Guilty Gear Director Ishiwatari Says Failure is Necessary

As usual, the Japanese magazine Famitsu kicked off 2024 by sharing messages from 163 game developers regarding their future plans for this year and asking them to reflect on the previous year’s accomplishments. Daisuke Ishiwatari, the general director of the Guilty Gear series, detailed the direction of Arc System Works in the coming year. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

Daisuke Ishiwatari expressed his concerns with the game development side of the industry in his statement. He believes that there should be a space for new indie developers to become relevant in the market, and that they should be allowed to fail and grow.

As part of his statement, Ishiwatari noted:

To sum it up, we are living in an era in which failure is not an option… Young people who are aiming to become game developers are losing the opportunity to nurture their own creativity.

The keywords Ishiwatari reported for the video game industry in 2024 are “core markets,” “indie,” “corporate development schemes,” and “compliance.” The keywords for his own goals at Arc System Works are “challenge,” “pioneering,” “return,” and “dawn.”

“In 2024, we would like to search for a development environment in which we can fail,” Ishiwatari affirmed.

Guilty Gear Strive is available for the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Windows PC.