The Tekken fighting game franchise will soon turn 30 years old. It is said early, but few sagas become so long-lived while maintaining quality and community. But the anniversary is not the only thing that the people of Bandai Namco can celebrate, today, January 26, the eighth installment of the franchise arrives on consoles and PC. At La Vanguardia we had the opportunity to speak with Katsuhiro Harada, historic producer of Tekken, about these 30 years, the history of the genre and the upcoming Tekken 8.
“I started working on Tekken with the first installment, in 1994. I was the producer of the project and gave voice to several characters,” says Harada, sitting next to his translator in the press room of the Bilbao International Games Conference at the Euskalduna Palace. Although, during the last 15 years, he has also worked on other Bandai Namco projects: “I have been in charge of productions such as Dark Souls or Armored Core 6.”
Kastuhiro Harada’s relationship with the medium began as a child. “My parents didn’t want me to play video games and they never bought me a console, so I sneaked into arcades,” Harada says. But, despite his family’s reluctance, he ended up finding a job at Namco, after leaving university where he studied psychology.
“At that time, everyone who came to Namco had to first work in one of the arcades. I managed to break the sales record two months in a row and the president of the company rewarded me: he asked me what I wanted and I told him I wanted to make video games,” he says. At that time, in the mid-90s, fighting games like Virtua Fighter or Street Fighter II were successful. Harada wanted to make his own fighting game and he got it.
In 1994 the first Tekken was released, exclusive to the first PlayStation and arcade rooms. It was one of the first three-dimensional fighting games and managed to hook the public. This success has lasted until now, 30 years later, and Tekken has established itself, along with Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, as one of the highest-rated fighting franchises.
It is said quickly, but in these 30 years thousands of franchises have been born and have perished. Good games and other mediocre ones that have been published and now rest covered in dust on some shelves in a department store. “There is one clear thing to highlight in fighting games: they are the genre that has best known how to adapt to the ups and downs and changes in the business model,” says Harada.
We can talk about art or entertainment, but, for companies, video games are above all a product with which to make money. If they do not generate profits, they die. And these great fighting games have managed to evolve to adapt to the arrival of consoles, online gaming, esports and games as a service. “There are games that have fallen by the wayside, that have not survived these changes in the business model. Before, the model was clear: you threw in a coin and played, but everything changed with the arrival of consoles,” continues Harada.
Faced with this challenge, Bandai Namco opted to give more value to its titles by adding new game modes. “We decided to incorporate new content such as practice modes or multiplayer games, modes that did not exist in the arcades,” says Harada. Among the games that have survived – the three franchises we mentioned before – there is something in common: they are historical games owned by large companies. Now, at the end of 2023, it seems almost impossible that any small studio will be able to create a fighting game that rivals these giants.
“Wrestling is a very complex genre. “A small company can create good mechanics and an interesting game, but it lacks the resources to give this game everything it needs to succeed.” Harada talks about everything that has to do with video games, but that happens outside of the cartridge, the disc or the downloadable executable: events and marketing.
On the other hand, there are also those alternative modes that Harada said before or the investment of resources in creating good stories and interesting characters. “The success of a fighting game goes beyond creating characters, rules and scenarios,” he says.
Katsuhiro Harada’s profile contrasts with what is usually seen in the video game industry. Far from the figure of the eccentric Japanese creative, he is a producer. His vision of the medium is more commercial than artistic, although this does not mean that he is blinded by the benefits or that he wants to achieve success regardless of the corpses he leaves along the way. His gameplay proves it: the Tekken franchise, but also great hits from From Software such as Dark Souls, Elden Ring or Armored Core 6. Quality and success go hand in hand in all these cases.
Now it’s time to see if with Tekken 8 the franchise is still in top shape.
