Roughly half of Capcom’s dev staff is focused on character animation and visual effects

Capcom has shared the interesting estimate that approximately half of the development staff is focused on character animation and visual effects.

As part of a Q&A session with investors during the end of the 2024 fiscal year report back in May, which was uploaded to the company’s hub yesterday, Capcom provided a glimpse of the current structure of its development staff, which offers some insight into the company’s continued success despite a global game industry contraction.

“We are actively strengthening recruitment in this area,” the response reads in regards to half of the staff being engaged in roles related to character animation and visual effects.

In addition, the company says that it has recently acquired companies as subsidiaries that posses strong capabilities in the field, further contributing to the enhancement of its development overall.

Despite the increase in subsidiaries, the company says that it will continue to focus on “in-house production for core elements of development,” the main reasoning being the difficulty to “accumulate sufficient experience and expertise through outsourcing alone.”

This is also related to the company’s goals for future growth, which particularly entails securing a specific subset of talent. According to Capcom, it aims to hire 150 new graduates each fiscal year.

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“The game industry has evolved significantly over the past 10 to 20 years,” the transcript reads. “We believe that harnessing the sensibilities of these new graduates, who have grown up amid these changes, is essential for adapting to an increasingly global and digital market environment.”

In terms of character animation and visual effects, Capcom continues to place bets on the RE Engine, despite concerns from investors regarding the need to address bugs and optimization issues on PC for games like Dragon’s Dogma 2 and Monster Hunter Wilds.

How is Capcom consistently turning out successful games?

In August of last year, Monster Hunter Wilds executive producer Ryozo Tsujimoto told Game Developer that both his team and others work “right alongside” the RE Engine engineers, benefiting from a “fast feedback loop” to request features or bug fixes slowing down development.

This collaboration extends across Capcom’s developers as a whole, with staff being in constant conversation with each other. “Our teams all work closely together, even across different titles,” he said. “We’re able to share ideas and discoveries and technology with each other.”

At the end of Capcom’s 2024 fiscal year, the company reported a net sales increase by 11.3 percent year-on-year to 169.6 billion yen ($1.15 billion), with net income following suit by 11.7 percent year-on-year to 48.45 billion yen ($328 million). Monster Hunter Wilds was a big factor, selling 10.1 million copies in its first month.

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