, born in 1970 in Fukuoka, is a Japanese game designer. He is the CEO of the company CyberConnect2. He developed multiple games including the .hack franchise as well as adaptations of the anime series including Naruto and Dragon Ball. Besides developing games, Matsuyama has participated in directing two .hack films as well as voicing a character from the series.
Early life
As a child, Matsuyama was interested in anime and manga. He dreamed of becoming a mangaka for the Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. When growing up, he graduated from a university in Fukuoka. Following his graduation, Matsuyama joined a manga club. He went to Kyushu Sangyo University but had not decided what would be his job. Believing he was naive, Matsuyama became an employee for a cement company. He later joined a friend who was working for Taito in Tokyo. Around this time, Matsuyama decided to work for a game company. They gathered in Fukuoka, and started the company called CyberConnect. By the time he became a developer, the manga Naruto was his favorite series but he stated that other series including Bleach, Beelzebub, and One Piece were among second best.
Career
He gathered with designers of action games from Taito including Psychic Force and RayStorm. Despite being originally an illustrator, Matsuyama became a game designer. CyberConnect, now composed of ten people, worked on Tail Concerto and Silent Bomber which brought him difficulties due to time demand. The team was disappointed with the low sales of these two games. In 2000 the CEO of CyberConnect left the team. This led to the company changing their name to CyberConnect2. Still composed of ten people, the company ought to create a new video game that would not be demanding within the company. Matsuyama commented on their audience, stating that the players will not look after the amount of designers behind a game, but instead the content produced.
.hack
Matsuyama played a key role in developing the concept for the .hack series. A number of core ideas, including "slaying dragons or being a thief in London" were explored, but these were rejected in favor of an "offline/online game". Matsuyama said that this would give young gamers an opportunity to experience online play without paying monthly fees or needing powerful Internet connections. The developers looked at a number of massively multiplayer online role-playing games such as Phantasy Star Online, Ultima Online, and Final Fantasy XI for inspiration, and drew influences from the prior works of character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto (Neon Genesis Evangelion) and scenario writer Kazunori Itō (Ghost in the Shell). Itō noted that casting the player into the role of a subscriber of The World creates a unique story-telling situation which draws the player deeper into the plot. Matsuyama theorized that the act of transferring saved data across the four volumes would help to create a sense of the human drama embodied by the games' story and invest the player into the narrative.
Development for .hack//G.U. began in October 2002, with Hiroshi Matsuyama as director. As in the previous games, Matsuyama also appears as a character that the player meets, this time being Piros the 3rd. Matsuyama claimed that Rebirth was longer than the four games of the first series combined and that the three .hack//G.U. games would not be "three parts to the same game". Matsuyama considered Kite as a relatable character and thus wanted the next game to feature a different take of lead character for .hack//G.U., Haseo. While .hack and .hack//Sign were conceived as two ongoing an connected projects, Matsuyama wanted to do the same with .hack//GU. However, Matsuyama wanted both .hack//G.U. and .hack//Roots to feature the same lead character, Haseo. However, he found it might come across as challenging to make the writing make both stay true to the original writing. The director also designed the character's hair to make it come across as an immature high school student. When doing this, Matsuyama conceived the idea of the Haseo's Xth form from the third game of the series that would affect not only his PC's body armor but also his hair to come across as a subtle change in his growth. Still finding difficulties in writing this, Matsuyama received help through writer Tatsuya Hamasaki who wrote the part of the series' script.