Young people prefer co-op games to avoid losing, says Tekken creator

You know that friend who plays a cooperative game with you but always ends up blaming you for anything wrong that happens during the game? Well, whoever has never been through something similar should cast the first stone.

The creator of Tekken, Katsuhiro Harada, talked about this recently. According to the industry veteran, today’s young people are more interested in team-based games than in one-on-one fighting games — after all, they can transfer responsibility to their partner if something goes wrong.

The subject came up in the latest edition of the official podcast of Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciencesin which Harada talked about the franchise Tekken with Shuhei Yoshida — another industry veteran and responsible for PlayStation’s indie games division.

The new generation is not as individualistic as the older ones, says the creator of Tekken

In the chat, Yoshida asked Harada for his opinion on how one-on-one fighting games might evolve in the future. The developer explains that the genre must find ways to integrate team-based models — as the younger generation prefers games in this style.

“It seems to me that the way fighting games are played has evolved over time with the generations,” Harada explained. “In Japan, and probably most of the world, my generation is large. It represents a good portion of the population. This has made our society competitive.”

According to the creator of Tekken, the new generation is not as individualistic as the old one.Font: Bandai Namco

The creator of Tekken states that most people aged around 50 have always valued definitive results, “with a clear winner and loser”. But the situation of the current generation has changed and is completely opposite.

“They are rarely eager to engage in one-on-one confrontations. Plus, since fighting games pit you alone against a single opponent, you’ll have to accept full responsibility if you lose. You can’t blame anyone else,” he explained.

According to Harada, fighting games should have team fighting options

Harada continues the conversation by stating that the current fighting game model needs to adapt to the market and have at least one option apart from 3×3 fights.

Tekken creator says fighting games need to adapt to the current market.Font: Bandai Namco

“I’m not saying we should suddenly turn a fighting game into a puzzle game or a real-time strategy game,” he explained. “I still think there’s a demand for games like this, the melee type of games.”

“But maybe we could include other ways to compete, outside of the main game. For example, maybe they don’t always have to fight one on one. They could opt for team battles, like 3 vs. 3 matches,” he concluded.

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