Monday, August 25, 2008

SGGG - Entrevista com Tez Okano

O longo braço da revista EDGE conseguiu chegar até Tez Okano, game designer da SEGA que surgiu com o conceito de jogo inovador de SEGAGAGA, jogo metaficional cujo lançamento viria a coincidir, por grande ironia, com o fim anunciado da consola Dreamcast e o encerramento de muitas divisões da empresa. Pela primeira vez, Okano revela alguns dos detalhes da produção e apresenta a origem e desenvolvimento das ideias que vieram culminar num dos mais relevantes jogos de culto da última década, e decerto um dos mais singulares de toda a história.

The Japanese bubble burst in 1993 – that was the start of the recession and the economic downturn. At the very same time, the gaming industry was keeping going just as if it was the boom time. In 1999, it was becoming clear that the boom was fading fast for the industry. Coincidentally, we were making SGGG at this very turning point. Near the end of the game, the hero is fired because his company closes, and he finds refuge in a game store near Sega that actually existed! The store manager is Alex Kidd – he was also fired from Sega, when Sonic arrived. The message to the hero is that no matter how bad things look, there is no point in crying over the industry. You have to carry on – just like Alex Kidd, who is working hard.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"There is no point in doing a project that others could do."

Gosto desta frase. Caracteriza a velha Sega como ninguém.

Anonymous said...

Very nice, thanks for posting, otherwise I would have missed it. It's a shame though that it wasn't you the one who got to interview him. You can see that no one there actually played the game or has the knowledge of sega history like you do. I'd like to know more about certain stuff that happens in the game not just production slash marketing.

You should also make a link to that other segagaga article you wrote some years ago and to the translation project which is still going on -- when oh when?

Cheers!
RyuKaze