Today Tekken 8 game director and chief producer Katsuhiro Harada took to Twitter to respond to a rather unfortunate statement by French President Emmanuel Macron.
A few days ago, Mr. Macron blamed video games and social media for the riots happening in France, and Harada-san took umbrage at the statement, responding with sarcasm and explaining how video games are often blamed to escape responsibility.
Blaming something is a great way to escape the burden of responsibility.
- Children don't study because of video games.
- People are violent because of video games.
- Video games are the reason my life isn't going well.
- In the near future, video games will be responsible for every threat that occurs on Earth. A game creator who can create such a mighty threat is amazing….whew!
Politicians using video games as a scapegoat to blame for violence is certainly nothing especially new, and it's obvious that the outspoken developer of Bandai Namco's popular fighting franchise wasn't pleased to see it happen once again.
If you're unfamiliar with the events, France has been affected by widespread civil unrest following the killing of Nahel Merzouk by a police officer on June 27, 2023. Currently, the situation appears to have calmed after over a week of violence.
Speaking of Harada-san's more strictly game-related endeavors, Tekken 8 is coming for PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PS5 and doesn't have a release date or window just yet. We do know that the game will support both Crossplay and Rollback Netcode, and a network test will happen later this month, starting on July 21. This will give players at home the first chance to try the game, which so far has only been available to test at in-person tournaments.
If you'd like to see some really spiffy character trailers, we also recently saw those dedicated to Brian Fury, Hwoarang, Lili De Rochefort, Asuka Kazama, Leroy Smith, Ling Xiaoyu, Jun Kazama, Jack-8, Lars Alexandersson, King, Marshall Law, Paul Phoenix, Jin Kazama, Kazuya Mishima, and Nina Williams.