Daisuke Ishiwatari

Daisuke Ishiwatari was born in South Africa. As he was growing up, his parents strictly forbid him to play video games—as a result of this denial, over the years his interest in video games only increased. Eventually, that interest brought him into the video game industry.

In middle and high school, Mr. Ishiwatari spent his days staring idly at the ceiling and doodling in his notebook. He wasn’t interested in anything other than history and Japanese. It wasn’t until he attended a vocational school that Mr. Ishiwatari acquire the skill and knowledge to create video games, as well as an understanding of the teamwork needed to make something from nothing.

“I remember when I first made it into the industry… I was both motivated and competitive. I saw everyone as my rival, thinking ‘Can I beat this guy? Can I beat that guy?’” states Mr. Ishiwatari.

Before creating his first game, Mr. Ishiwatari entered the industry as a game tester, and the very first game he worked on was a children’s game called “Pico”. Though the experience was humbling and informative, it wasn’t the type of game he wanted to work on: “My thought at the time was, I didn’t get into this industry to work on games like this!”

When Mr. Ishiwatari finally started developing Guilty Gear for the PS1, he drew inspiration from other fighting games that he liked, saying “I could make this game more interesting like this…or like that.” Now, however, Mr. Ishiwatari tries to pioneer new frontiers of game design, in hopes that he can inspire other game designers the way he himself was inspired. There are many people whom Mr. Ishiwatari has respect for, but he wouldn’t necessarily call any one of them his “hero”. Instead, he prefers to think of them as fellow pioneers, striving toward the same goal.

Daisuke Ishiwatari is famed for single-handedly creating the first Guilty Gear game on the PS1, but he says it wasn’t all him: “That is not quite true. In fact, it is a big misunderstanding. The core development team consisted of about five people. I was entertained by the idea that I could create a game, and got my toes wet in areas like concept, planning, direction, design, music, writing, and voice acting, so that may be where the rumors stem from. However, by no means did I ’singlehandedly’ create this game… In fact, I often came to my colleagues for help.”

When asked if he has any wisdom to impart to people interested in getting into the game industry, Mr. Ishiwatari says “…You must be really ‘hungry’ to strive for even greater success and achieve your goals. I look forward to seeing new designers come into the industry with a burning passion to create.”