[ At the D.I.C.E. (Design, Innovate, Communicate, and Entertain) Summit in Las Vegas, the gaming industry's leaders meet up for a few days to discuss the business of creating games. This year, we're putting some of the world's best game developers in the hot seat for the D.I.C.E. Poll. Our five questions are designed to gain some insight into what makes them tick. ]

Jun Takeuchi, Director of Resident Evil 5, is the latest developer we've hit with the Poll. Apart from the upcoming blockbuster, he has been a rather instrumental development figure at Capcom, having worked on Lost Planet, Onimusha 3, and the first two Resident Evil games. Takeuchi kicked off today's D.I.C.E. lectures with a session titled "Creating Entertainment for a Global Gaming Audience."



GameSpy: How has the current economic climate affected your company?
Jun Takeuchi, Director: Well, as I think a lot of people say, the games industry is very resilient, even in bad economic times. So, even in the current climate, we're still going to do okay. Of course, everyone in the company is hoping that RE5 is going to be a big hit [laughing].
GameSpy: These days, everyone is making distinctions between "casual" and "hardcore." Do you feel these approaches to game development are inherently mutually exclusive? Describe a "hardcore" and "casual" gamer.
Jun Takeuchi: I definitely think that it's difficult to try and split up all gamers into two mutually exclusive groups of casual and hardcore. I think that's a bit off the mark. Especially since the Wii has come out, I feel that a lot of the users of the system don't fit into one group or the other; they're maybe a different type of gamer, but again, I don't think that we should be trying to split our customer base up into these two disparate groups.

As far as what a typical casual gamer is, in my eyes, I think most people would describe a casual gamer as somebody who only plays a couple of titles a year, but doesn't buy that many games. That's not what a casual gamer is in my eyes. I think that a casual gamer is someone who just wants to get a new experience, be it from games or something else. They don't care about genres, they don't care about who the creator is. They just want a fun new interesting experience. I think that's the real definition of a casual gamer.

GameSpy: What kinds of games do you hope to be making in ten years?
Jun Takeuchi: Ten years down the line might be a little soon for this, but I'd like to be making games that are given the same respect that movies are given by people. That's what I'd like to be doing.