14 DAY TRIAL // One of the game developers who has avoided violence for most of his career says that he has been driven to create his pacifistic game experiences by the way over the top violence has been used by other companies.
Yasuhiro Wada, who is best known for having created the Harvest Moon series, has told Gamasutra that, “I wouldn’t deny the violent games out there, but rather, I actually get influenced by them to create something very different.”
He added, “Because there are violent games with killing and war, that kind of shapes the identity for what I create. It’s healthy to bring much variety to games. If the only things you see are violent games, then it won’t be any fun.”
Commenting on the recent E3 2012 trade show, Yasuhiro Wada says that he is a little disappointed by the fact that most promoted titles are very similar and tend to use violence as the primary means of interacting with the game world.
Wada is now working on a new video game called Project Happiness, on which he is co-director with Hidetaka Suehiro aka Swery.
The game is supposed to be a shop simulator that adds role-playing elements and is also non-violent in nature.
The Harvest Moon series has been introduced in 1996 and Harvest Moon: A New Beginning has been released in late February this year, with a huge number of sequels and spin-offs introduced in the years between.
The series has been a big hit, especially on the Nintendo Wii and on previous generation home consoles, and has managed to sell millions of copies.
Wada has already stated that he has high hopes for Project Happiness, which will probably be launched on next-generation consoles, and that he can envision a long-term franchise that will be as successful as Harvest Moon.