{"id":122913,"date":"2021-08-30T20:39:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-30T20:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/387685"},"modified":"2021-08-30T20:39:00","modified_gmt":"2021-08-30T20:39:00","slug":"report-yakuza-creator-toshihiro-nagoshi-may-soon-head-over-to-netease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2021\/08\/30\/report-yakuza-creator-toshihiro-nagoshi-may-soon-head-over-to-netease\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi may soon head over to NetEase"},"content":{"rendered":"

NetEase is reportedly in the final stages of hiring <\/span>Yakuza<\/em> <\/span>creator Toshihiro Nagoshi away from Sega, <\/span>according to a report in Bloomberg News.<\/a><\/p>\n

The high-profile hire would be both a boon for NetEase, which is looking to build more and more financial presence outside of China, and an acknowledgement of how much Nagoshi and the <\/span>Yakuza<\/em> <\/span>franchise have boosted Sega’s profile in the last few years.<\/p>\n

In January, Nagoshi stepped down from the role of chief creative officer at Sega Sammy, moving into the role of creative director of the <\/span>Yakuza<\/em> <\/span>series. He’s been one of the series’ key players since it debuted in 2005.<\/p>\n

In the last few years, the <\/span>Yakuza <\/span><\/em>series has enjoyed an explosive growth in popularity outside of Japan, with series spinoff <\/span>Judgment <\/span><\/em>recently <\/span>crossing over 1 million units sold<\/a>. Though its branding might imply that the series is an open-world crime game similar to <\/span>Grand Theft Auto<\/em>, it’s won legions of fans for its memorable characters, eccentric minigames, and plots that go beyond the world of Japanese gangsters.<\/p>\n

Bloomberg’s report ties Nagoshi’s hiring by NetEase as part of a move by Chinese video game conglomerates to expand their financial influence outside of their home country, which lately has been <\/span>issuing more and more regulations on the video game industry.<\/a><\/p>\n

Reporters Takashi Mochizuki and Zheping Huang also write that Japanese studios and developers are more receptive to Chinese investment in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on funding. Sega Sammy, Nagoshi’s current workplace, <\/span>recently restructured itself<\/a> <\/span>with salary cuts and voluntary employee retirements to adapt to the financial impact of the pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NetEase is reportedly in the final stages of hiring Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi away from Sega, according to a report in Bloomberg News. The high-profile hire would be both a boon for NetEase, which is looking to build more and more financial presence outside of China, and an acknowledgement of how much Nagoshi and the Yakuza franchise have boosted Sega’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}