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Story by Debabrata Nath

Mon, May 09, 2011 | 18:15 BST

Inafune: Dead Rising and Lost Planet prototypes were rejected by Capcom

Former Capcom top-man, Keiji Inafune, disclosed that the risk-averse Capcom management rejected prototypes of both Dead Rising and Lost Planet, but he continued developing them anyway.

According to a Famitsu report, Inafune revealed this during a creative leadership seminar he gave at Ritsymeikan University in Kyoto, where he shared his experiences from his 24 years at Capcom with students.

When Dead Rising and Lost Planet were prototypes, the developer said, Capcom had a official policy which dictated that up to 80 percent of its output had to be sequels to existing titles, making the company highly risk-averse.

Infaune further claimed that virtually no projects based on new IP were approved by Capcom during those days.

Dead Rising and Lost Planet became victims of the slavery to sequels, and the management rejected both ideas when pitched. Inafune however, overlooked their decision and continued developing both the games. His plan was to take development so far that he exceeded the budget allocated to prototypes, giving Capcom no choice but to release the games.

He exceeded the budget allocated to Lost Planet by 400 percent.

Luckily, both the games were released and became hits, with each selling more than 2 million copies worldwide, but Inafune admitted that he would have been “fired for war crimes” had both the games bombed commercially.

Inafune left Capcom last October, saying he was “starting his life over.” He has went on the open two new companies: a game development firm called Intercept, and a cross-media outfit named Comcept.

Thanks, Andriasang.