Masayuki Kato, the former president and founder of Nihon Falcom, one of the longest running RPG developers in the industry, just passed away on December 15th at the age of 78.
This is some really difficult news to process. Kato was seen as a polarizing figure among many Falcom fans. His conservative approach to business and outdated way of crediting creators led to many employees leaving the company in the 80s and beyond. But without him, many of these creators would have perhaps never gotten their start in the first place. He gave many developers their first job in the industry, people that would go on to change the landscape of video games as a whole. This includes:
Yoshio Kiya (creator of the Dragon Slayer series and pioneer of some of Japan’s first action RPGs).
Tadanobu Inoue (Early producer of the Atelier series at Gust).
Masaya Hashimoto (co-creator of Ys and co-founder of Quintet).
Tomoyoshi Miyazaki (scenario writer for Ys I-III , Artraiser, Terranigma, and many others).
Tetsuya Takahashi (creator of the Xeno franchise and co-founder of Monolith Soft).
Minako Iwasaki (character designer for the Rune Factory series).
Yuzo Koshiro (composer of Streets of Rage, Etrian Odyssey, and many other legendary soundtracks).
Ayano Koshiro (graphic artist on many titles ranging from Streets of Rage 2 to Lunar: The Silvar Star).
Tanaka Kunihiko (character designer for Xenogears).
Tenmon (composer for 5 Centimeters Per Second and many visual novels by Minori).
Makoto Shinkai (director of Your Name, Suzume, 5 Centimeters Per Second, and many others).
All of these creators got their start at Nihon Falcom and there are still many amazing people that remain at the studio. So while Masayuki Kato’s management can certainly be criticized, his company was also responsible for a lot of good. And I think it is telling that even creators that left Falcom, such as Yuzo Koshiro, have been offering their gratitude to Kato after hearing the news of his passing.
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