Interview: Shueisha Games Wants To Grow In The West

John: Hi, my name is John Davis. I’m the global PR manager at Shueisha Games and the co-founder and organizer of BitSummit.

John: In the next few years, we’d like to see Shueisha Games grow as a company, brand, and publisher in the eyes of Western gamers. Everyone already knows the manga and IP that Shueisha is involved in creating, such as Dragon Ball. But they don’t really see the company behind it, so we want to take our expertise in those areas and translate it into being known as not only a great manga and anime publisher but also a games publisher in the West.

John: I think over the two years, we’ve learned a lot from working on different types of projects with a lot of different partners. It’s been, I feel, a very instructive time. Have we reached the audience? In some cases, we’ve done a great job. In other cases, we know we struggled to find the right people. I think all the games we’ve published so far have been great games, and the challenge, especially for myself and the PR marketing side, is trying to find the right people to play those games.

We’ve learned a lot. We started off with four people, and now we’ve grown to over 40, which lets us be more specific with our expertise. This is always great, whether it’s game development or publishing. We’re really happy with the past two years.

John: I think our strategy for becoming more well-known is just to keep finding really interesting, cool games to publish and support and also working with our extensive catalog of IP, you know, to show people who Shueisha Games are. Along with making cool new games, I think there’s probably no better way to get the attention of gamers than working with the decades of great series of manga that Shueisha has in their catalog. So yeah, I think it’s a mixture of new stuff and old stuff and partnering with talented developers to bring those ideas to life.

John: No, we don’t desire to compete with Bandai Namco. They occupy a separate place in the AAA games arena and, like all of Shueisha’s partners, do great jobs of really bringing Shueisha manga to life for gamers.

We’re happy to find opportunities to work with indie studios that can do really creative, interesting things with our catalog, or new ideas that they have.

But this is just one aspect of Shueisha Games. We aim to keep growing and discovering unique projects as a publisher, including large collaborations like “unVEIL the world” with partners such as NetEase.

John: No, it’s not intentional for us to cater to Japanese fans. I think some of the initial games we signed through our Game Creators Camp incubator were Japanese studios and definitely have a Japanese lean genre-wise. We are very much a global publisher. We’ve already announced our partnership with True World Studios for UNYIELDER, and of course, our partnership with NetEase for unVeil the World, and there are some other things that we haven’t been able to announce yet that we’re really excited about. So, yeah, we’re very much a global publisher in terms of audience and types of games, but just based in Japan.

John: Yeah, SOULVARS is a great project to work on. It was a huge surprise and success in mobile stores. And I think it did well on the platforms that we brought it to last year. It continues to have a great long tail on Steam, Xbox, and everywhere we’ve published it since its launch last year. So we’re super happy with it. We love the game. And I’m delighted that we could bring it to a larger audience. It’s so unique. The pixel art is so great. And the systems in the game are so deep. So, yeah, if you haven’t tried it, please do! Throw it in your Wishlist and check it out next time you see it on sale.

John: I think launching in the Japanese game market is tough without established relationships. I mean, this could be said for any market, but there are definitely language barriers for publishers who aren’t in Japan, as well as business barriers and just relationship barriers. Luckily, these hurdles can be jumped and avoided if you have the right partners. Be that Shueisha Games as a partner or any other great indie publisher here. I think that getting your game into Famitsu, getting your game on store shelves, and all of that stuff is possible in Japan. Reaching the right audience is always difficult, but I don’t really think it matters which country it is. That just has to go down to doing good market research and finding the right content creators to partner with, finding the right websites, and finding the right communities to show them your game is paramount wherever you are. I think the right strategy for any hurdles is to partner with either another publisher or freelancer or someone who can give you access to begin building relationships in Japan.

John: We’re not explicitly trying to create massive IPs. I think that stuff happens more… It can happen organically. There’s certainly potential in some of the games that we’re working on, both announced and unannounced. You know, there’s a lot of world-building involved in games like Urban Myth Disillusion Center. I feel like UnVeil the World already has an amazing world bible that the developers use to create the game. So these are potential franchises, but that depends on the players and how much they want to continue exploring these worlds. Ultimately, you can force any IP down people’s throats, and maybe it’ll be marginally successful. Still, successful series find a way to capture something in the gamer’s imagination and heart or give them something they can identify with. And so when that happens, we will be 100% behind it to create experiences and worlds that people want to be in. But that’s not really our overall, overarching goal, to make the next Final Fantasy or Tekken or something like that. That’s not what I signed up to do, and I don’t think anybody here sees that as Shueisha Game’s mission.

John: Unveil the World, our project with NetEase is doing great. We’re just keeping everything close to our chest right now. I’m not sure how familiar everyone is with Japanese PR and marketing, but there’s a culture of being patient and not showing anything until it’s ready. But I’ve played it and seen it, and it’s great, and hopefully, we’ll be able to share some stuff with you guys soon.

John: I’ve been on several awards judging committees. I curate games for BitSummit as one of the organizers. And so every game I see, I think, has a lot of potential for—well, not every game, but many games I see have potential for awards. And certainly, for all the games we’ve decided to partner with developers on to publish, we see the potential for awards for all these games. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be as enthusiastic as we are about them. So, yeah, definitely. I don’t want to single out any of my children to say, “This one is the one” that will get anything. But, you know, from the frenetic gameplay of UNYIELDER to Urban Myth Disillusion Center’s amazing art direction and aesthetic. I think there are a lot of potential award nominees and award winners in our catalog.

John: Palworld is definitely like lightning in a bottle in some ways, but the success also shows the potential that any developer has when you’re kind of untethered from the expectations and commitments that the bigger AAA developers and publishers have. You know, there was a desire for a survival crafting game that meets a monster-taming, and they scratched the right itch at the right time. I’m happy for Pocket Pair and enjoy playing Palworld with my kids. There’s definitely an audience for indie games; you just kind of have to find the right communities, and there’s a lot of luck and timing to it. I’m one of those people who wants to play unique games – so I feel like it’s just a challenge to try to find them.

John: We’ll be at PAX West and many other game shows this year, so drop by to play the games and chat with us!

Please follow Shueisha Games on all platforms and join our new Discord for more info on Urban Myth Disillusion Center, OPUS: Prism Peak, UNYIELDER, and many other games!

Our whole backlog can be found on Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox. You can also follow me on socials at @p0rkins everywhere and follow @BitSummit on all socials for more information on indie games in Japan. Thanks for your time!