Two weeks after announcing his surprise exit from Platinum Games—the studio he co-founded back in the mid-2000s—Hideki Kamiya has departed in the most Hideki Kamiya way ever. The Bayonetta creator peeled out of Platinum’s parking lot in a Lamborghini, announcing that he’s “off to the unemployment centre” and starting a brand new YouTube channel.
In the first video on that channel, Kamiya appeared to be revelling in his newfound joblessness. Carrying a box of anime and movie figurines he had presumably cleared from his former desk, he told the camera that he’s been having an ace few months sat in front of the TV since deciding to quit. “I’ve been watching Netflix, YouTube, Disney Plus and stuff like that,” Kamiya told viewers, “I’ve already lost track of what day it is.” God, that’s the dream, isn’t it?
So a lot of new information about Kamiya’s preferred streaming services, but not so much about the creator’s actual reasons for departing the company he co-founded. Back when news broke that Kamiya was leaving Platinum, he only said that the move “came after a lot of consideration based on my own beliefs, and was by no means an easy decision to make.”
That’s basically the message in his video, too. Asked why he quit, Kamiya repeats “How can I put it?” a few times before settling on his answer: “There’s no way I can put it.” Instead, he kind of rewords his previous statement, saying that he left Platinum “to follow my beliefs as a game creator and to choose the path I think is right and move on.” He confirms that he’s got no plans to retire, though, and says he wants to keep making games in future, so I guess ol’ Kamiya didn’t peace out of Platinum to become a full-time YouTuber.
It’ll be a while until we find out just what Kamiya’s future is. The man himself says he “can’t work for (the same industry for) a year,” a strange new wrinkle in his tale that he helpfully clarifies is “due to reasons.”
Then he talks for a few minutes about his disastrous attempt to cook a java curry at home, which is both my favourite part of the video and not really worth covering at length in a news piece.
Although Kamiya didn’t give much info out about his future in the games industry—beyond a mention that he’s entertaining all offers above ¥100 million ($668,500/£545,000), which incidentally I am too—he does chat a bit about what he wants to do with his YouTube channel. He plans to make it “completely EDUCATION FREE,” and completely unrelated to his 30-year career in games. “It won’t be [of] help to anyone wanting to be in the gaming industry,” says Kamiya. Instead, he just wants to goof around in videos unrelated to games, ideally by himself as he’s “extremely shy”.
And then, well, Kamiya-san retreats to his Lamborghini, leaving us mostly none the wiser about his actual reasons for leaving Platinum but convincing me I kind of want to be Hideki Kamiya when I grow up.
Still, given his reluctance to put it into words and the repeated references to his “own beliefs,” you kind of have to conclude that Platinum has decided to go in a direction that Kamiya isn’t happy with, right? It’s impossible to say what that is right now, but as time goes on (and we get closer to the time limit running out on Kamiya’s return to the industry), I suspect it might become more apparent.
