Dotemu’s CEO wants to bring back classic games the right way

I grew up with arcade beat-em-ups like Konami’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time and X-Men. It was a genre I loved, so I was sad to see it diminish in relevance. Thankfully, beat-em-ups have had a revival, thanks in part to publishers like Dotemu and developers like Tribute Games.

The two teamed up for 2022’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, a worthy successor to Turtles in Time. Now, they’re working on Marvel Cosmic Invasion. Like Shredder’s Revenge, it’s a classic beat-em-up with beautiful pixel art. It features a cast of classic Marvel characters and lets players tag and swap between two heroes.

I had a chance to play Marvel Cosmic Invasion during the recent Summer Game Fest Play Days in Los Angeles. I enjoyed its emphasis on tag-team hero action and was happy to see each hero have a unique play-style — Captain America can throw both his shield and meaty punches, while Spider-Man can shoot webs and swing in the air.

I also go to chat with Dotemu’s CEO Cyrille Imbert, asking him about his company’s niche in the gaming market.

GamesBeat: It feels like you guys have been at the forefront of making the beat-em-up genre popular again. Was that a goal of yours, or just something that happened through the games you were working on and publishing?

Cyrille Imbert: It wasn’t really a goal. Our goal, really, is to bring back, I would say, classic games and famous IPs in the video game space the right way. Our first big success was Streets of Rage 4. Lots of people before that were telling me, why are you doing this? Even if Streets of Rage is a very nice IP, beat-em-ups are dead. Nobody plays them. There’s a reason for that. You’re taking a lot of risk with that. I don’t know. I love the IP. I love the game. I don’t see any reason why I wouldn’t love it again, especially with a modern take.

After Streets of Rage, people were asking for other beat-em-ups. One of them that was a top ask from the community was a TMNT game. I decided to go for it. After TMNT, which was an even bigger success than Streets of Rage 4, lots of people were asking for a Marvel game. I was like, let’s go for it. If we’re all about trying to understand where there’s a need from gamers on existing IP and fulfilling that need–we just went that way, basically.

GamesBeat: I was maybe expecting X-Men after you did TMNT. It seems like you jumped over X-Men and landed on all of Marvel

Imbert: Exactly.

GamesBeat: Was there ever a thought that you should do just X-Men, or as soon as you realized you could do all of Marvel, that was a better avenue?

Imbert: X-Men was definitely the ask, because of the Konami games. But when we started to talk with Marvel Games, they were super nice. They said, maybe we could go for a bigger roster, something that explores the super deep Marvel universe with different characters. The Tribute Games team said, yeah, let’s go for it. We’re all in for that.

GamesBeat: You get those X-Men arcade vibes a bit from playing the new game. There’s also some Marvel vs. Capcom vibes with the tag mechanic. Was there a big effort from you and from Tribute Games to pay homage to this whole history of Marvel video games?

Imbert: Absolutely. That’s the case for every game that we work on. We draw inspiration from not only one source, if there’s original material in gaming. We try to draw sources of inspiration from everything. That doesn’t limit us to video games. It goes beyond, to comics or movies.

We try to do as much fanservice as we can, as fans ourselves. We love to include in our games things that make us nostalgic and super happy to see. It’s a blend of a bit of everything we’d like to see. It’s pretty straightforward. We don’t really have to think it through forever. It’s usually like, it would be awesome to have that! Let’s do it!

GamesBeat: Is it a lot easier marketing a Marvel beat-em-up or a Turtles beat-em-up as opposed to, hey, remember Streets of Rage?

Imbert: Exactly, exactly. They’re definitely bigger IPs. But Streets of Rage 4 really enabled us to bring back the genre. It reassured the beat-em-up fans that we were serious about it.

GamesBeat: There’s some evolution here. The beat-em-ups, they have arcade origins. It was about quarter munching. They weren’t necessarily fair games. Is it a difficult balance capturing that feel, but making them feel modern and a bit nicer?

Imbert: There are different ways to do that. Of course beat-em-ups are not the most replayable games by nature, out of all games. But in the end it’s mostly about pure fun. You’ll just play it again and again because it’s fun. Because you get better at the game. Maybe you want to try new characters. That’s how it works.

There’s not this constraint anymore around putting more coins in the machine to continue to play. The genre could free itself from its origins and embrace the pure fun it brings, so that you can play over and over again, make progress, and discover new combos and new skills as you go.

GamesBeat: How do you define your audience? Obviously you’re reaching an older, more nostalgic crowd like me in a lot of ways, but there’s something about beat-em-ups and these franchises that still appeals to a young audience. Do you think of yourselves as more of making a nostalgia play, or going for this newer generation? Or is it just kind of a grab-all?

Imbert: The sure thing is that we have our core target. That’s older gamers. People that knew these games from back in the day. But we always try, thanks to modern gameplay, thanks to the take on the graphic style of the game, the way we market it, to push the boundaries of that target for a wider audience. By modernizing the gameplay, by trying to make it more accessible as well. Not only for hardcore gamers, but a bit more than that, if some people are interested in trying. Also, there’s this kind of generational transmission.

Since Streets of Rage 4, on every title we have had gamers that come to us and say, hey, I’ve been playing your game with my daughter, my son, my cousins, whatever. There’s this transmission. Kids like my nephews, for example, they got into the beat-em-up style because of TMNT. That’s one of the first games where they actually talked about it at school with their friends. There’s this transmission that goes from the people that knew those games back in the day to the newer generations.

But a game stays fun whatever the generation you come from. You just have to try. When you see and find the fun, there you go. It jumps the generation gap.

GamesBeat: Is it an important part of your strategy, when a game hits, to keep making content for it? There was a lot of stuff that came out for Shredder’s Revenge post-launch. Do you see a similar pattern happening for Cosmic Invasion?

Imbert: The great stuff with Marvel is that you have hundreds of characters. The possibilities are infinite, basically. We’ll see how that goes, but we definitely want to–since we announced the game, so many people are asking for specific characters. We’ll see if we can try to provide as much as possible in the future, so that everyone is happy with the roster.

GamesBeat: Do you get to play favorites a bit, bringing back some of these old franchises? Are you a big Ninja Gaiden guy specifically?

Imbert: Of course. Every game we work on, we have a specific story with it. Not necessarily everyone in the company, but there’s always someone who says, yeah, we should do that! It’s hard to get what people want if you’re not part of it. You have to understand what people want and how you can satisfy that need. Whatever your role is within the production of the game, if you can get that influence and say, as a fan, that’s what I really want–everybody will listen to that and we’ll try to go for it.

Myself, for example, I was a huge Streets of Rage fan. I used to play it a lot on the Game Gear. For me it was a dream come true. TMNT, I’ve been watching the show since I was young. I didn’t play the Konami games back in the day, but I was super excited for that. Marvel is just amazing. So many characters. Each character is its own thing. Every game we work on, we have to be excited about it, because otherwise it would be hard for us to build something exciting.

GamesBeat: Has there been a time where you had a franchise you wanted to work on or bring back, but you hit a roadblock, and it just didn’t happen?

Imbert: Yep. It happens sometimes. I can’t tell you what, because maybe–sometimes the policies within IP owners, they change over the years. We never give up. If we have an idea and we think it’s cool, then we’ll try one year. Two years later we’ll try again. Three years after we’ll try again. At some point it might unlock. But yeah, it happens. Maybe there’s already a game in the making. Maybe what we propose doesn’t fit with the strategy of the brand at that specific moment. It’s kind of random.

But as the years pass, because of our experience and because we didn’t only work on beat-em-ups, but also games like Ninja Gaiden or Pharoah, which is a city-builder, the doors have opened for us. It’s getting easier and easier. We hope to keep it that way by providing quality titles. But yeah, there have been, of course, some IPs that we weren’t able to work on, even if we had a very cool concept. We have lots of work already on our hands, so it’s not a big issue.

GamesBeat: Ninja Gaiden has to be a challenge, because that’s been so many different things over the years. There’s an arcade beat-em-up, the NES side-scrollers, and the 3D action games. Is it difficult to find a direction there, or do you leave that up to the developer?

Imbert: We usually leave that up to the developer. What I do at Dotemu is I try to get a feel for what people want, what people would like, especially from different IPs that didn’t have that video game treatment they deserved over the years. Or no video game treatment at all. I try to think, what would be a cool concept for that? What would be the perfect studio to work on that? Then I try to bring everything together. Find the perfect combination.

Because I talk to studios that I know will be passionate about this, we don’t have to be super hands-on with everything. We just let them be super creative and have a good time working on the game. It’s just about who you choose to work on this and why. Then it’s just natural. It goes naturally after that.

GamesBeat: How do you feel about the industry right now and your place in it? There’s some uncertainty, but it seems like Dotemu has found a pretty good niche.

Imbert: Definitely. Dotemu has our specialty in bringing back IP as a label. We have Arcade Crew, which is our classic indie gaming label. We clearly see the difference between the two. Having an IP on your game is easier at the start, at least, but it’s not easy to make a good game. Just because you have an IP, it’s not automatically a success. We’ve seen that over the years, that even IP owners themselves can’t manage to bring back a game they have the right way. It’s not an easy feat. But at least it gives you a bit more visibility, discoverability. It’s so important today, because it’s so difficult. That gives you a little edge at the beginning. It costs a lot as well. It’s not free.

But it’s worthwhile. As long as you provide passion and quality, it could be a guarantee of stability for a company. And it enables us to take a bit more risk on different IP, as well as new IP with different games. That’s why we’re doing Absolum, for example, which is a brand new IP from our internal team in co-production with two other studios. We can take those risks thanks to the stability of the Dotemu brand and thanks to the fact that we’ve managed, so far, to bring consistent quality titles. It enables us to grow.

But it’s very difficult nowadays to get your game out and get people to know about your game. It’s a balance between taking risks and going for more of a sure shot. So far, so good. We can be very lucky, especially in the current situation of the market. But it’s never an easy thing anyways.

GamesBeat: How valuable do you find shows like Summer Game Fest, where you’re able to put all these games out there, watch people play them, maybe get media feedback, watch how they’re playing?

Imbert: It’s amazing. The shows that Geoff Keighley has managed to set up over the years are super important. Beyond that, you don’t have a lot of occasions. You have different shows, but shows of that magnitude, you don’t have them very much, especially if you want to get out of the console space, if you have something that’s a bit broader in terms of the people you’re talking to. It’s a blessing for the industry that it exists. There are lots of titles and lots of great titles that are out there, so getting some visibility is getting harder and harder. You have to find ways. Summer Game Fest is one of the ways to go and get more visibility and get people to know your games. Then the Play Days is another good way.

Nowadays physical events like PAX or Gamescom — it’s a bit harder to get press and fans to come to your events. It’s super crowded. Sometimes it’s far because there aren’t too many of them. It used to be easier before COVID. Nowadays it’s becoming a bit harder. Now there are other ways to have the press or influencers get hands-on with your game. You can do it online through Discord. You don’t need to move and be physically present. But it’s always nice for me to–after five years that I hadn’t done a show like that, with people coming and playing your game–we found other ways to do that after COVID. But it feels nice to do it anyway. We’re looking forward to doing that with the public again when we have the occasion.

GamesBeat: I’m sure people are always coming up to you saying, you should do this, you should do that. But as a fan of The Simpsons arcade beat-em-up game, do you have a lot of people coming up and asking about The Simpsons?

Imbert: (laughs)I love it. I love it. Really. It’s a tough one, this one.

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Well, that might dash my hopes for a new Simpsons beat-em-up, but I’m still looking forward to Marvel Cosmic Invasion, as well anything else the publisher is cooking up. It’s nice to have a company that cares so much about retro gaming succeeding in the industry.