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Nicholas Lovell
Home   >   Self-Publishing   >   Distribution   >   Capcom stops working with non-Japanese devs – but at least they’re honest about why their market is shrinking

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Capcom stops working with non-Japanese devs – but at least they’re honest about why their market is shrinking

By on May 17, 2010

Capcom has seen two big flops recently: Dark Void and Bionic Commando.

According to an interview with the Financial Times entitled Capcom shuns foreign game developers, Haruhiro Tsujimoto, Capcom president, said that the company would only “employ overseas developers for sequels or new versions of existing games”.

Capcom believes that original IP developed abroad doesn’t do so well as domestically-developed titles.

But Capcom also talks about why his market is shrinking:

“He pointed to downloadable games, new gaming devices such as Apple’s iPad and the rise of social gaming on platforms such as Facebook as reasons for a gradual decline in Capcom’s traditional packaged game market.”

Compared with publishers and casual games developers who keep “it’s the recession”, even as Modern Warfare 2 blows away all records and companies like Playfish, Zynga and Mind Candy are growing like crazy, this realism is refreshing.

It means that Capcom is on the first step towards evolving its business model for the new world of gaming, unlike many Western publishers.

About Nicholas Lovell

Nicholas is the founder of Gamesbrief, a blog dedicated to the business of games. It aims to be informative, authoritative and above all helpful to developers grappling with business strategy. He is the author of a growing list of books about making money in the games industry and other digital media, including How to Publish a Game and Design Rules for Free-to-Play Games, and Penguin-published title The Curve: thecurveonline.com