No More Heroes developer Goichi Suda, aka Suda51, believes the gaming community “cares too much” about review scores on sites like Metacritic.
The Grasshopper Manufacture CEO opened up about his grievances during an interview GamesIndustry.biz conducted with him and Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami. Suda explains he’s concerned that game creation is becoming formulaic as a result of desires to reach higher scores, adding that many companies might not be interested in projects that don’t fit in with that formula.
“Everybody pays too much attention to and cares too much about Metacritic scores,” he said. “It's gotten to the point where there's almost a set formula – if you want to get a high Metacritic score, this is how you make the game.”
Suda continued: “If you've got a game that doesn't fit into that formula, that marketability scope, it loses points on Metacritic. The bigger companies might not want to deal with that kind of thing. That might not be the main reason, but that's certainly one reason why. Everyone cares too much about the numbers.”
Suda clarifies that, first and foremost, what matters is creating games that the team wants to release and the fans they make them for. While he tries not to care much about Metacritic numbers himself, he occasionally falls into the trap of checking scores for some Grasshopper projects. Suda references moments when outlets have “given us zero,” saying they are specifically bothersome.
“That makes me feel shitty — why go that far and give us zero?" he said with a laugh. "But apart from that I try to avoid Metacritic."
Mikami says unique gaming experiences are still there to be found for those looking for them. However, he feels it’s the big-budget games that receive the most marketing support.
"The kind of games that get the most marketing support are the ones that need to appeal to as broad an audience as possible," he said. "More unique games don't really have the same marketability."
In other Grasshopper news, the developer announced in October 2021 that it had been acquired by NetEase Games. At the time, Suda promised that the move would allow the team to deliver “even more powerful and creative titles” to their fans. It released No More Heroes 3 for Nintendo Switch that same year. More recently, Grasshopper launched a remaster titled Lollipop Chainsaw RePop just yesterday for PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S. As it looks to the future, fans will be happy to know that Suda and Mikami have expressed interest in continuing the Killer7 series in some form.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.
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