Hideki Kamiya has launched a YouTube channel following his exit from PlatinumGames.
In his first YouTuber video, Kamiya looks to be very much enjoying himself, riding around a Lamborghini Countach (that’s the car with the doors that go up) and joking that he was off to go to the unemployment center.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, Kamiya explained that he isn’t leaving the industry, but can’t join other companies for a year. Of course, while Kamiya didn’t say it outright, one can infer that he is under a noncompete clause.
Kamiya wasn’t shy about what he needed from any prospective employers:
“To be super clear, I’m not retiring, as long as there’s a place that would hire me, so you know… I’m gonna wait for the offer. I will consider ANY OFFER ABOVE 100 million yen ($670,650) a year. So if there’s any company that would like to make an offer, Please contact me HERE!”
However, Kamiya was reticent about talking about the reason he left the company he co-founded, PlatinumGames. He at least has this to say about it:
“But… I’d say, I left the company because I wanted to follow my beliefs as a game creator. And to choose the path I think is right and move on. Yeah, so I’m not going to retire yet. I want to keep creating games.”
One can only infer what possible disagreements Kamiya had with the other leadership at PlatinumGames that would prompt him to leave, but as we had noted then, PlatinumGames did not show any signs of discord when they announced his exit.
Kamiya is likely to find a volatile job market, but one where many opportunities are likely to come up. While Kamiya is best known today for Bayonetta, his resume is a who’s who of critical and commercial successes for Capcom as well, including Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, and Viewtiful Joe.
The industry volatility is such that we have seen multiple game studios close this year alone, mostly following unsuccessful game releases. At the same time, however, more and more companies are looking to enter the industry, with particular interest to come from Korea, whose companies need to expand beyond their domestic markets.
Alongside that, platform holders like Sony and Microsoft are making moves to consolidate their ability to make money, in many ways beyond the video game console market themselves.
There will always be an interest in developers with the talent and CV of someone like Hideki Kamiya, but it’s a different question if someone can make him an offer that would satisfy him. It seems we won’t be finding that out until a year from now.
