Hisashi Koinuma became the Vice CEO of Tecmo Koei, one of the biggest game companies in Japan. Going into the game industry worked out for him. But it was a move that his parents may have had some reservations about.
In an interview with Weekly Famitsu, Koinuma recalls spending his high school days hooked on Tecmo Koei’s (then, just Koei) historical simulation series, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Nobunaga’s Ambition. Unfortunately, due to the strictness of his parents, Koinuma could not play games on the computer at home, leading him to spend time at friends’ houses after school, taking turns playing games. His love of games led him to actively seek out colleges with more state of the art computer facilities, where he studied programming.
When it came time to find a job, Koinuma’s parents informed him that they did not want him working at a company that was not publicly traded on the stock market. This comes from the Japanese mentality that parents generally want their children to work at large public companies that offer more security. Recalls Koinuma, “My parents told me ‘It’d better be a public company or else!’”
As fate would have it, right about that time, Koei went public, giving Koinuma both the excuse and the opportunity to seek employment there.
2 years after entering Koei, he got into the Dynasty Warriors development team. From there, the Koei’s Warriors series has since gone on to become one of the company’s leading IPs, the success of which allowed Koinuma to quickly ascend the ranks, eventually becoming Vice CEO of Tecmo Koei at the age of 41 earlier this year.
Looking back on his past 20 years with the company, he has few regrets. Said Koinuma, “I was happy to constantly be able to try new things, so there was never a time when I felt the work was hard.” While Koinuma did not mention what his parents thought of his career after his rise to being an exec, I think it’s safe to assume they’re not very concerned about his job security anymore.
ファミ通.com [ファミ通.com]
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