One of the craziest parts of gaming history is always when you see a franchise reaching record heights with sales and critical reception, and then you find out that once upon a time, they almost didn’t get born. That’s the thing about the gaming industry: you can’t see what’s going to happen 5-10 years down the road, and you have to look at what’s in front of you and make the best decisions you can. Sadly, not everything is a great decision, and other times, developers and publishers knock it right out of the park. Yakuza was one such gaming franchise that almost didn’t get out of the starting blocks.
Former Sega chief creative officer Toshihiro Nagoshi, who was also the creator of the Yakuza franchise before it got rebranded to the Like A Dragon name, chatted with Weekly Oppai about the series. In the translation by Automation, he noted that when he first made the pitch for the gangster-style series, Sega didn’t want anything to do with it.
The reason was that, at the time, Sega was having difficulty with game sales and wanted something that would appeal to all gamers instead of a specific strand of the gamer base:
“It was flat out rejected,” he noted in the interview. “After all, it was completely contrary to what I mentioned earlier about attracting the masses. Children wouldn’t be able to play it, and it wasn’t catered to women nor overseas audiences. In this sense, there was no way for it to be approved without resistance.”
Nagoshi noted that this period was frustrating not just for him but also for other team leaders. He stated that plenty of other great game proposals got “watered down” because they needed “global hits.”
The irony, obviously, is that he did get his pitch through. Fast-forward to now, and Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth not only sold over a million units in a week, but it’s one of the highest-rated games of 2024. Plus, some even feel that it’s a Game of the Year contender, which would be a first for the franchise.
Granted, the series did take a while to “pick up steam,” but that happens with many franchises over the course of gaming history. The point is that it’s at its peak now, which means that Nagoshi was right to pitch it all those years ago. One can only wonder what would’ve happened if Sega hadn’t accepted it at all.
