Harada Reacts To Tekken 8's Evo 2024 Numbers

As has become custom recently, Katsuhiro Harada, the director and showrunner of the Tekken series, has given a behind-the-scenes look at how things happen within the industry. This time, he spoke in reaction to the release of the participant numbers for the top games at Evo. 

Tekken 8 popped as the second most entered game with almost 5000 participants. Harada was pleased with this and put out a long post reminiscing about the older days when no one from the game developer side came to these events and how he and Michael Murray would work hard to engage the community and also deal with displeased management folk back in Japan who did not understand his trips abroad. 

The post is long and insightful, but the most interesting bit is the announcement that the president of NAMCO BANDAI Entertainment and the president of NAMCO BANDAI Studios will be at Evo 2024. 

This is a big deal considering that not too long ago, developers barely communicated with the fanbase, but in recent years, we have seen the president of Capcom and the heads at Arc System Works, come to events to see the community, engage, and announce new things for the game. 

Harada believes that when the top management see the excitement for the game, they will be a lot more willing to relax some of the measures with which they deal with developers who want to foster relationships with the commuity.