Akio Oyabu, artist and developer of Metal Slug, shared a nostalgic story about Nasca Corporation’s first visit to SNK’s offices and an odd habit among the staff.
During the 1990s and early 2000s many industry veterans endured long hours, sleeping at the office, and constant pressure. Akio recalled that SNK employees had a peculiar way of releasing that tension. After Nasca’s Osaka branch shut down the team found themselves unemployed, and SNK offered them workspace. From the outside the building impressed, but inside it looked like “a pigsty from a kung-fu movie.” Hallways and rooms were dim, slightly grimy, and the walls were dotted with fist-shaped holes.
When they asked the HR manager about the holes, the reply was simple: “one for every staff frustration.” SNK developers would vent their stress by punching the walls, and the company’s president only chuckled, saying he was “glad they had so much energy.”
Over time the habit spread to the Metal Slug team. Akio remembered designer Kazuma Kajo smashing a hole in the wall of the fourth development department in a rage; the size of the gap spoke to how intense his emotions were. Kajo reportedly covered the hole with a calendar and insisted it had been “an accident.” Akio summed it up: to make games you need a kind of passion that can, quite literally, damage property.
Source: iXBT.games