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Capcom's Adam Boyes Part Two

The business development director discusses international projects, Western success and multiplatform development

Last week, Capcom's business development director Adam Boyes talked us through the perfect pitch, where developers can fly or die in the space of an hour.

Here, we talk with Boyes about Capcom's continuing plans to develop titles internationally, how well Japanese-developed titles sell in the West, and the publisher's decision to develop for as many platforms as possible.

GamesIndustry.biz Let's look at some of your production methods – with Bionic Commando you have the Swedish development team Grin working on the game with a US producer Ben Judd, and the project is being overseen by Dead Rising and Onimusha producer Keiji Inafune. That's quite a unique approach for a publisher, particularly from a Japanese publisher.
Adam Boyes

We go over to Japan quite often and they come over every month to review the games. But it's not an approval or fail process. It's very conducive to creative juices. It's not regimented. We just did an internal review of Dark Void to Inafune-san who runs all R&D at Capcom. It's always great to have that because we're looking for feedback. And Japanese producers will present stuff to the US office in return. That's what Capcom is all about.

GamesIndustry.biz So it's about making the most of your talent, no matter where that talent is?
Adam Boyes

We'd be silly not to always utilise the talent we have in some way or another. It's so great for character development, so great for how a game feels and how it plays. We're bridging gaps. Out of the US office we're working with Milestone in Italy, we're working with a company in Scotland right now, we're working with a company in Australia, in Vancouver, all over the world. It's not just US or Japanese. With Bionic Commando Ben Judd has done a great job because Swedish work culture is totally different to the way the US operates. And Ben works in Japan so he can apply those lessons and the Japanese production design support to the game and you get this great amalgamation. If we can strengthen those bonds we're going to have a bigger advantage than most people on the planet as far as publishers go.

GamesIndustry.biz Were Dead Rising and Lost Planet the two titles that proved to Capcom that this collaboration could work? They may have been developed in Japan but they sold better in the US and Europe.
Adam Boyes

One of the reasons we set up Capcom USA and have third-party development based out of there is because we really understand Western development methodologies. Capcom Japan starts with mechanics first and in the West developers want to start with building the world first. We're trying to adopt the Japanese philosophies and apply those to the developers that we do work with, and at the end we should get a great result. Plunder is a perfect example of that – the downloadable game we're doing with Certain Affinity – the quality levels are so high but we're giving it a bit more time just to tweak it up and have it more accessible. But the game has been playable from day one. Having a playable build every single day so people can pick it up, get passionate about it and they can give immediate feedback. Having that iterative loop really close and tight it critical to development.

GamesIndustry.biz Do you think other Japanese publishers are wary of incorporating Western ideas and processes into their business? Or of even attempting to cater to audiences outside of Japan, even though the US and Europe are huge markets?
Adam Boyes

Some of them do a great job but we're not really looking at what other people are doing. We have the ability to be very agile in what we're doing and thinking outside of the box. We're pushing new technologies and utilising new delivery methods – even with digital downloads we're the first company to go cross platform. We're not looking at other Japanese publishers...

GamesIndustry.biz ...But they are watching Capcom, no doubt.
Adam Boyes

Right, right. Crossing that barrier, building that bridge between the different divisions is absolutely critical to success. We've seen companies that haven't been able to do that and they've wasted away.

GamesIndustry.biz This is going to sound like a loaded question, but are there any business models or platforms that Capcom is favouring at the moment?
Adam Boyes

We're adding PC to our downloadable games now. Plunder is coming to PlayStation Network, Xbox Live and PC. For us it's about getting it to as many people as humanly possible. In an ideal world all the back ends would talk to each other so people could compete together and play together. Simply having a different platform segments the market for multiplayer. There are a lot of exciting things going on – I love what Sony is doing with Home right now. Xbox 360s online experience has had so much time to become accessible. With PC we're going across to all the different digital distribution and delivery companies and so again it's about reaching as many people as possible. When you choose one partner it segments the marketplace for us.

GamesIndustry.biz You mentioned Home – are you incorporating Home into any Capcom titles or developments?
Adam Boyes

We haven't announced any Home integration yet. We're always looking at whatever is happening whenever there's new stuff, like Microsoft with XNA. But really I think the core goals that we have are to be able to deliver as much content to the user as we possibly can. And create a community around all of these products.

GamesIndustry.biz More publishers seem to be openly admitting that if a game isn't ready, they won't push it out the door unfinished. And that's something Capcom agrees with?
Adam Boyes

Yes. Street Fighter HD Remix is falling a bit behind but we're not going to release it until it's fantastic. It has to be great and you have to let things peculate if they're not. That's one of our strengths as a company, we make great games and we won't screw it up. Publishers say they won't release until its ready, and then the game comes out and it scores 60 per cent. There are companies that say it and there are companies that do it. We do it. All publishers are going to say that but they're not actually doing it.

Adam Boyes is business development director for Capcom USA. Interview by Matt Martin.

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Matt Martin

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Matt Martin joined GamesIndustry in 2006 and was made editor of the site in 2008. With over ten years experience in journalism, he has written for multiple trade, consumer, contract and business-to-business publications in the games, retail and technology sectors.