Copyright nintendolife
Mega Man artist and Mighty No. 9 creator Keiji Inafune has been a huge name in the industry for nearly four decades, so you could say he's got a fair bit of experience. Recently, the producer gave a talk at South Korea’s Console Game Developer Conference 2025, and has a few strong words for developers and publishers relying on big IPs and genre trends. Reported on by ThisIsGame (via Automaton), Inafune was critical of studios that rely on those established brands and IPs or just shoot for "genre trends" because they're supposedly guaranteed to make money. "I'm not saying it’s bad to continue existing franchises or make games that riff on popular genres," Inafune states (translated via machine by Automaton), "What I mean is that these shouldn’t be the only games being made." It's hard to argue with that, though obviously every studio is going to vary. Nintendo has a huge range of IPs to dip into, for example, and while we see regulars such as Mario, Pokémon, and Zelda pop up every other year (or sometimes every year), the Big N occasionally dips into its deeper past (Rhythm Heaven in 2026, anyone?). In terms of "popular genres", looter shooters, Battle Royales, and extraction shooters are all carrots the industry has been trying to chase for years with varying results. In his speech, Inafune mentioned "Monster Hunter-style" and "Final Fantasy-style" games and that, back in his day, new concepts were "simply the norm" and put down his own success to jumping between different projects, even though he spent the most time working on the Mega Man series. He told the audience that his success "was possible because I didn’t dwell on my past hits”, and that the industry has taken a much more "defensive" stance as the industry has matured. While he understands that business may need to fall back on the more-popular things, "when considering the essence of game development and the passion for creation, it should not become the entirety of the gaming scene." Inafune has indeed had an extremely varied career, worked as a graphic designer on Street Fighter, various Disney Capcom games, producer on the DualShock release of Resident Evil, the Onimusha series, executive producer on Lost Planet, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, Ghost Trick... we could list hundreds. Post-Capcom, Inafune has worked with Inti Creates on the Azure Striker Gunvolt series and launched the hugely successful Kickstarter for Mighty No. 9, a game which was heavily inspired by Mega Man and, unfortunately, turned out to be a critical flop. In 2022, he announced an NFT project called Beastroids, once again inspired by Mega Man. Inafune also joined Level-5 after the purchase of Comcept in 2017, eventually working as producer on Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time. He left the company in 2024, with Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino saying that following his departure, "we had to reassess and restructure the project". He has since joined Rocket Studio. What do you think of keiji Inafune's words? Do you wish there was more variety from the big game developers? Let us know in the comments.
