping from its new studio. With the similarly unspectacular sales of Mikami's God Hand, relations between Capcom and Clover fragmented with them too sceptical to commit to another new IP. Kamiya followed Mikami and Inaba, followed by others, in quitting Clover in protest. With the loss of its lead talent, Capcom absorbed Clover later in 2006.

PlatinumGames[]

Kamiya, Inaba and Mikami continued their partnership with the formation of the indie studio, Seeds Inc.,[1] which soon after merged with Minami's Odd Inc., formed after his own departure. The new company, PlatinumGames, was contracted to work on an initial order of four titles for Sega which the developers worked on in parallel. Although initially interested in the ambitious Scalebound Action RPG pitch, Kamiya's contribution was instead Bayonetta, a third-person hack-and-slash game drawing similar design ideas to Devil May Cry. As with Ōkami, sales did not fit expectations despite reception, and Sega cut of financial support for Bayonetta 2. Although Nintendo would later provide the finances to complete the game, Kamiya had already moved on to once again pursue Scalebound, but ultimately abandoned work in favour of the superhero-themed action game, The Wonderful 101. Work again resumed on Scalebound with funding from Microsoft. After two years of work it became clear that Kamiya's team was not experienced enough to produce such an ambitious game, made worse by Microsoft's desire for online support. By the end of 2016, Microsoft pulled out and the game was cancelled.

Despite the loss of IP rights to Scalebound to Microsoft, PlatinumGames continued on with its strategy of producing new IPs, and by 2020 had acquired additional funding from Tencent. Kamiya split his time between three projects. Presently he is directing Project G.G., an action game inspired by Viewtiful Joe and The Wonderful 101. He also co-directed the AA space-shooter Sol Cresta and was writer for Bayonetta 3, both of which came out in 2022. Ahead of Bayonetta 3's launch that October, Kamiya was drawn into a public dispute with former Bayonetta voice actress Hellena Taylor, who alleged exploitative treatment by PlatinumGames; Kamiya's aggressive response to the accusation and drove support for Taylor's call for a boycott and cancellation of pre-orders, but this ultimately eroded when inconsistencies arose in Taylor's accounts.

Contributions to the franchise[]

Kamiya was responsible for providing the name "Joseph" to the character Joseph Frost, taken from "Joseph Joestar" of the Japanese manga Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.[11] Hideki has also credited himself with the conceiving of Brad Vickers returning as a zombie in Resident Evil 2,[12] along with the establishment of character traits in that game.[13] A specific example of this is the idea of Elza Walker/Claire Redfield being a biker.[14]

Resume[]

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 Sinclair, Brendan (February 14, 2007). Clover vets reunite, form Seeds. GameSpot. Retrieved on 2009-12-21.
  2. Mielke, James (August 18, 2006). The Kamiya Touch: An Interview with Clover's Hideki Kamiya. 1UP.com. Retrieved on 2009-04-06.
  3. Kato, Matthew (December 2009). "Action Hero: An Interview With Platinum Games' Hideki Kamiya". Game Informer (GameStop): 11. 
  4. @PG_kamiya (2013-10-11). I did. It was junk. RT @NewsBotPU: Hi Kamiya, did you write the scenario for Biohazard 1.5 or was there another writer?.
  5. Twitter feed: PG_kamiya, dated 2013-11-27.
  6. @PG_kamiya (24 April 2020). そういう過程を身をもって経験して、バイオ2で当時PS1で出来る限界値に達したのが分かったので、俺個人はもうバイオに関わる意欲を無くし、その続編(船バイオ←色んな変遷を辿ってボツ)のディレクターはやりたくないと駄々をこねて降りました….
  7. @PG_kamiya (24 April 2020). …で、ある夜突然三上さんに電話で居酒屋に呼び出され、「PS2で新しいバイオ開発せえへんか」と…俺も新しいハードなら新しい事が試せると思ったので、是非にと…いうことで、船バイオは無くなって、三上さんのもと、PS2で新たにバイオ3(後のDMC)の開発が始動したわけです….
  8. @PG_kamiya (Aug 31, 2021). 2人のキャラクターのバディシステム、アイテムのその場置き換えのシステムです…実は三上さんがバイオを立ち上げた時に指針とした「スウィートホーム」に倣ったゲームデザインで、初期バイオがやろうとしていたシ…続きは質問箱へ (Japanese).
  9. GAME Watch
  10. Postcard from GDC 2005: Lessons from Viewtiful Joe: Making a Creatively and Financially Successful New Game. gamasutra. Archived from the original on 20080227072420. Retrieved on 2023-01-22.
  11. @PG_kamiya (Sep 6, 2011). Joseph. That's y I named one of S.T.A.R.S. "Joseph". RT @K0L0NEL: What is your favorite character in ジョジョの奇妙な冒険? Dio?.
  12. @PG_kamiya (29 May 2013). 1) Isao Oishi 2) Me. RT @NewsBotPU Do you remember who drew the STARS logo in BIO1 and decided to use "Zombie Brad Vickers" in BIO2?.
  13. @PG_kamiya (2013-11-27). twitter.com/PG_kamiya/status/329170415136153600 RT @ValNogueirah: Who created Claire, Ada, and Leon? Mikami created a character to RE2?.
  14. @PG_kamiya (17 August 2014). Sure. RT @keika_d : I recently reinstalled Resident Evil 2 and it's still the best :). Was making Claire a biker your idea?.
  15. Resident Evil 0 (GCN) credits - MobyGames
  16. Resident Evil (PS) credits - MobyGames

External links[]

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