EA Letting Suda 51 Be As Suda As He Wants

In comments to Eurogamer, EA Partners General Manager David DeMartini described the company’s dealings with the Suda 51 / Shinji Mikami horror collaboration that has yet to receive a title. Suda 51 is known for developing disturbing and mentally skewed games (No More Heroes, Killer 7), but according to DeMartini, EA doesn’t want to intrude on his style.

“We’ve allowed him the opportunity to fully explore his creativity,” DeMartini said. ”The key thing is not for us to tone down Suda or try and Westernise Suda, but to try and make sure the game gets broad enough exposure that more people appreciate it.”

Suda’s previous titles have all received critical praise for their experimentation and creativity, but a lack of marketing has prevented them from achieving real commercial success.

“No More Heroes, his other games, they’re all critically acclaimed, but it’s like a boutique movie where it’s highly acclaimed but it doesn’t get into all the theatres so not everybody gets a chance to see it. Obviously with EA’s publishing and sales team, we’re going to have this game in all theatres. It’s going to be in all the retail outlets. People are going to get an opportunity to finally listen to what you guys have been writing about Suda for a long time,” DeMartini said.

Of course, this is the tricky part. Suda’s games are very Eastern in nature, and though EA doesn’t want to interfere with the development of the game, they want to market it appropriately to Western audiences.

“We didn’t try and Westernise his ideas. We let him explore his ideas fully,” DeMartini said. “Now we’re going to Westernise the sales and marketing approach so it gets out there and is known by as many people as possible, to give him the best opportunity to sell to a ton of people.”

Some gamers may balk at the sentiment (as it will most likely boil down to titties and explosions), but unless games pull in the dollars, the developers won’t get money to make more of them. While Suda 51 didn’t confirm that the game would be shown at the Tokyo Game Show next month, DeMartini agreed that unveiling the game at that point “makes sense.” When the mind behind Killer 7 and the mind behind Resident Evil mesh, only magic will happen.

[via Eurogamer]