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Game Creators' Pen Names (ゲームクリエイター · 本名)
If you watched the credits of a 1980s or 1990s Japanese game, you saw names like "YU2," "Big Island" and "Inafking." These were real developers working under credit aliases.
The naming custom. Many Japanese studios of that era, including Capcom, Sega, Konami and Nintendo, credited staff by nickname or not at all. Reasons developers have given in interviews include: - Stopping rival studios from poaching staff, who could otherwise read the credits and call them. - Company policy and culture, where games were seen as team products. - Fun. Many aliases are jokes or puns on the person's name.
Over time, as game designers became public figures, most of these aliases were explained by the creators themselves. Sources include official company interviews (such as Nintendo's "Iwata Asks"), developer interviews in major outlets, and credits databases.