The Tekken 8 director is not happy about some of the things that the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has been saying on games. Macron, recently, commented on how he feels that videogames are partially to blame for the riots going on in the whole of France. Harada was not happy and he took to Twitter to respond.
In his tweet, Harada mentioned how he feels about blaming something "is a great way to escape the burden of responsibility". He follows with some examples, such as "blaming videogames because my life is not going well" and then finishes with "in the near future, video games will be responsible for every threat that occurs on Earth".
This was in response to some rather dubious statements made by the president of France, following the riots which have affected the nation in the wake of the the killing by police of Nahel M, a 17 year old boy.
Macron mentioned how "It sometimes feels like some of them are experiencing, on the streets, the video games that have intoxicated them". He also feels that social media is mainly responsible for the riots which have affected Paris and many other smaller towns all over France.
Clearly, politicians blaming video games for things that have nothing to do with them is nothing new. But justly so, Harada-san, especially as a game creator, is quite tired of seeing that behaviour repeated over and over again. Especially in 2023, when games have been part of the overall entertainment culture for almost 50 years.
Anyway, we are sure that these events won't distract Harada from his work on Tekken 8. While the game still hasn't got a release date yet, we do know that it will hit all major platforms and consoles.
Now, could this incident perhaps inspire Harada-san to work on some interesting secret characters to be included in Tekken 8? We'll be curious to see what happens when the game drops.