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Gaming director?

37
Posts
8
Years
  • Age 27
  • Seen Nov 7, 2017
I was just wondering who was the director for each of the main Pokemon games and what does the director get to do? Does he create the Pokemon designs? The creator of Pokemon, was he ever the director? If so, what does he do in the series now? I did some research but there was a lot of information out there that I couldn't really get into.
 
162
Posts
7
Years
  • Age 37
  • Seen Jun 20, 2016
To make a game you need two people. The programmer and artist. The sound could be made between the two along with the story. Having all four just makes the workflow move faster.

Usually the music/sound is done last when making games as a rule from the original "Crash Bandicoot" Days. Even Rareware never had writers or directors at all. You never needed such people. Truth be told many art people in Japan did jobs/studies as directors so applying comics to videogames is what made that work out.

Same thing with Megaman X series. X4/X5 was the last real game with the original creator before he left. Every other game was focused on getting to Legends and MMZ series.
 
50,218
Posts
13
Years
If you're wondering who did the game director role for each main series title, here's your answers.

Red/Green/Blue/Yellow - Satoshi Tajiri
Gold/Silver/Crystal - Satoshi Tajiri
Ruby/Sapphire - Junichi Masuda
Fire Red/Leaf Green - Junichi Masuda
Emerald - Shigeki Morimoto
Diamond/Pearl - Junichi Masuda
Platinum - Takeshi Kawachimaru
Heart Gold/Soul Silver - Shigeki Morimoto
Black/White - Junichi Masuda
Black 2/White 2 - Takao Unno
X/Y - Junichi Masuda
Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire - Shigeru Ohmori
Sun/Moon - Shigeru Ohmori

As you can tell, Masuda has been the most prominent in the director role for the main series titles. It was recently confirmed that Ohmori will be back in the director role for Sun & Moon after doing his directorial debut for OR/AS, the last main series titles prior to S/M.
 
37
Posts
8
Years
  • Age 27
  • Seen Nov 7, 2017
If you're wondering who did the game director role for each main series title, here's your answers.

Red/Green/Blue/Yellow - Satoshi Tajiri
Gold/Silver/Crystal - Satoshi Tajiri
Ruby/Sapphire - Junichi Masuda
Fire Red/Leaf Green - Junichi Masuda
Emerald - Shigeki Morimoto
Diamond/Pearl - Junichi Masuda
Platinum - Takeshi Kawachimaru
Heart Gold/Soul Silver - Shigeki Morimoto
Black/White - Junichi Masuda
Black 2/White 2 - Takao Unno
X/Y - Junichi Masuda
Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire - Shigeru Ohmori
Sun/Moon - Shigeru Ohmori

As you can tell, Masuda has been the most prominent in the director role for the main series titles. It was recently confirmed that Ohmori will be back in the director role for Sun & Moon after doing his directorial debut for OR/AS, the last main series titles prior to S/M.

Thank you! Do you happen to know what they control and get to do?
 

VisualJae

[size=1][FONT=Michroma][color=#a42525][b]Spam Hype
1,128
Posts
8
Years
The director provides the vision. Many directors also possess the necessary skills related to the industry, such as writing and programming, in order to better guide the team. Case in point, Junichi Masuda is probably better known as the composer behind most of the Pokémon game music, but he also has experience/knowledge in directing and programming. It's as the word means: the director directs the team and points them in the right direction (yes, that's a lot of directs).

However, the director will oftentimes also report to the "producer." A game producer controls the funding for the game. As the producer manages the funds, they have a say in the direction of the game, too. In many cases, for the sake of streamlining, you'll also see someone being credited as both the director and producer. For example, Junichi Masuda was the director for Pokémon X and Y, plus he also served as one of the game's producers.

You can see it like:

The producer(s) lead the overall game (he who has the money gets to do the talking!). The game director leads the team of developers (programmers, writers, etc.).
 
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