Gematsu recently spoke to the upper echelon of
During our chat—with United Games Entertainment CEO Helmut Schmitz, CCO Roman Jud, head of publishing Dennis Mendel, and head of sales Dominik von Cetto—the group discussed ININ Games’ role in Japan, partnerships, desire to bring back more unheard-of titles, and more, as well as Strictly Limited Games’ role as a separate brand and how it differs from similar limited print physical game distributors. Get the full interview below. Gematsu:
Mendel: “There are indeed many fantastic titles that never got a western release before (just like Cotton) and we see it as an important part of our role as a publisher to make these gems available to gamers outside of Japan. Depending on the genre, these titles pose different challenges to our team.
“For example, with Aquario we had to restore a lot of graphics that could not be recovered from the source code. Fortunately, the original Westone developers were able to help us, but to work within the confinements of what the original hardware allows (in that case Strictly Limited Games and not in retail chains.”
Mendel: “Being a collector myself, it is really great to see that so many limited print publishers are taking good care of preserving previous digital-only releases in physical form. One alone could never take care of all these wonderful titles. In addition to that we build a dedicated development team that allows us to take preservation to the next level by going on an exciting treasure hunt, looking for lost titles or hidden gems, buried by time. Now that we have seen the sheer pixel beauty of Aquario it has become even more clear to us that we must follow this route, and I don’t even dare to imagine such a historically important masterpiece to be lost forever.”
What image does ININ Games ultimately hope to craft for itself? What’s its philosophy?
Jud: “At ININ Games we do everything we can to bring the most interesting games to the broader public so everyone can enjoy the incredible diversity and hidden gems of game culture. The purpose of United Games Entertainment and therefore also ININ’s purpose is to give great games an immortal legacy.”
How many staff does ININ currently employ?
Schmitz: “ININ Games and Strictly Limited Games are working under the same ‘roof,’ but we have two separate core teams working for each of the two labels. It must be mentioned that we share services and admin staff at United Games Entertainment, which includes other brands beside ININ and Strictly Limited Games. We are growing fast now and have increased our staff considerably, but we also work with a range of external specialists and contributors to ensure success.”
What’s the next step for ININ? What are its major goals—or rather, where do you see the company in the next five years?
Schmitz: “We are very happy with the positive feedback we received for ININ so far. Since we started the publishing label in 2019, we have grown very quickly. In Germany, we are already among the top 25 international publishers. We want to achieve the same results in all countries where we are active and develop into one of the leading publishing labels in our segment.”
Ryuichi Nishizawa, creator of the Wonder Boy series and co-founder of ININ Games and Strictly Limited Games interview with United Games Entertainment
Source: Philippines Medium