Treasure – 12th Anniversary Developer Interview

―The day after tomorrow marks Treasure's 12th anniversary.

Maegawa: Wow, I'm surprised you knew that. (laughs) Unfortunately we've been busy, so we haven't had time to plan any celebration.

―That's unfortunate. Congratulations on twelve years.

Maegawa: Thank you.

―How does it feel looking back now?

Maegawa: A lot has happened in these twelve years. So much, in fact, that it's honestly kind of hard to look back and reminisce… (laughs)

―Can I ask you to give it your best shot?

Maegawa: We started out making games exclusively for Sega. But there's been many twists and turns along the way, and now once again we're working with Sega for Guardian Heroes, among other things.

―For the first five years of Treasure's existence you only made games for Sega's consoles.

Maegawa: Yeah, during the Megadrive era we were stuck fast to Sega.

―Were there a lot of companies going independent in 1992? What was it like then?

Maegawa: Yeah. You had Climax, for instance, and Sonic, but there were lots of examples of small production teams popping up everywhere. We saw that happening and thought it would be fun to go independent. From the outside-looking-in, it looked like there was more freedom, and indeed, at Treasure we proudly hoisted the flag of "freedom" as our corporate culture. But freedom also attracts weirdos. (laughs)

―That's true. (laughs)

Maegawa: With freedom as the founding concept of our company, we set out to make games with no restraints. We would focus purely on the craft of making games that everyone would love. It's been 12 years and I would say that freedom is still our guiding principle here. However, I have also learned that everyone has their own conception of freedom, so I've had to revise my thinking about it in places.

―I've heard a story about how when you started Treasure, the first thing you did was go visit Sega... without an appointment. (laughs)

Maegawa: Yeah, that's true. (laughs) The reason I was able to do that was because I'd seen Hiroyuki Takahashi, now the President of Camelot, do the same.

―Did you think about visiting Nintendo?

Maegawa: In those days Nintendo was very strong, but Sega's Megadrive was making rapid advances and getting close to matching what the Super Famicom could do. So I thought we could specialize in Megadrive software. It was also easy to imagine, being a new company, that we might be forced to work in an uncredited capacity, and not have the Treasure name appear on our games. In that sense I thought working full-force on Megadrive games would let us stand out better, so I resolved to go to Sega right off the bat.

―After five years of working with Sega hardware, you suddenly made your debut on the N64...

Maegawa: We ended up making Mischief Makers with Enix. In Japan, Enix handled the sales for that game, but overseas, Nintendo was in charge of it.

―Oh, is that so. I've heard that Nintendo of America did that a lot with third-party software developed domestically in Japan.

Maegawa: That's how we made Nintendo's acquaintance. The overseas version of Mischief Makers sold a lot. I think that proved to Nintendo that we were a company that made good games, because after that they asked us to make a game, which became Sin and Punishment. Wario World was just released the other day, and we developed that too, but our first encounter with Nintendo was actually Mischief Makers.

―I see! Your relationship with Nintendo of America was key, then.

Maegawa: Our intent with Sin and Punishment was to appeal to the American market, yeah. But it's sort of "America through the eyes of the Japanese", so we might have been a little off-the-mark… as a result, it ended up being only released in Japan.

―Moving along to the Game Cube era, suddenly you were asked to create a game with one of Nintendo's characters, Wario.

Maegawa: After Sin and Punishment, we submitted plans for a new game to Nintendo. Unfortunately, these days brand new titles are a tough sell, so they invited us to make a Wario game instead.

―How did you feel about that?

Maegawa: Unlike Mario, they told us "you can do whatever you want with Wario, we don't mind." That was all I needed to hear! (laughs) They said we could make the game without any restrictions, and at that time the only Wario game was the one for the GBA, and I thought we could make a cool Treasure-esque 3D action game. However, at the planning stage, they informed us that making a 3D action game like Mario but with the Wario character wasn't going to work. Not that I felt we could make something like that anyway, but. (laughs) Ultimately we ended up making a simple game with Wario that anyone could play. The pillar of the design was "powerful action", and up through the end of the development we made sure the difficulty was set very easy.

―Some people said it didn't really feel like a Treasure game. (laughs)

Maegawa: We did hear that. (laughs) The final balancing to Wario World, however, was largely done in cooperation with Nintendo, and it was a big help to us too. There was a period of indecision in the middle of the development where we didn't know which way to go. We had some long discussions with Hitoshi Yamagami, upon which we decided to make Wario World an easy-to-play game that anyone could enjoy. That guidance helped us pull everything together. That's why I would say Wario World isn't really your typical Treasure game―it's more of a game for general audiences.

―Two years ago I met the creator of Wario, Hiroji Kiyotake, at a Smash Bros. concert. It sounded like he was in Tokyo for a meeting about Wario World.

Maegawa: Oh, really? Wow! Yeah, the Nintendo staff came to our development offices several times. Kiyotake is the only one who can do Wario's motion animation, too. He sat next to our designers and gave advice: "No, no, he should move more like this, like this!" For Nintendo, Wario is a very important character, and as his creator Kiyotake has very strong feelings about how Wario must be.

―I get the impression that for Kiyotake, Wario is like his alter-ego. (laughs)

Maegawa: It's true. (laughs) And in the final phase of the development, Yamagami also stayed here for multiple nights and helped us cross the finish line.

―Did you go back and forth between Kyoto and Tokyo a lot?

Maegawa: No, not too much. Yamagami and his staff visited us many times in Tokyo, so I probably only made it out to Kyoto two or three times.

―Having worked together with Nintendo now, how did you feel their approach to game development differed from yours, and in what ways was it the same?

Maegawa: Essentially, I think Nintendo operates under the principle of "as long as it's fun". I would say that more than graphics and the visual presentation, Nintendo prioritizes the gameplay being fun, and that philosophy flows through the entire company. Thus they were very easy for us to work with. On the other hand, they are a company which can't afford to release niche games that don't sell many copies―they have to contend for a large piece of the pie, in terms of market share. So we couldn't get too insistent on doing things our way. From the very beginning, though, we relied on their judgement and discretion. The development basically went like this: we would go hard and create a bunch of stuff on our own, then show that work to Nintendo, where they'd point out "oh, this part should be different", and then we'd go back and revise it.

―Rather than working from a pre-determined planning document, Nintendo operates more ad hoc: they'll create something first and then determine whether it's good or bad.

Maegawa: That approach fits with action games, as well… there's a lot you can't know until you make it and test it out. Then you go back and correct things and fix the parts that need revising.

―Isn't that a very difficult way to develop a game?

Maegawa: For the rank-and-file, yeah, it's challenging. But they gave our staff very lenient deadlines; Nintendo's attitude is take your time and do it properly. They don't issue crazy demands like "make this in two months!" That kind of development, where you're being micromanaged from the very beginning and told what to do… that's not our forte at Treasure.

―It sounds like there was a lot of leniency in the development deadlines.

Maegawa: Ultimately that's how it turned out. Nintendo's attitue is that they're only going to release a game if it's good. If it's bad, it won't sell, and they're very clear about that stance.

―That's very true though. As it turns out, the Treasure development of Wario World overlapped with Nintendo's in-house development of Warioware.

Maegawa: Yeah. That's why we included those unlockables for Warioware. Nintendo wanted both games to be released as a set in America.

―Originally, you worked as a programmer.

Maegawa: Yeah. Up until Mischief Makers, I was the main programmer. Nowadays, owing to my age, I don't do it anymore. (laughs) Or rather, what I should say is that there are now much better programmers than me at Treasure, lots of them too. So there's no need for me to program everything myself.

―It seems like Treasure deliberately refrains from expanding or hiring too many employees.

Maegawa: If you get too big, it becomes hard to maintain that freedom. A company of 300, for instance… if they try to operate in a "free" way it will make everything fall apart. Everyone will just do what they want and there will be no unity.

―And in that situation, freedom becomes a fetter.

Maegawa: Yes. You've bound yourself in the name of freedom. (laughs) Other problems can arise with big teams too, two-tiered systems where only some people get to operate freely, and everyone else has to follow orders. It's inevitable that things will become hierarchical when you have too many employees.

―There's also the merit with a small team, that everyone can see what everyone else is doing.

Maegawa: I've been thinking about splitting the team up into groups in order to better facilitate that freedom, but I don't think we're going to be adding many more people.

―Despite being such a small company you've released games for nearly every console: the Megadrive, the N64 and Game Cube, and the GBA and PS2 as well.

Maegawa: Yes we have. (laughs)

―Doesn't it hurt the efficiency of your development process, to constantly be changing hardware?

Maegawa: The truth is I would love to be able to focus on fewer hardware platforms, but unlike the old days when we were attached at the hip to Sega, today we sign contracts for each individual game… requests come for the Game Cube, or they come for the PS2, that's how it goes. We can't really afford to develop for just one console.

―Does it take awhile to acclimate to the new development environment when you work with new hardware?

Maegawa: It does, yeah. So when I hear about this or that new console coming out next year or the year after, I do wince a little. (laughs)

―The Nintendo DS is due to release at the end of the year. (laughs) You release games very quickly though.

Maegawa: Oh, you think so?

―In twelve years, you've released over twenty titles.

Maegawa: That's only 1 or 2 games a year, though.

―And that is owing to your small staff?

Maegawa: It's probably more that I make too many unreasonable demands on them.

Everyone: (laughs)

Maegawa: Seriously though, there is some truth to that. We have a lot of development lines going on at once, too. Having a bigger team would allow us to create more, but it would also damage the freedom we cherish… it's a difficult thing to balance. Our basic approach, to use Ikaruga as an example, is to have 2 or 3 people working on a game for about 2 years, and then we bring in more people at the end to help flesh everything out. I believe this approach is the best for keeping the director's original vision intact. Today's world doesn't really permit that kind of luxury though, of spending two years on a single game.

―I can see that.

Maegawa: Yeah, and one of the reasons we've often released our games at the end of a given console's life cycle is that our developments are relatively long.

―Mischief Makers came out the year after the N64, though.

Maegawa: For that one, we were able to start the development before the N64 was released. I worked as the main programmer on Mischief Makers, and I remember how incredibly challenging it was.

―Do you have any staff at Treasure today who have been there from the very beginning?

Maegawa: Yes. Essentially, the core of our development team is people who were there at the founding.

―I think that is part of what gives your games that special "Treasure" quality.

Maegawa: Yeah. Though I admit it's a little vague to me what people mean when they talk about "Treasure-ness"…

―I think it's a certain uncompromising quality, that your games faithfully reflect the vision of their makers.

Maegawa: I think that's more a natural consequence of being free to make what we want, rather than a specific insistence of one kind or another. We're not thinking "this is what a REAL video game connoisseur appreciates!" when we make our games. As President, once I've reviewed the plans and given the greenlight for a project, I rarely poke around and micromanage the staff while they're working. That's my policy. If management starts butting into the creative process I think you lose that special quality. "We've got to sell more! Make it like this so it sells more!" Everyone working in game development has heard that before. But I don't want to have management and admin sitting in on our meetings and saying we have to include such-and-such… I don't like where that leads. So I pretty much leave everything up to the staff on the floor. To put it negatively I suppose I'm neglecting them. (laughs)

After they've finished something and I have a chance to testplay it, if it's really bad I will say something, but if they're creating the game faithfully according to their original concept, I never say do this or do that. I think that process is what results in the "Treasure" quality. No one interferes with our developers' creative process; there's a straightforward honesty to the games we release and I suspect that resonates with players and they call it "Treasure-ness".

―Looking back at all the titles you've developed, one notices there's a proportionately high number of 2D action games.

Maegawa: Indeed. This was true when we were making Guardian Heroes on the Sega Saturn, but when the Saturn and Playstation first came out, everyone was saying "3D, 3D, 3D! it's all about polygons from here on out!" What I presented to Sega had the opposite spirit. I said precisely because we're in this moment, let's go 2D! (laughs) The thing is, there's a big difference in how 2D and 3D are handled depending on the type of game. For RPGs, 3D can give a heightened sense of immersion, and it really seems to be only a positive for that genre… but for action and shooting games 3D is the exact opposite. You know how in Mario 64, there's the fight with Bowser where you have to get behind him and grab his tail, then spin him around? That was an excellent idea that truly meshed with the new 3D space… but if you don't have any idea like that for your 3D action game, it will be a failure.

―That action (throwing Bowser) matched up well with the N64's analogue joystick as well.

Maegawa: If you can pull off something like that, sure, it's fine. On the other hand, there's games where an enemy is coming straight at you, but you can just walk to the left or right and evade them without any thought. Of course I think 3D action games can be interesting, but they're something entirely different from 2D. So what we want to do at Treasure is refine and elevate 2D gameplay, and in that sense we hope to keep making 2D games. When we started talking about making Guardian Heroes for the GameBoy Advance, some people were skeptical. "Why would you make that for the GBA…?" (laughs) The appeal for us lies in the fact that we are creating an unabashedly 2D game on a platform that is designed precisely for that. If we tried to make a 2D game on one of the main TV console hardware systems, people would expect extremely high-def 2D graphics, and that would be very difficult for us. Plus there's the whole hesitation with publishers and 2D. It would be an uphill battle. But no one will raise any objection to making a 2D game on the GBA. (laughs)

―That is true. (laughs) Perhaps the GBA is the ideal piece of hardware for you, then?

Maegawa: Of the systems that are out today, yes, it might just be. We started making games in the Famicom era, then moved to the SFC and Megadrive, so we've accumulated a great deal of knowledge and experience that is directly applicable to GBA development. The hardware specs are also limited, and working within those limitations is fun in its own right. It's like, let's show them what this thing can do!!!

―A chance to show off your skills, as it were.

Maegawa: Yeah. This Guardian Heroes GBA does have pseudo-3D though. I say it's 2D but there are 3D graphics. (laughs) It's a fun challenge to try and program that within the confines of the GBA hardware.

―Would you say that the Game Boy games you first made at Konami was your point of origin?

Maegawa: Huh? You mean Castlevania: The Adventure? (laughs) I wouldn't point to that in particular… it's rather that, for companies like us that have been making games since the old days, it's 2D pixel art games in general that form the bedrock of our experience.

―The way you make games has changed a lot since then.

Maegawa: Yeah, it sure has.

―Could we say that Treasure is trying to re-capture that old-school feeling, then...?

Maegawa: Yeah. We do try to capture that. I think there's more warmth in those old games, and it's easy to identify what's fun about them―and they're easier for us to make as well.

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