When you’ve been online and dealing with thousands of people making demands and assumptions about your work as long as Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada, you’re bound to see a lot of the same arguments. For fighting game developers, the inclusion or exclusion of fan-favorite characters is a frequent topic of discussion, more so with each subsequent game. When asked about why he “hated” Anna Williams, a long-time veteran character of the series who has been featured in every mainline Tekken until Tekken 8, it led to a series of tweets in which Harada, frankly, cooked people for weighing in with suggestions lacking insight into the intricacies of making a fighting game.
It started with a fan asking Harada why Anna, who has had a rivalry with her sister Nina throughout the Tekken series, is always treated as “inferior” to her. They go on to say it feels “like pulling teeth” to get her in a game, despite her perceived popularity compared to other characters across the franchise. Harada started by saying that he views all of Tekken’s characters like his own “children” and that any belief that he hates any of the fighters is people “just seeing something distorted by [their] assumptions.” The developer also pointed out that if every veteran character fans wanted was featured in each Tekken game, there would be “no room to introduce new ones.” While some games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate have taken on the gargantuan task of releasing a game with every previous fighter, Harada says having a Tekken game with “50-70 characters” from the start is “unrealistic in every respect.”
“It should also be understood that all needs have opposing sides,” Harada wrote. “On top of that, I’ll say it again…your love for the characters is distorting the way you look at things, and it’s so absurd that you unilaterally think negatively about my point of view because of it.”
Things escalated further when someone else interjected that it would make sense “from a business standpoint” to stop introducing new fighters with each incremental release to “avoid this conundrum [he brings upon himself].” Harada didn’t seem thrilled by that suggestion, but also seemed tired of explaining the business realities of making video games. Not for free, anyway.
“Do you need me to explain that to you from every perspective now,” Harada asked. “Then from here on out, I’m going to charge you tuition for lectures on ‘what video games are,’ ‘what game development is,’ ‘what the game market is,’ ‘what the game business is,’ and so on. Also, before we talk about your business perspective, please tell me your business track record.”
I’d attend that class, to be honest. Harada’s willingness to engage with the Tekken community, despite the annoying shit he sometimes has to deal with, is commendable. It has resulted in some fun and heartwarming stories like fans asking for a Waffle House stage, and when he helped a player salvage ghost data to remember a lost loved one. Tekken 8 is doing pretty well for itself, though there has been some controversy surrounding its inclusion of a battle pass.
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