Tekken 3D: Prime Edition - Iwata Asks summary

- Harada’s relatives had a coffee shop, and as a kid, he’d place the Space Invaders game
- Harada’s parents forbid him from playing video games
- Harada: “No. (laughs) They wouldn’t buy me a Nintendo Entertainment System, so I had to play at a friend’s house or sneak into a game arcade to play. So as reaction to that, when it came time to get a job I decided, “I’m going into the game industry no matter what!” My parents cried over it.”
- He was a psychology major in liberal arts, which isn’t video game related
- He happened to get his first job offer from Namco
- Harada started off in sales rather than as a developer
- Harada: “Harada Right. I actually never even thought, “I want to make games.” My thinking was filled with imaginary thoughts like, “How much fun would it be and how much freedom would I have if I could make my living playing games?” (laughs) I thought about what would be the best way to get a big number of people involved in playing games, and I decided to work in sales and do video game events.”
- This was a reaction to his parents not sharing his idea of how much fun video games can be


- Harada worked as an employee in a Namco-ran arcade and gathered customers for tournaments including Street Fighter
- He was able to see the customer’s reactions up close, and that helped him gain experience
- Eventually he started to think “If it were me, I’d do this…” and wound up at R&D where he’d suggest things
- He wasn’t really supposed to do that, but it was his first year out of school and didn’t know anything
- Harada’s second month working there he went to the development building
- He waited outside the bathroom until the security door opened
- Initially, everyone was thinking “Who’s that guy?”, but after he did this for several days a week, they assumed he had permission to be there
- Harada went over to making video games in April of his second year
- Harada received the company president award during his first year in sales
- He told the president in person that he wanted to transfer to anything department, and ended up transferring to R&D in April
- Harada initially concentrated on how there was a limit to what he could do alone in showing people how great games are; it was hard to get the word out without the Internet, etc.
- Harada wanted to do something about how people playing fighting games fought in silence
- He worked on this by wearing a costume and wig at events and became an MC
- People would then start to talk about him and would even cheer during games and events
- Harada’s parents “cried out loud” when they saw him like that
- Upon joining R&D, in his second day, Harada went around to the leaders of each section, without much of an introduction, and said “You should make all the action games the way I tell you to”
- Harada thought everyone would accept him just because he was suddenly a game director
- Ikeda wasn’t around since he was working at another company, but he was shocked when he heard about the story once he joined Namco
- Harada made an effort early on to be the last one to leave the company every day
- Harada wanted to show everyone that he spent over half his life at work
- Harada always cared about the customer’s feedback

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