Mikami sold to Bethesda due to overseas track record and creative freedom
Resi creator: "We didn't want to have to live hand-to-mouth as a studio"
Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami has revealed his reasons for selling Tango Gameworks to Bethesda owner ZeniMax.
"We didn't want to have to live hand-to-mouth as a studio," Mikami told Famitsu (via 1UP). "If we did that, we'd have to take on work we weren't interested in just to pay the bills.
"I gathered the people around me now in order to create the best worldwide-market-driven development studio possible - the independence of that studio is secondary to that goal. I decided that we'd all be happier if we could take this shortcut to creating the great games we want to create."
He claimed to have talked to around 10 other companies before settling on ZeniMax. "Bethesda was the best match among them because they gave us the most independent development environment to work with as we pursue our goal of producing Japanese games that work worldwide.
"That, and their track record when it comes to overseas sales."
He also claimed that ZeniMax was sympathetic to his desire to step down as director following his next project.
"I can only last for so long handling both director and company president duties, and besides, I want to give our younger developers a chance.
"I'm pretty lucky that [Bethesda] was willing to accept that, too. Too many publishers are only interested in the very near future, after all."