One successful release helped change the developer's life.
Former Capcom employee Yoshiki Okamoto, who previously worked on Street Fighter 2, recently appeared on Fuji TV. He talked about his income, as well as his spending in the gacha game Monster Strike.
In 2011, the independent studio Game Republic was closed, and Okamoto was left with a debt of $10.7 million. The company had more than 300 employees and had long failed to create a hit, and a partner went bankrupt. As a result, most of the work was unpaid:
Yes, it was a terrible time. I was evicted from my apartment for non-payment of rent, I wandered around acquaintances. Then I set a rule for myself — to spend no more than 300 yen a day on food [~about 120-140 rubles]
However, in 2013, Okamoto's life changed dramatically — the mobile RPG Monster Strike was released jointly with Mixi. The project became a huge hit and No. 1 in the world in terms of revenue among mobile applications.
From saving on food, he moved to earning almost 8 million dollars a year and was able to purchase a house in Malaysia the size of "20 tennis courts."
He spends most of his income on donations — invests in microtransactions in his own games. He invests up to 80 million yen (more than 500 thousand dollars) in each of his accounts in the games in the development of which he participates. Okamoto explained that this helps him understand the feelings of players who spend a lot (such people are called "whales").
