Valhalla Studios’ Tomonobu Itagaki is working with THQ instead of a Japanese publisher on Devil’s Third. He said that was because he felt like Japanese game management don’t get games the way executives do in the U.S.
“The head, the guy I’m involved with, is [THQ’s EVP of core games] Danny Bilson. As you know he can make movies, he can write novels, scripts, he can do TV, and he can do games as well, and also he’s a businessman as well, said Itagaki. He’s that kind of guy, so it’s really fun to do business with that.
“More so in the U.S. than in Japan, I think there are a lot of top management people who actually know how to make games. I think there are more people here like that, than in Japan. I think it’s a good thing, he said. Those guys know how to make games — so they know it takes money to make good games. Those two aspects are on a direct one-to-one relationship. So I think it’s very practical to be that way.”
“In Japan, management people sort of pretend they know what they’re doing, he added. Those management people, they say, ‘I love games,’ but they don’t know how to make them… It’s the opposite of practical. It’s not practical.”
Itagaki has a falling out with his former employer Tecmo over unpaid bonuses, eventually resulting in a lawsuit and settlement.
Source: Gamasutra