Resident game industry weirdo Yoko Taro laments that there aren’t as many ‘weird’ people making videogames as there used to be

If there were to ever be a mascot for the videogame industry weirdos (endearing), it’d most certainly be Nier creator Yoko Taro. He’s built a brand around being a little eccentric, almost always seen sporting his Emil mask and making games that somehow perfectly straddle being a little horny, devastating, and thought-provoking all at once. Hell, he even did a whole GDC presentation in 2014 titled “Making Weird Games for Weird People“. He knows, I know, we all know.

It’s no surprise, then, that during a recent Q&A he held over on X, someone asked him if there were a lot of strange folk knocking around in the industry. As reported by Automaton Media, Taro replied to say that, at least from his experience, there sure aren’t as many as there used to be.

“I’ve been in the game industry for 30 years, and it seems like there are fewer ‘weirdos’ out there,” he said (via a machine translation). “I am not sure if this is just a phenomenon in my observation, or if the game industry has become like that, or if the whole world has become like that.”

I do think Taro is a tiny bit right in that there are less weird videogames coming out, but I think that’s mostly only true when it comes to larger budget games. After all, anyone with Unity and a dream can conjure up all manner of peculiar little experiences and chuck them on itch.io or go through the process (and payment) of trying to get it up on Steam.

But I also can’t help but shake the feeling that there’s an air of larger developers playing things a lot safer these days. A lot of sequels, remakes, and remasters. Stuff that people probably already like and are willing to dive into on brand recognition alone. I imagine it’s a lot harder these days to even pitch something kinda strange to a publisher, let alone get them to fund it.

I also have to wonder if the bar for who or what is considered weird has also simply been raised over the years. I was branded a little freak for watching anime back in England in 2007, and now I’m a freak if I haven’t seen the latest episode of My Cat Turned into a 4,000-Year-Old Demon Enchantress or whatever’s popping off right now. Times change, and I certainly feel like the last decade or so has seen people’s definition of ‘weird’ evolve dramatically.

Not that I’d mind if the industry saw an uprising of Yoko Taro-likes, mind you. If there’s anything I love, it’s a weird-ass videogame, and maybe it’s time for some brave soldiers to capture Taro’s attention with something delightfully quirky to play.