Sega left a mark on the game industry when, at the end of 1999, it released Shenmue for its Dreamcast console.

Less than a year later, Shenmue director and designer Yu Suzuki appeared onstage at GDC 2000 to talk frankly (with the help of an interpreter) about his approach to game design and the challenges of navigating the game industry.

He also spoke about the process of developing Shenmue and touched on other games he’d worked on at Sega, where he’d started in the ’80s working on arcade games like Hang-On and Space Harrier.

But Shenmue was the star of the talk (appropriately, since it had just come out) and Suzuki shared quite a bit of behind-the-scenes insight into how it was designed.

The video recording of his appearance in 2000 is well worth a watch, especially given that the Shenmue games have had lasting influence on the game industry (look at the Yakuza games, for example).

While it was previously hard to find, we’re happy to confirm that you can now watch the video for yourself over on the official GDC Vault YouTube channel!

About the GDC Vault

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC, GDC Europe, and GDC Next already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas