Suda51: “Realistic Mainstream Games” Won’t Be Enough

We've got the shooters and the mainstream games covered.

But if we want to push forward in the "realm of culture and art," as stated by renowned game designer Suda 51, we need to start pushing in different, more interesting directions.

During a recent Edge interview with Grasshopper Manufacture CEO Goichi Suda aka "Suda 51," we hear him stress the importance of originality and innovative expansion for the sake of art:

"So I think video games are becoming an important, and a dominant, form of entertainment worldwide. And in that landscape, I truly feel that our shooters, racers, and our mainstream games have been covered, checked off and done well.

To really push games into the realm of culture and art, I feel that only doing realistic mainstream games won’t be enough; we need to pursue new frontiers and new horizons with what we do, and the process of creation shouldn’t be contained. Therefore, I feel at Grasshopper one of our obligations–our duties–to the video game world is to create revolutionary titles that really push the status quo."

The team has come under fire for depicting women in a derogatory way, especially after they released Lollipop Chainsaw . And now that we've learned about the "Gigolo Mode" in their new upcoming title, Killer is Dead , those accusations have continued. But Suda 51 says he's "not that concerned" about alienating female players and that he doesn't set out to offend women. Well, he doesn't have to be concerned about "alienating" female players 'cuz not many are going to be playing Killer is Dead .

But anyway, he makes a really good point. We should definitely go beyond the familiar and the status quo, especially if we want to make artistic strides in the world of interactive entertainment.