[Feature] Vancouver, a super-advanced region for the development of the game industry, now Part 3

"Pacman 256" Marketing Manager Daisuke Hattori of Bandai Namco Studios Vancouver (left) and Senior Vice President Atsuo Nakayama (right). Crossy Road". "Pacman 256" was jointly developed with its developer

Bandai Namco Studio Vancouver is a small studio with about 20-30 employees. In terms of location, it is located in the annex of the Center for Digital Media, an educational institution affiliated with the University of British Columbia, and is located in the middle area between downtown Vancouver and the suburbs.

Although it is a small family, it has gradually expanded its scale since its establishment in 2014. So far, the international jointly developed games "Pacman 256" and "Pacman Bounce", and the in-house developed title "Tap My Katamari” released. It's been very good for just over a year since its establishment, and it's surprisingly speedy.

Mr. Daisuke Hattori, who holds the title of marketing manager, is deeply involved in the planning and development of the title "Pacman 256," which has achieved particularly great success (achieving more than 5 million downloads in 10 days since its release). .

Bandai Namco Studios Vancouver Marketing Manager Daisuke Hattori: Regarding "Pacman 2565", it was jointly developed with Hipster Whale, who developed the blockbuster title "Crossy Road", which was released in November 2014 and achieved 100 million downloads. I have proceeded in the form of We put out a plan, and Hipster Wahle does the actual coding.

The reason for this is that when the project for this work came up, the CPI (average cost per user to acquire users) was skyrocketing as a trend in the mobile industry, and this required a considerable amount of money. There was an atmosphere that users could not get it. Around that time, "Crossy Road" was a big hit, and I heard from lectures that the marketing costs were almost zero. That's how you get 100 million users. We don't have a lot of funds, and we're still a small company with about 20 people, so the success of "Crossy Road" was a great reference.

That content, our IP, Pac-Man is the strongest in North America, and I wonder if we can do something by combining this. As a result of thinking about various ideas, we decided to contact Hipster Whale directly, and development started from there. That's why, as a base, "Pacman 256" was created by successfully combining the IP of Pac-Man and the development capabilities of Hipster Whale.

In addition to co-development with Hipster Whale, publishing is handled by Bandai Namco Entertainment's French studio. Mr. Hattori says with a laugh, "It's quite a strange feeling, isn't it?" In this regard, it seems that it is largely because of the environment that English-based communication is taken for granted.

Mr. Hattori: Well, it was especially good that we could communicate smoothly in English at the field level. It's already very smooth. I think that it would be a difficult project if it originated in Japan. I myself lived in North America for about 10 years, so I can speak almost like a native speaker, so I don't feel any difficulty in that regard.

Additionally, the speed of development is amazing. After contacting Hipster Whale, who jointly developed the product, it took just over half a year to commercialize it.

Mr. Hattori: The first contact was in January of this year, right? There was an event called GDC in March, and we met for the first time there. So we already have a prototype (laughs). I was told, "Let's play for a while." For us, we were only going to work out the details of the project, but after playing with the prototype, it was already fun. Our plan was to combine the functions of 'Crossy Road' without destroying the worldview of Pac-Man, but between January and March, we made something that would fit perfectly. I feel like I got it.

Moreover, they seemed to really like Pac-Man, and they came up with the idea of ​​making a game out of the original arcade version, which had a bug when reaching 256 levels. It is said that they knew the contents of the game better (laughs). So the story was really fast. From the beginning, the approval from the Japanese side went smoothly, and everything went smoothly.

Atsuo Nakayama, Executive Vice President, provides strategic support for Bandai Namco Studios Vancouver. Mr. Nakayama said that he learned English while studying abroad, and he said that it was a lot of hard work, but the hard work was worth it. That's why it was easy to do, he says.

Bandai Namco Studios Vancouver Senior Vice President Atsuo Nakayama: I was also working on a strategic project for overseas markets in Japan, but the information I got in Japan was all about Japanese titles, so I was one step off. When I go out to the public, it almost doesn't work. Long story short, it's hard for people to understand that the title "Crossy Road" is very successful. "Crossy Road" came out in November last year (2014), and two months later I was able to contact them, and two months later, a prototype was ready. I think it's a rare title that was made possible because we're doing it here. I don't think there are any other cases like this in the group.

The title "Pacman Bounds" following "Pacman 256" is also a collaboration with other companies. This is a collaboration with a local Canadian game developer, a company called Victory Square, and there is a reason why it is a game that is quite different from "Pacman 256".

Mr. Hattori: Victory Square is actually the first Android game development. Originally, the game was released on the Microsoft platform. When I saw their game, I said, ``It looks like it fits the world of Pac-Man,'' and a week later, they made a simple mock-up and brought it to me. I thought it would be interesting, so I started the project based on the fun of the game rather than the Android development experience.