Itagaki: Dead or Alive Is Now A Total Mess
Tomonobu Itagaki is certainly one of the most opinionated and controversial figures in the gaming industry. After rising to fame with Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden, Itagaki abruptly left Team Ninja and Tecmo to create a new company, Valhalla Game Studios. However, his name is forever bound to those franchises and even six years and a half after his departure, he’s still being interviewed about them. In a long chat published on Orochinagi (a website about fighting games and tournaments), he expressed his low opinion of the current state of Dead or Alive.
There are four main pillars that I concentrated on when designing DOA. On two ends of the spectrum you have Casual and Pro, and on the other ends you have Sex and Violence. The main goal was to find the perfect balance between all these four pillars. The game should not be too difficult in order for casuals and new comers to enjoy it and it should not be too easy in order not to lose the pro players. It also should not be too violent in order not to scare off any of the sensitive players and it should not be too sexy in order not to turn it into an “Ero-game” (an erotic game). This is why I put a firewall on all 4 pillars, so that no one pillar overshadows the others and a perfect balance could be achieved.
Everybody is a little perverted; even I’m a little perverted. But, it was for that very reason I created DOAX; in order to target the people who wanted something a little bit more casual and sexy but at the same time keeping that tone separate from the “fighting game” that is DOA. DOA is now a total mess. Going back to DOA5, another major problem with it is that the balance now is a disaster.
It is almost impossible to attract new players with the way the game plays now. Look back at the older DOAs. When a new comer tries out the game for the first time, his first instinct is to just press the buttons randomly. But, those button presses usually lead to some very visually pleasing moves and even at some points lead to that beginner’s first victory. When a new player experiences this, in his mind he would think, “Hey, I think I can play this game” and would start to play it more and maybe even attract more players to play it. When you compare this to the state DOA5 is in, a new comer has virtually no chance at all. The technical gap is so huge to the point that the game will feel too awkward and this new comer will never be able to play effectively or ever get a win. A game like that would never sell. This is why they thought they can overcome this by making the game more erotic and milk you loyal players all out of your money with erotic DLC. It’s disgusting.
According to Itagaki, Dead or Alive is now too challenging to attract new players, which inevitably led to lower sales, and the developers tried to overcome this issue by making the game more erotic than he ever intended.
Dead or Alive 5 Last Round will release on February 17 (NA) and 20 (EU) for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One, while PC players will have to wait February 30 to get the game from Steam. Itagaki’s Devil Third, now a WiiU exclusive, should release some time in 2015.