Career switch to company president in 10 years
Images
Some considered Elden Ring the best game of the decade when it was released. FromSoftware, the studio that published the game, is also responsible for other hits such as the Dark Souls trilogy and Sekiro. The director behind those games is Hidetaka Miyazaki, who only started in the gaming industry when he was 29. His college degree was not game-related; it was Social Science. He had considered working for a game company out of college but didn't pursue it and worked as an account manager for Oracle after graduating. Years later, after being inspired by the game Ico, Hidetaka wanted to jump into the gaming industry.
However, he faced the same challenge many who wanted to switch industries did, not finding companies willing to hire him since he was too experienced to get graduate positions and inexperienced for the other roles. This industry switch was also happening in Japan, which made it more challenging because many people often stayed with the first company they joined after college for a long time. He eventually found a role as a planner in 2004 for FromSoftware. This new job would be a pay cut from what he made previously.
When Miyazaki joined, the company's biggest hit was the Armored Core series, and none of their games ever sold over 1 million copies. A bit after he joined, he learned about a game that was struggling in development called Demon's Souls. He managed to take charge of the game and changed many things in his vision, including increasing the game's difficulty. This game would be the birth of the Soulslike gaming genre.
At first, the game had early negative feedback and didn't sell well, selling only around 20,000 copies in its first week. Yet, it would slowly get positive word-of-mouth, leading to more copies selling in the next few months before being published in non-Japan countries. It would be a successful game in the West, selling over 1 million copies two years later. Miyazaki would help direct Demon's Souls' spiritual successor, Dark Souls. These two games would become the best-selling and highly-rated games from FromSoftware then.
In 2014, Miyazaki was named president of FromSoftware. Since becoming president, he has not stopped directing games, and the quality has only increased, leading to the highly acclaimed Elden Ring.
Quotes
In Japan, even today, people usually join a company as a graduate and stay for life. For Miyazaki to change career and, within 10 years, become company president – that’s unprecedented in Japan. It’s inspiring.
Ema Kodaka
The project had problems and the team had been unable to create a compelling prototype. But when I heard it was a fantasy-action role-playing game, I was excited. I figured if I could find a way to take control of the game, I could turn it into anything I wanted. Best of all, if my ideas failed, nobody would care – it was already a failure.
Hidetaka Miyazaki
References
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The 19 Best FromSoftware Games, Ranked (According To Metacritic)
Demon’s Souls was quite the experimental piece of software for From, even when compared to later titles. Aside from the obvious difficulty, the lack of any real narrative to follow left everything up to the gameplay and the atmosphere of its world. Other games certainly expand on this cryptic atmosphere, but Demon’s Souls seems entirely built on the player-character being nothing but a vessel for the player with no real investment for the character themselves.
TheGamer
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The 10 Best-Selling FromSoftware Games, Ranked
Elden Ring is without a doubt one of the best games ever made and has so far collected over seventeen million sales which was last reported in September 2022.
ScreenRant
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Why Demon’s Souls is the most important game of the decade
Demon’s Souls is the oft-neglected pioneer that led to many modern games, overshadowed by its more fully realized and more polished successor, Dark Souls. But in 2009, few game developers were taking risks the way FromSoftware had, ultimately reshaping the company and altering the future of game design.
Polygon
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Bloodborne creator Hidetaka Miyazaki: ‘I didn’t have a dream. I wasn’t ambitious'
At a time when many believe the creativity of Japan’s once-bold video game industry is in decline, Miyazaki has captivated global audiences without compromising his vision.
The Guardian
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Dark Souls Director Hidetaka Miyazaki Made President of From Software
Hidetaka Miyazaki, the man responsible for directing both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, has been appointed From Software president.
IGN
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Interview with Mr. Hidetaka Miyazaki who gave birth to a global hit "Dark Soul" from inexperienced game production
Due to its overly stoic gameplay and overly rigid world view, it was said that it would not sell that much when it was first released in February 2009, but "Demon's Souls" has achieved cumulative sales of over 1 million copies worldwide
Gigazine
