During our time at Level Up KL 2023, we had the opportunity to attend a talk by Yamamoto Masami and Ito Darin from Shueisha, discussing their venture into the games publication business. 

Yamamoto Masami is the Head of Game Production at Shueisha Games. He has been in the entertainment industry since 1990 and has previously worked with PlayStation, possessing an extensive list of games in his portfolio. 

Ito Darin is a project manager and a game director at Shueisha Games. He has been working in the game industry for more than 20 years and is now working with Shueisha Games to help build up their Global Publishing Brand. 

Joining them is Gan Dong Chee, the Co-Founder of Magnus Game Studio, a Malaysia-based game company.

Both Yamamoto and Ito start up the talk by going through a brief history of Shueisha, the publishing company behind the Jump magazine series that popularized many manga series such as Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto, and more. 

They then talk about their decision to venture into a new business and why they want to expand to new forms of creation such as digital content, games, and other mediums. 

“We want to go into this with the same soul of our established business, which is to take care of the creators and bring new interesting content to the world, thus why we have entered the publishing business,” said Ito.

They further emphasized that as a large company with lots of established connections, they want to use their power to help promote and market games from aspiring creators. 

As a way to help further market indie games, Shueisha mentioned that they will even utilize their existing IPs and help cross-promote upcoming titles with the Jump magazine series. Furthermore, the Shueisha Games official website will also have a portal for aspiring creators to pitch their ideas to the publisher. 

Unicorn Value

Shueisha Games described their core value towards publishing titles as being like an unicorn. 

“The unicorn value is what we hold toward the creator’s end of the projects. What we are saying is that as creators, you create very interesting new concepts. And the concept here, what that represents is the sharp point of the unicorn’s horn.”

“What is also important is that, like the unicorn’s body, the whole gameplay must ensure people will enjoy the title. Without that, all you have is just a horn without a unicorn. And just as mentioned, you can just have the horn, but you can also just have the body, then you’re just a horse, which is why a combination of both is a must.”

Towards the end of the talk, Gan Dong Chee from Magnus Games Studio joined and expressed his gratitude to be working with Shueisha Games, as well as describing his positive experience. 

“We are all here for a reason, right? To make our dream game,” said Gan Dong Chee. 

“Reality is when we need to execute a plan, there are a lot of things going on. We need people, we need funds, and we need a lot of support.” 

“We’re very lucky to have Shueisha Games to be giving us a lot of support.”