Takayoshi Sato, a veteran game development executive, is joining Virtual Heroes as its director of visual development.
Sato, who worked most recently as a producer with Electronic Arts, has more than 10 years of experience working in commercial visual arts and video games. He has been involved in creation of four commercially released video game titles.
“We are thrilled to have an industry veteran like Sato as part of our team,” said Jerry Heneghan, Virtual Heroes’ founder and chief executive officer. “Sato’s artistic vision and leadership will play an integral role as we continue to create collaborative interactive learning solutions for the federal systems, healthcare and commercial training markets. The addition of this high caliber of talent helps take both Virtual Heroes and serious games to the next level of realism and intensity.”
Virtual Heroes is focused on development of “serious games” titles and programs for training and education.
“Serious games may sound rigid, but in fact there are more creative outlets within this segment of the game industry because there is no set format to follow and less dependency on the ‘cool’ factor,” Sato said in a statement. “Serious games can be really interesting because you know the purpose of the project – it’s to save lives, to train for an emergency, inspire and educate.”
Among Sato’s tasks will be creation of what Virtual Heroes calls “dynamic virtual human characters.” An artist who has worked in oils and fine arts, Sato managed production for the game “Silent Hill.” The title sold 2 million copies and generated four sequels. At EA, he was involved with games such as “Golden Eye” and “Rogue Agent.” He is a graduate of the Tama Art University in Japan.
