Rumor: Ex-Square Enix Developer Writes Defense of Recently Axed Boss

Yoichi Wada, Square Enix’s president, is stepping down. The news came as a surprise. Wada has been Square Enix’s only president since Square and Enix joined forces. Some are happy about this. Others are not.

https://lastchance.cc/square-enixs-yoichi-wada-is-stepping-down-update-458811790%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E

Online in Japan, an individual claiming to have worked, until recently, at Square Enix as a programmer wrote a post about Wada’s departure. The post isn’t an attack on Wada, but rather, it seems to be a defense written in the wake of another Japanese site trashing Wada.

“I don’t know a company president who loves playing his own company’s games more than Wada,” the alleged former programmer stated.

Continuing, the writer went on to add that while Wada was not a game developer and certainly didn’t have a deep knowledge of game development, he would read game design documents and take part in development meetings. That doesn’t mean Wada was a perfect boss.

“If anything, Wada’s mistake, his weakness was that because he loved and cherished his developers so much that he put too much trust in them,” the post continued.

That’s why, the post continued, there were huge projects that needed to be ended or important people that needed to be let go, but weren’t.

The result, obviously, was that things began to go south. Square Enix is now notorious for big budget games with bloated development cycles that take too long—or never come out.

The post also wonders what will happen next: Since Wada isn’t around to protect the developers and their projects, this could mean a downsizing in development staff.

As with anything written online, especially something anonymous, your mileage may vary. However, if true, it would explain, oh I dunno, the last decade at Square Enix. It could also shed light on what’s next.

Kotaku is following up with Square Enix and will update this post should the company comment.

元社員として、和田の引責解任に思うこと、への感想 [はてらぼ]

(Top photo: A view of Square Enix’s corporate reception area, courtesy of Gigazine)

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