Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, author: Feiyun

This is the story of a genius who becomes famous prematurely and then falls.

Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about the two arrests of Yuji Nakagi, the father of Sonic.

As a star producer, Nakayuji used to be a popular figure. In his early years, he became famous for his involvement in the production of well-known games such as the Sonic series and Dream Genie, which brought a lot of innovation to the industry in terms of technology and creativity and contributed to the game industry in the 1990s. In 2002, he won the Game developers Conference (GDC) Lifetime Achievement Award, which is the pinnacle of his life.

In 2006, Nakayuji left Sega to bid farewell to the "Sonic" series, and some games made by independent entrepreneurs later had a lacklustre response. After joining Square Enix (SE) in 2018, he became hostile to the company for a variety of reasons. In April, Nakayuji complained on social media that SE had no respect for players, released semi-finished games and claimed to take SE to court. In November and December, he was arrested twice on suspicion of insider trading, and the second time he was arrested, the amount involved was 145 million yen (7.3 million yuan).

After the second arrest, what may be waiting for Nakayusi's prison is that the Sonic series, which was once co-founded by Nakayusi, has been reborn after a trough. The new series "Sonic: the unknown Border" was not popular before its release, but it was recognized by players after its release, and it earned enough topic because of the voting controversy over TGA's "player's Voice." Seeing such a scene, I don't know how Yuji Nakagi feels now.

The eighties and nineties of the last century was the golden age of Sega. With its technological innovation and huge profits in the arcade field in the 1980s, Sega wanted to compete with Nintendo, the leader at the time, so in 1988, Sega launched the famous host Mega Drive (MD), which was very popular at that time, especially in North America, where MD sold more American SEGA Genesis than its competitor SFC. Had it not been for the fact that SFC gained a big lead in Japan with a large number of Japanese-style RPG and eventually overtook MD in global sales, the result of this wonderful round of mainframe competition might have been rewritten. This war is still talked about by players today.

MD console once brought a huge impact to the game industry MD was able to quickly occupy the market, Nakayusi participated in the production of the "Sonic" series played a great role, this series can be said to be completely for the MD host, and later Sonic also became the image spokesman of Sega, but also launched an animated movie.

At that time, Sega was a company that attached great importance to technological innovation and learned a lot from it, and many technical talents rose rapidly. Yu Suzuki is a typical example: his first imitation 3D driving game "Out Run" was the pioneer of racing arcade games, and "VR Warriors" evolved the combat game from 2D to 3D. For Sega at that time, technology was the first driving force.

However, at that time, Suzuki Yu had been working in the field of arcade machines for a long time and was not very enthusiastic about home consoles. Sega urgently needed new works to drive sales of the MD home mainframe. It was just the right time for Yuji Nakamoto to seize this historical opportunity to achieve a career and fame.

MD's boom was suppressed after Nintendo launched the SFC console in 1990, when Sega saw the Super Malio series shine on FC and SFC consoles and wanted to make a signature platform action game. Although Sega has previously released several works in the Alex Kid series, their popularity and influence are not comparable to those of Mario.

The task fell to Sega's eighth Software Development Department (AM8) at the time, and the project was led by Yuji Nakagi, a technology pioneer in home consoles, as well as two co-founders, Hiroshi Yasuhara and Naoko Oshima.

Alex Kid, the representative of Sega's early years, should not be familiar with the new generation of gamers. After discussion and thinking, AM8's innovative idea is to make full use of MD's classic CPU MC68000 to create a platform action game for high-speed scrolls. In 1991, the original "Sonic" was born.

"Sonic" was finally successfully completed, and Nakayusi's excellent programming skills made such great contributions that Hiroshi Yasuhara, who served as the director, planner and designer of the game, was still impressed by his technical genius many years later. Yasuhara put forward a lot of wild ideas in this work, and Nakayuji can always realize these ideas in a very quick time. The character "Supersonic Sonic" was designed by Naoki Oshima. After the success of "Sonic" in the market, this iron triangle has been working together for a long time, and several "Sonic" games on the MD console are basically completed with their cooperation.

Nakayuji brought various new ideas to the early "Sonic" series, such as the background rotation function and 360-degree circle function in the first generation, and in the second generation he designed the function of moving forward in the 3D world. it is the first game in game history to achieve deep 3D scroll scrolling. Later, in Sonic and Nacruz, he created the amazing design of the first character combination in game history.

Sonic always runs so fast after "Sonic", "Dream Star Online" co-produced by Nakayuji is the world's first mainframe RPG online game and a pioneering work of the times.

More importantly, Nakayusi technically gave the concept of "Sonic" high speed, which later became not only a signature feature of the series, but also a major feature of the MD mainframe that year, so that many game companies followed up and developed a lot of games showing high-speed scroll levels, among which games such as "Thunder Power 4", "Contra: iron Blood Corps" and "Rocket Knights" were the most successful.

In contrast, MD's competitor, SFC, does not use fast CPU like MD in terms of cost, so it is difficult to achieve similar high-speed scroll functions, which is a key factor that MD can achieve great success in North America with faster and cooler games such as Sonic.

The tempo of Contra: iron Blood Corps is also fast, so from this point of view, Nakayushi made a great contribution to the success of the Sonic series and the MD mainframe, so he was called the "father of Sonic", and the AM8 development department was later renamed Sonic Team.

Nakayuji won the GDC Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002 for his amazing technological innovation in the 1990s, when he was only 37 years old. So far, he is still the youngest record holder to win the award.

It was not until 1996 that I saw the dazzling high-speed scroll checkpoint in "Sonic" in the domestic computer room, and I felt the oncoming impact of the times. It is not hard to imagine that after seeing such a picture in 1991, when the game was born, players may have been shocked and unable to speak for a long time.

Released in 2018, "Sonic: Carnival" is a work dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the series by a group of avid fans. It has been officially recognized and recommended by Sega. Yuji Nakai has created great glory on the MD host, and has also produced two generations of 3D "Sonic Adventure" and "Dream Star Online" on the DC host. But after that, as Sega withdrew from the mainframe competition and became a pure game software developer, the business situation was not as good as before. Nakayushi left Sega and Sonic Team in 2006 to start his own business.

Prope, founded by Nakayuji, launched a number of games over the next decade, such as "Strange Bird", "fishing Resort", "Digital Tyrannosaurus Rex" and "Sky Robot Rodya", mostly with mediocre response. Among them, "Sky Rodeo" had a lot of publicity before its release, and the players thought it would be a return to the glory of the past, but in fact, they found that the operation experience was very bad, and the overall level was disappointing. in the end, the game sales are not good. The game was supposed to be released in 2012, but the project was cancelled and didn't hit the market until 2015, but it's strange that the quality is so poor in the end.

In 2018, Nakayuji left his own Prope and chose to join SE. To this end, he announced the news on social media: "I have news for you that I joined SE in January. As always, I am still engaged in the development of games, and I will try my best to develop games in SE. My goal is to develop a fun game, please look forward to it! "

After joining SE, Nakayuji launched his new project, "the Wonderland of Balaam," which is also a platform action game. It was this game that later broke his relationship with SE.

Balaam's Wonderland was released on March 26, 2021 and was one of the lowest-rated games of the year. On the rating website Metacritic, the average media score for this work is only 44, and a large number of players also give poor reviews.

After the release of the biggest tainted game in Nakayuji's production career, Baran's Wonderland left SE and personally confirmed the news in June 2021. What are the reasons for leaving? he said at the time that "I can't say at this time."

It's not over yet. At the end of April this year, Nakayuji suddenly announced that he would sue SE on the grounds that he had directed and led the development of Balaam's Wonderland, but he was sacked by SE six months before the game was released. SE and the game's co-developer, Arzest, sold the semi-finished "Paran's Wonderland" directly, ignoring his call for changes to the game, Nakayuji said. In addition, Nakayuji also hinted that SE also acted improperly in the process of promoting the game and may have privately disclosed the score of the game to some video broadcasters.

Nakayusi is very sorry for the launch of the game before it is finished, and the quality of the game is undoubtedly one of the most sensitive issues for players. After one stone stirred up thousands of waves, SE was pushed to the forefront of the wind and waves. Many players think that SE has played the role of a villain in this dispute, and there are not a few people who sympathize with Yushi. SE later admitted to being sued by Nakayuji in an earnings call, but declined to comment further. SE also defended "Baran's Wonderland", saying "this is a game we are confident to recommend."

The news of Nakayushi's lawsuit against SE was also posted on social platforms when people thought they would see Nakayuji and SE going to court and having a debate, but one of the parties was arrested twice, just like the reversal in the movie.

Japan's Fuji News Network reported on November 18 that during his tenure at SE in January 2020, Nakayuji learned that SE and game development company Aiming were jointly developing a new smartphone platform for the series "Warriors fighting Dragons". Before the news was made public, Nakayuji and two other SE employees bought shares in Aiming. Three people were arrested on suspicion of insider trading in stocks.

The amount of money involved in the case is 2.8 million yen (about 146000 yuan), which is not too large, so it has not attracted much attention. But on December 7, the Japanese media broke the news that Nakayuji had been arrested again on suspicion of a huge amount of stock insider trading. It happened in February 2021, when Nakayuji learned in advance that SE would work with Ateam to develop the mobile game "final Fantasy 7: the first Warrior" and bought shares worth about 145 million yen (7.3 million yuan) in the latter before the information was made public. This act violates Japan's Financial Commodities Trading Act, and the amount of money involved is so large that if Yuji Nakai is eventually convicted, he will not only have to pay a large fine, but may also face imprisonment.

Interestingly, "final Fantasy 7: the first Warrior" will stop obeying Sonic's father to the GDC Lifetime Achievement Award in January next year, and now he has been arrested twice and has experienced such ups and downs. What is Yuji Nakagi thinking now?

Why sink? This is a story in which a genius becomes famous prematurely and then falls, and similar characters can be found everywhere in history.

Born in 1965, Nakayuji was only 26 years old when he became famous for his "Sonic" in 1991, and he was recognized by the world for various technological innovations for more than a decade. But "too early to become famous" is a double-edged sword, and Nakayusi enjoys applause from the industry and players, but also builds up excessive self-confidence, which makes it more and more difficult for him to find the accurate position of himself and his game in people's minds.

Because of this, there has been negative news about Nakayuji in the past few years. In the eyes of peers, the image of Nakayusi may not be positive enough.

In 2017, Peter Moore, then president of EA, mentioned Nakayusi's stubbornness and rigidity in an exclusive interview with the media: Peter Moore, who was president of Sega's American division in the early 2000s, realized that adult, blockbuster games like "bully 3" were about to become the mainstream of the future. To convince Japanese headquarters to catch up on the trend in time, Sega North America conducted a survey of 18-to 19-year-olds who were asked to describe their impressions of gaming companies. It turns out that EA is a "6-foot-5" arrogant quarterback, R Star is "an alcoholic uncle who comes back once a month from Las Vegas", and Sega is "Grandpa who used to be cool, but now even he can't remember anything."

Peter Moore came to the headquarters in Japan and showed the subtitled video of the investigation to Sega executives. To his surprise, Nakayuji patted the table angrily and said to him, "this is so fake. You asked them to say that. Sega is a great brand. No one will say that."

This made Peter Moore realize that Sega was hopeless, and soon after, he left Sega to join Microsoft. He believes that it was Yuji Nakagi and Yuki Suzuki (the founder of the "Shamu" series) that hindered Sega's development at that time.

Interestingly, in that interview, Peter Moore also complained that Sega's current best-selling game happens to be the adult "such as Dragon" series.

Peter Moore later worked as a professional manager in football. Not only was he stubborn and rigid, Nakayuji often made some strange behaviors.

In July this year, to celebrate the 26th anniversary of the release of SS masterpiece "Dream Elf", Yuji Nakai posted a photo on social media of the launch of his new work that year, but blacked out the game director Naoko Oshima with PS software-- perhaps because he and Oshima Naoko also had a bad relationship, when they worked together to create the "Sonic" series, and then co-developed "Baran's Wonderland" again. But Nakayuji has long been at odds with Arzest, the game's executive development team, and Naoko Oshima is the company's vice president.

A man who was blackened.

There are a lot of similar reports about former partners and now enemies, but they are all overshadowed by the title of "Father of Sonic". After all, famous producers with flamboyant personalities and eccentricities are not uncommon in the game industry-Kenji Iiano, Panagaki and others are typical examples.

However, for Yuji Nakatsu, the honorable title of "Father of Sonic" is also somewhat unworthy of the name. In fact, he lacks the ability of really excellent game design, and the reason why he became famous as a teenager is mainly his contribution to technology. the success of the early works of the "Sonic" series actually depends to a large extent on the game director and designer Hiroshi Yasuhara and creativity in the scene, rhythm, and levels. In other words, Hiroshi Yasuhara is responsible for figuring out what the game will look like, and the specific technical implementation is the responsibility of Yuji Nakamoto.

Hirowa Yasuhara, who was in charge of the creative idea of "Sonic", however, Yuji Nakahara was the project leader at that time, and Japanese game media such as Fami Tong would deliberately create some topics for magazine sales, launch exclusive interviews with "the father of so-and-so games" and attract players by creating star producers. He even tried his best to publicize his achievements and achievements.

It is worth mentioning that Hiroshi Yasuhara joined the naughty dog after leaving Sega and participated in the production of the "Jack and Duster" series, which is a platform action game like "Sonic" and was once the signature IP of naughty dogs. Yasuhara's design ability makes his career much more robust.

The "Jack and Duster" series used to be very popular on PS2. Looking at the famous "fathers of game series" around the world, they are not necessarily top-notch in programming and technology, but the core point is undoubtedly excellent design ability to know how to build a variety of interesting levels to make the game world richer. On this level, Nakayusi's "Father of Sonic" actually has a certain degree of water.

During Nakayuji's time in Sega, because Sega attached great importance to technology, he could be appointed as the head of the department. When he took the lead in producing some projects, planning and design talents like Hiroshi Yasuhara could be his strong backing. After leaving Sega, Nakayusi lacks the assistance of excellent designers. With the growth of age and the great changes in the game industry, it has been very difficult for individuals to rely on some technological innovation to achieve a breakthrough like the original "Sonic".

Nakayusi has been in charge of this development team for many years. The teenager became famous, lost in middle age and arrested in old age.

At this time, it is difficult to tell which is right or wrong between Nakayushi and SE. It is difficult to say for a moment that "SE retaliates against Nakayusi" is an easy script to think of, but "character determines fate." maybe many results are indeed foreboding.

The peak of Yuji Nakai's life came so early that he misestimated his ability, and without the help of a good game designer, his own games were not very fun. After a long period of loss and bad relations with SE, his mentality may have been seriously out of balance-from a point of view, he made that huge insider trading in the stock market after he was dismissed as director by SE.

In fact, some other famous games produced by the father of the game after leaving the original company often fail to catch up with the original influence, but as extreme as Nakayusi, it is extremely rare to be arrested and jailed for violating the law.

A good game can not only rely on technology, in art, music, culture and many other levels need to make efforts, excellent teamwork is also indispensable. As a result, Sonic: the unknown Border has also been a great success without the participation of Nakayushi. Many years ago, some players pessimistically believed that the IP of "Sonic" would continue to sink after Nakayushi left. Although the road of "Sonic" was not smooth after he left, today's game development is no longer heavily dependent on the efforts of a single producer, and the example of "Sonic: unknown Border" may further prove the importance of teamwork.

"Sonic: the unknown Border" gives hope to supporters of the series.

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