When it was announced at The Game Awards that Hideki Kamiya had formed his own development studio in Clovers Inc. and that the team was hard at work on an Okami Sequel, many were stunned. It was the kind of one-two punch that makes fans and critics excited and hopeful for what may come in the future. Regardless of the end result, Kamiya and his team have been very vocal about their new enterprise. By that, we mean that they’ve been clear about the goals of the team and what gamers should expect from them in terms of game quality.
In a chat with Automation Media, Kenta Koyama, who is helping run the company with Hideki Kamiya, revealed that there is more to the name than you might think. For example, just the letter “C” in the title refers to the creative process that the team wishes to have, meaning that it won’t adhere itself to the whims of stockholders, share prices, or what many others feel is the “right thing to make”:
“In working with Kamiya so far, I have always felt that “creativity” was an extremely important element, so I thought it was a very good idea to have a company name that emphasizes this. I further developed the idea from there, coming up with the concept of ‘A company that values the 4 Cs,’ imitating the four leaves of a clover.”
So what are all the “Cs” in the clover? That’s where things get a bit hilarious because it varied amongst the main members of the team. One apparently wanted to have a “coffee break” as part of the clover, while another used a variation of “Cleanliness,” which in the Japanese context is about being honest with others. Something fans will definitely want with the Okami Sequel.
Even with the “comedy elements” to everything, Koyama made it clear that the Clovers team is a group that he feels will do well because of their personal goals:
“I want to work with people who value this kind of individuality and who can put their own pride into making games.”
That speaks a lot to Hideki Kamiya, too. He noted in another interview that he left PlatinumGames due to his feeling that he’d lose his artistic side by staying there. Sadly, there are many who likely feel this way in the gaming space right now but aren’t able to do what Kamiya and the others on his team did. Thus, it’ll be interesting to see what the team does going forward.
