Digital Media Concepts/Shinji Mikami

Shinji Mikami (born on August 11th, 1965) is a Japanese video game designer who is responsible for creating many of Capcoms most popular franchises and video games of all time and is the creator of the Resident Evil Series. He has also worked with Clover Studios and Platinum Games before starting his own studio Tango Gameworks, which has been acquired by the American company Zenimax Media.

Early Life
Shinji Mikami was born on August 11th, 1965; he had a normal childhood, however Mikami admitted he was afraid of his Father who was a very violent person. that he has the utmost respect for his father now and the sacrifices he made. Mikami failed the college entrance exams two years in a row but eventually made it to Doshisha University in Kyoto.

Early Beginnings (1990-1993)
Mikami graduated from Doshisha University where his major was in merchandise. Soon after in 1990 he created his first game at the company which was a quiz game for the Game Boy titled Capcom Quiz: Hatena? no Daibōken, which took three months to develop. After, Mikami would go to work on three Disney-license games: Who Framed Roger Rabbit for the Gameboy, Aladdin for the Super Nintendo and Goof Troop also for the Super Nintendo.

Resident Evil/Survival Horror (1993-1999)
In 1993 after the release of Goof Troop Mikami started working on his next project titled: Resident Evil for the upcoming Playstation. Resident Evil was first conceived by Sweet Home creator Tokuro Fujiwara who entrusted it to Mikami. Mikami has also stated that Resident Evil was a response to his disappointment of the movie Zombie, which was a 1979 movie by a Italian Director and Mikami was determined to make a game without the shortcomings of the movie. The game became Biohazard which was an action-adventure game with pre-rendered backgrounds and 3d polygons that featured zombies and monsters heavily influenced by George A. Romero's Dead Series. The game was renamed to Resident Evil in its localization and was released March 22nd, 1996. The title was one of the most successful Playstation titles of all time. This was the first game to ever be dubbed survival horror which is what Capcom coined the game as.

Resident Evil was the defining title for survival horror games and is responsible for popularizing the genre. Due to the games success it helped the Playstation become a more dominant home console at the time and inspired the Resident Evil movies. Mikami had creative control for the first film but would later drop out of the movies as he thought they were headed in "the correct direction". After, Mikami went from planner to producer for the second Resident Evil. For the second game Mikami wanted to use urban settings destroyed by chaos. The game was a resounding success and proved the popularity of survival horror. In 1998 he oversaw development of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis and directed another game: Dino Crisis.

Capcom Production Studios Creation And Being An Executive Producer (1999-2002)
Soon after Resident Evil 3, Capcom Production Studio 4 was established in 1999. Mikami was appointed as the general manager of the studio and was an executive producer for many games. In 2000 Mikami got involved with a new Resident Evil game titled: Code Veronica and Dino Crisis 2 with each selling over a million copies. Soon after Mikami would sign an exclusivity deal with Nintendo in which main Resident Evil games would only be on the Gamecube. One of the games released, Resident Evil Zero went on to not have the financial success that Capcom was looking for.

The Capcom Five, And Splitting From Capcom (2002- 2004)
After the poor sales of Resident Evil Zero, Mikami started production the Capcom Five which were five games including: Resident Evil 4, P.N. 03, Viewtiful Joe, Killer 7, and Dead Phoenix. The first game was directed by Mikami was P.N. 03 which was a commercial and critical failure. Due to this Mikami stepped down as manager and became a producer at studio 4. He would become the director for Resident Evil 4 where it went through many changes. Resident Evil 4 is regarded as one of the most influential games of all time and redefined third person shooting along with survival horror. The game was a massive success.

Clover Studios And Platinum Games (2004-2010)
After the massive success of Resident Evil 4 Mikami left Studio 4 and was transferred to Clover Studios. At Clover, Mikami would supervise the development of God Hand that was released in 2006. The game was a commercial failure and one of the main reasons that Clover Studios was shutdown soon after. Right after Mikami joined the company's successor which would be known as Platinum games. Mikami would then go on to develop the game Vanquish which was another influential action game. Shortly after Mikami would leave Platinum Games.

Tango Gameworks (2010-Present)
Mikami would open a new studio in 2010 named Tango Gameworks and in October of that year it was revealed that Zenimax Media Inc. would acquire the studio. Mikami would then go on to direct the game The Evil Within and according to Mikami it would be the last game he directs. As of this writing The Evil Within is the only game Tango Gameworks has created.