Akihiro Hino, Level 5's president, founder, and chief creative force recently sat down with Famitsu Magazine to discuss the developer's success on Nintendo DS and their future in the industry.

"I was originally on the creative side of things, so I had to give a lot of thought to how we were going to sell Layton. The platform was going to be the DS from the start to keep costs down, so the question was how to appeal to that userbase. The conclusion we came up with was that Brain Age probably brought a lot of new casual users to video games, so we figured that making perhaps some sort of advanced version of Brain Age, something that audience can move on to after that game, would produce results. That became the basic strategy. Layton was developed from the start with the hope that it'd sell," Hino said.

"The fact we were able to successfully kick off an original series on the DS was a great confidence booster for all of us. For me personally, it made me realize how much fun it is to come up with a promotion scheme to effectively sell the games we work on. 'Sales' became a big watchword in my mind as a result of that experience, and that's when I started getting involved more personally in marketing."

He continued, "I see marketing as a sort of simulation game. It's really fun to think of ways to sell a game, then seeing it be successful. I think it's just as creative a process as game development itself. I try to keep the marketing department focused on creativity, and to do that, I have them experience as many things as possible outside of their basic work. The way I see it, even if a Level-5 staffer has only been here for a couple years, he's got the experience of ten or so!"

About Level 5's future, Hino said, "I think it'll (upcoming Famitsu announcements) raise the impact Level-5 has on the industry. I want to show the industry that we're here to stay, and I also want to show people in other industries what the game business is capable of."

Now would be the perfect time to play Level 5's fantastic DS games, since Nintendo has cut the price of the DS.

via 1UP

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