Developing video games with eye on China's gamers

From a relatively young age, Yuke Taniguchi's hobby has been to create his own video games. At 16, he got his first job as one of the youngest professional video game developers in Japan. By the time he was 24, he had already started his own company.

That company - YUKE'S - has now grown to 250 employees, with two offices in Japan - Yokohama and Osaka - and a research and development center in Los Angeles.

"We released our first title in 1995, when the first Sony PlayStation came out," said Taniguchi, founder and president of YUKE'S. "Now we are focusing on high-end games which are being developed for PlayStation, XBox and Nintendo."

YUKE'S is today known best for its Worldwide Wrestling series, which started in 2000 and continues to be a big success in Asia and the United States.

"We wanted to create a game with a lot of drama and emotional contrast, and we found this in professional wrestling," Taniguchi said.

Today, as WWE becomes more popular in China, Taniguchi is looking into new cooperation agreements with companies that specialize in Chinese entertainment. "We have the experience and the technology, so if we partner up with a Chinese entertainment company, we will be able to create a very good product specifically suited to Chinese tastes," he said.

Aside from expanding its reach into the Chinese market, YUKE'S is also involved in the Japanese pachinko slot machine business. "We are already working with Sammy Corp and other leading companies to make the machines more entertaining and fun," he said. "As a result, we are producing some of the bestselling machines in Japan."

www.yukes.co.jp

World Eye Reports provided the story.

(China Daily 06/18/2015 page24)