WE DISCUSS VANA’DIEL
#5 Yoshinori Kitase Part 4

Mr. Kitase, on top of producing offline FF titles, you also produced the film FINAL FANTASY VII Advent Children, as well as the live-service title MOBIUS FINAL FANTASY (MOBIUS FF). Of the titles you’ve worked on, which would you say was the most troublesome?

I struggled a lot with MOBIUS FF. It began as an ambition to create an FF mobile game with top-notch graphics and storytelling, and I worked on it with the development team that created the FFXIII series. Prior to that, the team had revolved around console game development, so the abrupt shift to a live-service mobile game was hard for them. Although I saw their struggle with MOBIUS FF as a valuable experience for the team, when we finished development, many of them commented, “I want to go back to developing for consoles.”

Based on that, I know FFXI is different from a mobile game, but I’m still impressed by how it’s stayed in service for so long.

The biggest factor is the fact that FFXI is subscription-based, unlike mobile games. Developing a game while continually preparing profit-making elements sounds rough.

I agree. For people who became game designers out of their love for video games, live-service mobile games are a somewhat different breed because of their heavy emphasis on service or product-related aspects over game content.

They have a different business model to begin with, after all.

When it comes to developing FFXI, you don’t have to think, “I wonder what we should sell every month,” right?

That’s right. In our development process, we think about what we could do to make things more enjoyable or interesting for those visiting Vana’diel.

I think that’s what sets it apart from mobile games. Mobile games are also intended to be enjoyable, of course, but they tend to lean more towards month-to-month operations, maintaining a stable income, and other things of that nature.

I see what you mean, since free-to-play titles have to make ends meet every month.

Thinking about making ends meet and maintaining operations requires a separate mindset from making the game enjoyable, which makes a big difference.

Mr. Kitase, with FFXI celebrating its 20th anniversary next year, what are your thoughts on what’s allowed FFXI to continue on for so long?

Back when I was in charge of a mobile game, there were numerous instances where we listened to player feedback and adjusted things in the way they wanted. I’d always thought FFXI did the same, but after our discussions, I’m starting to feel it may have been a little different. For the first time, I’m realizing that sticking to your ideas can sometimes be crucial when it comes to staying in service for the long-term.

Is that something that could be said about the FF series as a whole?

Having worked on multiple titles in the FF series, there have been times when I’m grouped together with newcomers and staff members who've never been involved in an FF title before. More often than not, they come with their own set of regulations and criteria like, “This is how an FF game should be,” or “The FF series would do it like this.”

While I understand their feelings to an extent, sometimes I think, “Man, there’s no need to think so hard about it.”

I get what you mean. When I see someone with a really narrow view of what the FF series is about, it makes me want to say, “Hold up...”

I’d like to hear your thoughts on that some more. If you were talking to a newcomer on the FF team, is there anything you’d point out like, “This is what the FF series is about”?

That’s a tough question. (laughs) I don’t have any ground rules, but like I mentioned earlier, I’d probably point it out if someone is being overly conscious.

There was this time when a team was put in charge of making their first game with “FF” in its name, and while I wasn’t in charge of the project, I happened to be on the sidelines for one of their discussions. They started off by making a checklist of things that are essential to an FF game, consisting of points like “Must have chocobos” and many others like that. Seeing something like that, I thought, “Going about it like that won’t make something better than what already exists!”

You know, I can’t remember a single instance where Mr. Sakaguchi* insisted I follow certain rules when we were working on FFIV and FFV. He also wasn’t the type of person to say things like, “That wouldn’t fit the FF series.”

That’s true, he isn’t.

After all, he was the kind of person who suggested things that made us go, “Really? You want to include that?”

I forget if it was when we were developing FFVI or FFVII, but in the very first meeting after the team was formed, Mr. Sakaguchi brought up five different story proposals for the game.

Each proposal was summarized in two sheets of printer paper, and one of them started off with, “1997, set in New York.” Mr. Sakaguchi was like, “Something like that could work too.”

An FF game set in New York, now that’s something I’d be curious to see. (laughs)

That moment really stuck with me. He opened my eyes to his stance, which was that we didn’t need to worry about things like “What is the FF series about?”.

That’s a good story.

I was really surprised at the time.

Back then, you and I had a lot of freedom because Mr. Sakaguchi was like that. You’ll need to be like that too, Mr. Kitase, or everyone will end up going, “This is how the FF series should be!”

I remember at some point, we were talking about what defines FF, and Mr. Sakaguchi half-jokingly said, “It just needs to have blue menu windows with white frames!” (laughs)

I remember that. (laughs)

I feel like if we asked Mr. Kawazu*, he might say something interesting too, like “The battles should be depicted from a profile perspective.”

During our first set of discussions with Mr. Tanaka*, he mentioned that he was finally starting to understand what the FF series is about.

He mentioned that the FF universe is defined by “natural laws,” where equations like battle calculations and physics make up the laws of the universe.

The answer varies with each person, and I think that’s fine too.

I can see what he meant by that.

The company’s gotten quite large, and people from departments unrelated to the FF series sometimes approach me saying, “I want to make an FF title,” and their ideas always have spells like Fire and Cure. So perhaps there is a notion that having those spells is essential to an FF game.

The younger staff members would have to be quite courageous to suggest something other than Cure as a healing spell in FF. (laughs)

Perhaps people are right when they say the names of spells and items are the first things that come to mind when thinking about FF.

Part of that is probably because there’s no real need to change those names.

How was it with FFXI? Since it’s an MMORPG, I imagine there were many elements you couldn’t carry over from previous titles in the FF series.

We actually weren’t bound by preexisting elements of the series at all. The FFXI team was originally formed by combining the Legend of Mana team, the Chrono Cross team, and the team in Osaka, and I’d say we weren’t really preoccupied with making the game true to the series. But we did try to make references to the FF series whenever possible.

In FFXI, spells generally have the same names as other FF games, though they do have the unique rule of denoting higher tier spells with “II” and “III” in consideration of a global audience.

I actually wanted to cut down on the number of elements.

To elaborate, I wanted to leave out lightning and ice. While elemental resistances between fire/water/wind/earth are intuitive, it’s unclear when it comes to lightning and ice. But you can’t have an FF game without Thunder and Blizzard, so we gave up on consolidating the elements. So on top of fire/water/wind/earth, we added lightning and ice, then added light and darkness for a total of eight elements... Though we did have another reason, which was that we wanted more spells.

Taking that into consideration, I guess FF really does come down to the spells.

Perhaps Mr. Tanaka’s answer was one way of perceiving the truth.

And how you interpret that in your work is a chance to show off your skill.

Mr. Kitase, what are your values as a game producer?

As mentioned earlier, I’d like for development teams to create new things without confining themselves to conventional ideas.

With that said, however, no matter how good a game is, it won’t sell if you can’t properly convey it to customers. The key is to create something enjoyable and firmly communicate that enjoyability.

That’s certainly an important point today, as there’s a plethora of different ways to convey messages.

Using my latest work, FFVII Remake, as an example, I think each of our customers have their own perceptions of the original game. As such, we couldn’t tell how they’d react to our messaging. For all we know, FFVII veterans might hear that FFVII Remake emphasizes action-based elements and think, “Oh, I guess it isn’t for me.” On the other hand, with younger players who hadn’t played FFVII, we didn’t know how they’d react to the phrase “Remake.”

How should we communicate to the veteran players, and how should we communicate to the younger audience? The development team created a wonderful game, and I felt it was crucial to accurately convey the kind of game FFVII Remake is.

After all, deciding what information to relay to certain people and what media to use is part of the producer’s job.

By the way, Mr. Matsui, how are you perceived within the FFXI team? Do they think you’re an easygoing producer, or do they think you’re a scary producer?

They don’t see me as a scary producer... I hope. (laughs)

It’s a little different from “scary,” but wouldn’t you say you need to be somewhat bold in order to lead an enormous team? Especially with directors, they need to have a strong will.

You can’t lead an enormous team of hundreds of people without being hardheaded and bold to some extent, so those are the types of directors I’d like to look after. The team I’m in charge of has a lot of people like that. It’s just that, having someone that’s too bold isn’t good either...

Too bold, and you’ll end up with top-down management.

I think that there needs to be a bold director along with an adviser who isn’t afraid to talk back to the director.

Back when I was a director, there was someone who’d come all the way to my desk and complain for three to four hours straight. I thought they were a pain. (laughs) But I was careful not to ruin the environment where people could speak their mind.

So you’re saying it was a sign of a healthy development workplace.

Game development requires a long period of time, so even one-man teams can fail. In fact, it might even be easier to have someone who speaks their mind. I think it’d be rough for one person to shoulder all the burden on their own.

With larger teams, I can rest easy if they’re being led by a strong-minded director, but it can turn into a dictatorship if they’re too strong-minded, so that’s something I’m careful to keep in check.

I try to personally keep an eye on things in those instances, but I think it tends to go better when someone in the team can keep them in check, rather than me keeping them in check from higher up. So it makes me curious to know what it's like for somewhere that’s as cozy as the FFXI team.

“Cozy” may not be the right word for it.

Do you ever scold them?

No, I don’t scold them. Everyone has a professional mindset and reports any mistakes immediately, so rather than thinking about scolding them, my mind shifts to discussing how we might address the error.

In this one case where we had an inconsistency in the data, they reported it to me immediately and even explained the background context of why the error occurred, so at that point there wasn’t any point in scolding them over it.

After that, we discussed how to address it, and once a method was decided, we went straight into working on it, so there was never a need for me to get angry. Not to mention we’re all adults at this point. (laughs)

This is from a different perspective, but when a team starts to grow, it’s tempting to narrow it down to the “right” people, those who can extrapolate data into Excel sheets, can communicate effectively, and are punctual with schedules.

But on the other hand, I'd also like to have members who have unreasonable or absurd ideas. With larger teams, it can be really hard to moderate if there’s someone like that. In the worst case scenario, they might start conflicts, so it’s easy to think, “I don’t want anyone like that in the team.”

So personally, I’d like to have the director or some other leader role keep an eye on those imaginative types of people, which could help us make good use of their talents.

I’m an introvert, so generally speaking, I find it easier to work alone and have a tendency to tell myself that things will turn out better that way.

But when I look at projects I worked on with people like Mr. Ishii* or Mr. Takai*, who are great at thinking outside the box, I realize that working with them allowed us to achieve exceptional results.

When we hire new staff members, we get a lot of the “right” people, including those who just graduated from university or game design school. With a selection of members like that, it can be hard to hire people who may be lacking as a working professional, but might come up with really fascinating ideas, whom I refer to as the “adventurous type.”

It’d be nice if I could look after them myself, but that’s for the development workplace or their higher-ups to take care of. Whether you can steer those people in the right direction is crucial, and the workplace has many other staff members, some of whom may not be able to tolerate those kinds of people, so it can be quite hard to find a compromise. That’s the sort of a dilemma I face.

“Adventurous type,” you say. (laughs) But I understand what you're trying to say.

Those kinds of people are important in game development too, though if everyone were like that, nothing would get done.

It’d be ideal if we had someone exceptional with both talents, but in reality, you have to maintain a balance between the orderly people and the people who say outlandish things, and getting those kinds of teams to function is quite the difficult task.

I’d say games are like fifty-fifty between art-like qualities and industrial product-like aspects, and companies give their games a unique flavor by deciding how much emphasis they put into each. Although the orderly people can make the industrial product aspect of games, sometimes they're missing that special something that adds an art-like quality to their game, so I understand your dilemma.

Things have changed since when we used to make games with teams of 20 members or so. We’re a fully established company now, which means some level of professionalism is required from our staff, which can be quite difficult for those “adventurous types” to get accustomed to. It’d be nice if we manage to cultivate someone with Mr. Ishii’s exceptional imagination from our younger staff members.

Mr. Ishii had results to show for it, after all. The things that he said were accepted because everyone thought, “Mr. Ishii said it, so it must be right,” and it doesn’t necessarily mean that anyone who says outlandish things are always in the right. That’s the hard part.

Someone with a history of achievements saying, “Let’s make an RPG with a million NPCs! It’ll be amazing!” gives off a completely different impression compared to a newcomer suggesting the same thing. I feel it’s important for the person with amazing ideas to have something to back up the entertainment value of their suggestions.

To wrap up the discussion, Mr. Kitase became the Brand Manager of the FF series starting this year. Does your position mean you’ll be supervising everything FF-related?

Yes. We have an organization referred to as the “FF Committee,” comprised of leading figures of the FF series such as Mr. Yoshida*, Mr. Hirono*, and Mr. Hazama, where we’ll be making major decisions about the overall FF series. I’ve been allowed the role of speaker there.

With the FF series approaching its 35th anniversary next year, please tell us anything you can about the future of the FF series.

All sorts of titles will be released, beginning with STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN, and we’re preparing all sorts of new announcements, so please look forward to them.

Finally, do you have any parting words for our readers?

I imagine some of you have been playing FFXI for almost 20 years now. Thank you for playing alongside your daily lives throughout all these years. Perhaps there’s a chance you’ll bump into my level 11 character in Vana’diel, in which case I ask that you treat me kindly. (laughs) Thank you.