According to Japanese comedian Hidetaka Kano, legendary ex-Capcom director Shinji Mikami, who directed both Resident Evil and Resident Evil 4, believes that if viewers on streaming platforms are merely “satisfied” with watching a playthrough of a game, then said game was not “that good of a game” to begin with.
As spotted by Nikkan (via Automaton), Kano relayed a conversation he had with Mikami during a TV interview on June 18. According to the comedian, he asked the Resident Evil director about his opinion on players streaming his games online, as Kano was nervous about this practice “revealing the content” of said games and spoiling them for those who hadn’t played them.
“If viewers watch a playthrough of a game all the way to the end and are satisfied with just that, then it was only that good of a game,” Mikami reportedly replied. “Our job is to make games that leave people wanting to clear them with their own hands, even if they’ve watched someone else do it, so keep streaming.”
Apparently, Mikami isn’t the only famous Japanese video game creator who believes this, as Kano stated that Yuji Horii, the creator of the Dragon Quest series, “said exactly the same thing” to him during a similar conversation.
As interesting as both Mikami and Horii’s stances are on the subject, the most interesting part of this story, as Automaton covered in a separate article, is that many Japanese publishers, developers, and even players have a somewhat negative view of video game live-streaming platforms such as Twitch.
Last month, developer Mages announced that it would not be granting anyone permission to stream its latest visual novel, Steins;Gate Re:Boot. In fact, in 2023, a 53-year-old man in Japan was given a 2-year suspended prison sentence and fined roughly $6,400 USD for uploading a full playthrough of its predecessor, Steins;Gate: My Darling’s Embrace.