Two years earlier, Itagaki was accused of sexually harassing an employee over a period of several years, with the employee claiming Tecmo fired her after bringing her complaints up to the company. The bonus payments may have been a breaking point, but this was not the first time Tecmo and Itagaki had friction. And then, in June of 2008, just as Ninja Gaiden II was making its debut on the Xbox 360, the developer and the publisher had a very public falling out.Īccording to Itagaki's version of events, when he confronted the president of the company about unpaid bonuses, he was told, "If you are dissatisfied with the decision not to pay the bonuses, either quit the company or sue it." Itagaki did both, filing a $1 million lawsuit alleging unpaid bonuses and "unreasonable and disingenuous statements made towards me." Tecmo responded by saying it had paid the developer a different bonus, calling his accusations "distortions." A former Tecmo staffer accused Itagaki of sexually harassing her beginning in 2003, the year Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball debuted. They weren't the only hits Tecmo had over that span (Monster Rancher and Fatal Frame deserve some credit), but Itagaki and his Team Ninja studio were key to the brand identity. He was the producer behind the Dead or Alive fighting games, and the Xbox-era reboot of Ninja Gaiden.
An Ugly Divorceįor about 18 years, Tomonobu Itagaki was the face behind Tecmo's biggest hits.
So to refresh our collective memory and perhaps offer some perspective on our field's history, runs this monthly feature highlighting happenings in gaming from exactly a decade ago. That said, even an industry so entrenched in the now can learn from its past. The games industry moves pretty fast, and there's a tendency for all involved to look constantly to what's next without so much worrying about what came before.
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