Interview with Zack (Shini) from Arc System Works
As we promised, today we have an special interview with a beloved Arc System Worksâ employee. Nothing more and nothing less than Zack (although most of you probably know him as âShiniâ). We want to thank him for giving us the chance to ask him some questions that we hope that everyone find interesting. Now, letâs begin!
1- In your job you have many responsibilities, including localization, interpretation, feedback gathering, etc. Many fans may not be completely aware of who you are and your role in the company, so we would like to ask you to give us a brief introduction about yourself, if you donât mind.
Most obliged. Up until recently, I was mostly running around as a Project Manager, or in Japanese game company lingo, a âGame Directorâ, who oversees a project from the point of contacting a developer, contracting, localizing it, plan the promotion framework and releasing the game. My other tasks are supplementary roles I assumed to better my work. For internal projects, e.g. Steam ports, itâs basically just skipping the contacting and contracting part.
As most of you would have known by now, the company had underwent a major revamp of its internal structure, in it I now assume the role and title of a Producer. I have also been moved from the Development Department to the newly-built Global Business Department, under the wing of our veteran Guilty Gear Producer Takeshi Yamanaka, and while I will be less engaged in manning any project entirely now, I am tasked with helping the company to broaden our reach to the global audience.
 2- How did you get to work with Arc System Works?
It was a gambit of my life. I decided I want to live in Japan, I quit my job in Singapore, spent 1 year sharpening my then-18-years-experience Japanese skills in a Japanese University, and during that one year I repeatedly sent my resume to Arc whenever I get the opportunity to. Back then, the CEO said to me âfocus on your studies and graduate firstâ â which I did and went for another interview immediately after the graduation, and now Iâm here.
A side note, my skills in BBCS/BBCP was not and never a factor in my employment, although it surely played a part on why I was so relentless on sending Arc my resumes.
 3 - We know what Arc System Works offers, but not really how it is on the inside. Could you tell us how is the work environment like at the company?
To be honest, I was taken by surprise by the work culture here. Iâm sure many of you people heard about the typical Japanese corporate stereotypes but generally I find it a lot more pleasant working in Arc than I had expected.
The employment requirement states of needing the candidate to be VERY fluent in Japanese, was entirely out of necessity as most members are unable to converse in any other languages. Once weâre past that, I totally do not get that âgaijinâ sensation, much less racism.
What also makes me very happy working here is that I can see clearly everyone is driven to make their game the most enjoyable to the fans as possible â no ugly office politics, Ishiwatari-san and Mori-san are best friends forever to each other; no enmity between departments; everyone just wants one thing â that the game they develop is enjoyed by everyone.
What truly sealed the deal is that the CEO is a very practical type of person. A technical one as well, he supposedly started off his career as a programmer before I was even born. Once I almost screwed up an event due to malfunctioning speakers and the PA system, he was on site, took off his blazers, and immediately started fixing â without me asking a word.
 4 - Something we noticed about your Twitter account is one of the reasons you made it is to gather feedback. Was it a decision of yours or did Arc System Works told you to do so?
It was purely my own idea. I did not even have a Twitter account back then, and I still refuse to get a âpersonalâ Twitter account to this date. Having that said, as this account is still ultimately just my own idea, any message I wrote there is not, and shall not be representative of the companyâs.
In actual fact, when I brought the idea up and discussed around the company, I was actually dissuaded, but I went ahead with it anyways. There were some incidents where things didnât go smoothly, but all in all I guess I can say Iâm lucky so far?
 5- Which is your bigger achievement in the company that you are most proud of?
Initiating self-publish on Steam, starting with GGXXACPR.
No one to seek advice from, no guidance available, went from the ground up, with just barely 6 months of job experience. Valve did a fantastic job documenting their manuals.
6 - We know you have to travel due to your job, and that means you have to work under special circumstances and in certain events. Is there any anecdote that you would like to share with us?
Too many man (laughs). Iâll pick the one most relevant, the London Comic Con, during May 2019. Our pals over at PQube are magnificent folk, their timetable was spot-on with well-thought out breaks for our jet lags and all, their hospitality was spot on, everyone totally enjoyed the trip. It was also the period where we had barely released Kill la Kill, and the main producer Yamanaka-san was around and was totally delighted to see people cosplaying as KLK characters. Made it worthwhile for me to bring my camera (laughs). Not forgetting our friends who helped out running the booth and events â yes talking about you @TalesOfMrE and @thatMarcWithaC, and everyone else there!
On our day of departure, it also happened that London was somehow totally red, some sort of a rare weather phenomenon. I still remember Mori yakking away about light refractions and whatnot in the taxi, but sorry Mori-san I was actually dozing off back there!
7 - What is your criteria to choose which projects have potential to be submitted to Arc System Works?
We choose quality as well as how well we think it will fit our marketing reach for us to generate a sound business plan. For instance, we definitely have a better reach to fighting gamers than regular RPG players. But that is not to say we do not take in any projects that arenât FG â I personally have worked on a number of non-FGs as well, such as Fallen Legion, Hardcore Mecha, many more.
Quality-wise, itâs more of a decision to be made by the Project Manager team in whole, thereâs no hard-and-fast rule to what is good or no. A game build, vertical slice, prototype, whatever, is GREATLY crucial to this process. At the very least, at least a movie clip on the gameplay, or a mock-up of it.
8 - Is there any particular project you would like for Arc System Works to publish or localize?
In actual fact, most of all games I ever wanted localized when I was a kid are already remade and localized now. More specifically, Langrisser series, now remade and localized by Chara-ani and NIS America. XSeed also did a fabulous job in their localization for the Legend of Heroes Trails series. It truly is a wonderful time to be in now for global gamers!
9 - Whenever there is a project publishing proposal, does Arc System Works search for any particular requirement (theme, developer, sequel potentialâŠ) before consider that proposal or is it considered case by case?
All proposals are considered case-by-case.
10 - Not every hero wears a cape, and we know you have been fighting for 4 years in order to make Arc System Works considerate the inclusion of rollback netcode in their games, in addition to the publishing of their games soundtracks on Steam. How receptive were them to these proposals?
They understand the importance of it, but implementation of rollback, as you would have known it, is not just simply installing GGPO.exe and expect it to work automatically. Most of the time it involves an entire remake of the game structure, the engine. If we were to do it, we might as well make a new game, right?
And thatâs why we have Guilty Gear -Strive- now. 4-5 years back, BBâs game engine was already completed, simply not possible to rewind it, and same for Xrd Sign. The team incorporated it the fastest timing they could, already.
11 - Did Arc System Works considered to add cross play in their games?
Lately, a lot of their games are releasing in both consoles and PC, so it would be great to unify the community.
It has always been the talk among the managers, we want it as well, but everything comes at a trade-off of something else. Every decision made is a decision thought to be the best for the users by us, always.
12 - Previous Blazblue installments were localized to multiple languages while the last ones have only been localized to English and Chinese. However, other recent games like Blazblue: Cross Tag Battle or Kill la Kill IF have many more languages. Is Arc System Works interested on localizing to more languages or has been this decision something punctual?
The company has been wanting to reach out to the global audience for a long time, but back then localization decision was mostly left to the publishers. Now, with the new Global Biz Dept., we are gearing up to make our games more accessible worldwide. However things donât happen overnight, please do bear with us while we make changes along the way!
 13 - We know there is some additional media (e.g. novels or manga) for some sagas developed by Arc System Works which let the fans know more about their respective worlds. While we can understand why would it be quite a hard task to get a worldwide physical release, has it been considered the possibility of a digital English distribution for this media in order to make it more accessible for fans from other countries?
Unfortunately, while we do possess the rights to the IP, such published works usually have their publishing rights reserved by their respective medias. It would be better to ask them directly about it.
14 - One of your many tasks is gathering feedback for Arc System Works. We know this can be rather exhausting, but it can also be of great help for the company and its customer service. For example, while some game had a difficult launching on Steam, they ended up providing a more customizable experience in comparison with their console counterparts. How does this procedure go from beginning to end?
Itâs purely intuitive on my part. As mentioned above, I assumed this role to better my work (Steam ports), I was actually dissuaded by the company on assuming such role, but I figured if I can have no mentor in the company to seek advice from, my next best bet would be to seek from the users themselves.
I do set several rules to myself on deciding what to implement and what not to: things that affect gameplay are out-of-bounds no matter what, even if they may be regarded as bugs.
Not everything I did turned out better too. There was this instance people complained about strict input demands on MBAACC on keyboard (41236, generally), I devised up a plan to lighten the load, turns out I screwed up some mechanics of the game and made some combos invalid (sorry w.Len), and had to reverse the change. The programmer probably cursed and swore at me back then.
 15 - Not too long ago, you asked on Twitter about our thoughts on Arc System Works publishing more digital soundtracks on Steam. How was the feedback? Is Arc System Works interested on publishing more digital music releases?
Am still working on it! Stay tuned!
16 - Many Arc System Works (mainly Blazblue and Guilty Gear) stand out for their soundtracks. We already have a musical game focused on Blazblue (Eat Beat Dead Spike-san), but is there any plan for developing more musical games focused on other titles, like Guilty Gear?
I do know we have several avid music gamers within the company. One of those Arcnama episodes we actually challenged the creators of DJMAX to their game. Perhaps one day theyâll come up with one?
 17 - Following the music theme, we have noticed you are a great fan of physical soundtracks and you have many remarkable ones like NieR Automataâs, Sen No Kiseki IIIâs and IVâs (I personally love Falcom and Nier music). With this in mind, we see that you are also a big fan of other companies and that make us wonder⊠which companies would you like for Arc System Works to collaborate with in the future?
Lots and lots. NieR is getting a smartphone game soon, yes? We also have costume collaborations with PSO2 some time back (JP server), recently MISTOVERâs Faust dungeon was also pretty well-received. We are always open to talks!
Would be great if we can ever have a collaboration with a Western game though. I mean, yes we did have BBTAG with RWBY in it, but I thought it would be really cool if we can have our IP represented in their game somehow.
18 â In Guilty Gear Striveâs customer survey they asked about who we would like to see as a guest character. We know who we want, but how about you? Which character would you like to see as a guest character for Guilty Gear Strive?
Rather than guest character, I personally find the EX character mode that was in GGXXACPR more attractive. But that would probably spell death to all the battle scripters in the company, and my neck would be up in bounty.
 19 - Leaving the music topic aside, we would like to ask about Arc System Worksâ older games. Is there any chance for Arc System Worksâ older games like Guilty Gear XX #Reload or Isuka to come back to DRM free platforms like GOG.com?
We can look into it, but if you ask me, rather than just re-releasing them plainly, Iâd look into ways to make it more interesting.
Without having to touch the game. I mean more interesting ways to merchandize them without penalizing our customers.
 20 - Seeing how the original Guilty Gear was published on Steam the last year, would it be possible to publish Cyberfrontâs Guilty Gear X port in online stores like Steam in order to complete the saga?
I can bring up the suggestion, but right now we have our necks buried deep in work, it will definitely have to wait quite a while.
If you still want to know more about Zack, you can read this thread on his Twitter account!
Give it a read:Â https://twitter.com/Shini_Zack/status/1182121037472784384?s=20
Oh, yeah! We forgot to say that Zack is working as an assistant producer for the upcoming RWBY Game. Look forward to it!
Finally, we wanted to dedicate him a pic of his favourite character, Lambda.Â
We hope that all of you enjoyed this interview and we do hope to have the chance to do even more in the future. Until then, take care and keep supporting Arc System Works!! (and Comunidad Arc System Works!!)
