Kazushige Nojima is one of video game’s most famous story and scenario writers. Some of his past credits include Final Fantasy VII, Kingdom Hearts I and II, and even Super Smash Bros. Brawl’s Adventure Mode, among many others. Recent credits include Final Fantasy VII Remake, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, and Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis. But don’t expect him to talk about any of them on Twitter. He won’t.
This week, Nojima announced that he won’t be tweeting about upcoming or past games, explaining that he can’t help but think that personal remarks he makes could hurt the enjoyment of fans.
“I’m not going to stop using Twitter,” he added in an English language tweet. “I will continue to upload photos of guinea pigs. But I’m going to stop talking about specific games I’m a part of, such as FF7R.”
As Japanese game site Automaton points out, it’s not 100 per cent certain what prompted this. Nojima tends to tweet photos of books he’s reading, movies he’s watching, and food he’s eating — along with the aforementioned guinea pig pics. His account isn’t exactly a hot bed of inside baseball on his current and past projects like it is for some developers who share info extensively.
However, recently, Nojima’s mentions were peppered with fan requests regarding FFVII. If Nojima were to reply or engage with these requests, theories, or even shipping fantasies, it might colour how fans see characters or plot lines, and even subvert official narratives. This could harm some players’ enjoyment, but it could also do the same for players who have concocted their own subtextual readings of the games.
This reminds me of Quentin Tarantino’s approach to the question about what’s in the Pulp Fiction briefcase — a question he doesn’t answer. Instead, fans are left to come up with their own notions.
Nojima doesn’t work for Square Enix anymore. He left the company in 2003 to set up his own freelance company, Stellavista. He doesn’t own these characters — Square Enix does — and he might also be showing respect to his client by not engaging in insider info, subtext, or conjecture on Twitter.
Sure, it’s a drag that Nojima doesn’t feel like he can causally share about games on Twitter, but it might be for the best. At least his Twitter account will continue with the guinea pig photo content. Now that would be awful if he totally stopped that.
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