While the videogame-designer-as-rock-star phenomenon is still a growing factor across the game development landscape, it’s had a recognizable poster boy for close to a decade. The be-sun-spectacled Tomonobu Itagaki is gaming’s very own Noel Gallagher, a mouthy, arrogant source of great quotes with a spotty creative track record, but who’s inarguably responsible for a couple of masterpieces. He’s also a magnet for controversy. Even beyond his inflammatory comments about rival game franchises, namely Tekken and Devil May Cry, Itagaki has been at the center of multiple legal entanglements with his former publisher, Tecmo. First, it was charges of sexual harassment. Then, this past June, Itagaki quit Tecmo after shipping Ninja Gaiden 2 and immediately sued the publisher for not delivering on promised pay bonuses.
This is the problem with the rock star designer phenomenon. In the aftermath of Itagaki’s departure from Tecmo, everyone in the industry was asking what’s next for Itagaki and what is his beleaguered publisher – Tecmo’s president resigned shortly after Itagaki left and they were nearly acquired by Square-Enix after that, before agreeing to merge with Koei – going to do without him. No one really asked what Team Ninja, the team that Itagaki founded, was going to do without their public face. How does a development team recover when their image, an identity that’s secured them a devoted audience more than the games they’ve made, has walked away?
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