1Up: Why Japanese Games are Breaking Up With the West

Hmm, Discuss:

http://www.1up.com/features/japanese-games-breaking-west

Was excepting another "Japanese games lack innovation" article, but article actually had some good points o-o Though, comments suck once again.

Indeed. A decent article with good points, but has stupid comments from users.

So the point it's trying to make is that both the Japanese and the Western game industries have evolved and innovated in different ways? I could agree with that.

I think another point is that westerners should accept that, and that they should embrace the different qualities Japanese games have and vice versa.

Too bad that will be a little difficult.

I think the ones that do make it over are some of the best. Like the quirky lampshade-hangs that are NIS rpgs.

edited 13th Sep '11 1:03:53 PM by Midgetsnowman

I also find Clover Studios/ Platinum Games, Hideo Kojima and Suda51 stuff, as well as Cyber Connect 2 and a lot of the fighting games are really damn good. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

^ Yeah, but for each game that all of those companies release here in North America, 30 smaller companies are releasing 5 times as many games that cater specifically to the niche market of moe loving otaku gamers, as the article claims.

If the imported games that are released here in the states are considered niche compared to the FPS and sports games market, then what is considered niche in Japan wouldn't even be recognized here in the states.

Moe? To most people in the west Moe is man's name(and Mo is a girl's).

Work, pressure? That's universal but may be more in Japan but pretty much everyone is hurting at work now. While handhelds games don't sell in as large numbers, handheld systems sell in larger numbers than home consoles. This may be due to hand held gamers buying a larger variety of products or maybe they just simply buy fewer games. Either way, its not like handhelds are small in the west. Maybe in some pockets but just some pockets.

Social pressure? That I can understand. Everyone has their own weird cultural baggage. Analyzing the competition? Well Sora has started to, but what are two people? Even if they were larger what is one company?

I never bought this "Japanese Industry is dieing" bull but I can kind of see how they are losing appeal with Westerners, since apparently we've already lost our appeal with them. But that isn't new. Japan doesn't look to Doom, cause viruses in World Of Warcraft or have memes about Duke Nukem Forever. Their loss. There are other Asian countries more inline with "western" tastes if their entrepreneurs decide to get serious with console games.

edited 13th Sep '11 3:04:31 PM by Cider

I too find that some game developers in Japan themselves are overreacting, but it seems they want to genuinely change their industry, so its all good.

Good review, crap comments

As usual on most gaming sites.

I'd like to use the Game Overthinker Episode for my point of reference.

Gaming trends have switched from being Japan-centric to US-centric. This being thanks to Microsoft's meteoric rise with the XBOX system, popularizing PC style games, graphics, and multiplayer. Add in recent world events and the need for catharsis, and it's clear why the military FPS like Modern Warfare is such a hit. Japanese developers feel irrelevant, and decide to cut their losses and go home. Either that or it's sour grapes (Operation Rainfall nowithstanding).

What interests me the most is the section on gaming xenophobia. FPS' don't do well in Japan because 1)Japanese are very prone to vertigo when playing them and 2)they are alienated by American-style violence of guns and glibs. That bit on how in a high-profile development office was playing Bio Shock and how the young guns liked it while the old guard dismissed it? Pure xenophobia. On our side, dating sims and games with sim elements and Moe aesthetics are alienating here in America since such aesthetics are seen as pedophilic and thanks to the rise in the media-frenzy Pedo Hunt, possessing such material can be considered a federal crime under child pornography laws. Like the Christopher Handley case.

If I may be blunt: it's good old fashioned Culture Clash. Japanese aesthetics are alienating here in America and vice-versa. The pendulum was bound to swing our way and we became the dominant market and producers. So how can we bridge the gap?

• Support and buy Japanese games by lower-profile developers such as Altus. Show the Japanese industry that we still care.
• Encourage your Japanese friends to pick up new player-friendly FPS'. Better yet: try to get them into Team Fortress 2. It's free!
• FPS' might not be popular, but First Person RPG's such as the Elder Scrolls series and Fallout 3 are very well-received by Japanese reviewers. Don't know if it translates to overall sales, but Bethesda Studios might be leading the way to easing First Person gaming to the east.
• Two Words: Mario Paintball.

edited 13th Sep '11 3:24:15 PM by EnglishMajor

I'm not really convinced of the gaming xenophobia argument, particularly when it comes to JRPG vs. RPG. Mass Effect 2 and the last Final Fantasy released on the same day in Japan, and Mass Effect crushed the homegrown game. Now, you could blame this on the anemic quality of FFXIII. But it also illustrates the problem with the argument; they've presented a difference in the views of gamers argument and backed it with at least one thing that's explicitly about developers.

We don't know that the xenophobia argument is valid because it only works since the environment requires no testing of it.

"Western Games are shit" bit is pretty ignorant thinking and a mindset more Japanese gamers need and hopefully will get out of, thankfully there's a growing number who are. Unfortunately we might now be getting a growing number of the opposite with the current market trends.

Also as for the taste differing/moe thing, this has happened in anime/manga as well. I'm thinking it's reflective of something bigger than just Japanese games vs western ones.

edited 13th Sep '11 4:00:11 PM by VertigoHigh

It's just the fandom's interest shifting and the industry's perceptions being a little slow to catch on. It seems to be hitting worse than the last time (read industry being much more sluggish) because today's hardcore who want more of the same are a lot louder thanks to the internet while the Silent Majority just mind their own business as usual. All genres are being affected.

To be fair, you get the same in reverse here. Outside the crowd that grew up on jrpgs and quirky anime humor, give the average modern warfare or madden player a look at Disgaea 4 and their response will likely be "anime weaboo awful shit"

edited 13th Sep '11 4:06:47 PM by Midgetsnowman

Probably not too hard, since there's already quite a contingent of fan-art for TF2 on Pixiv, apparently.

edited 13th Sep '11 4:18:45 PM by RocketDude

I have only played a couple recent high-budget western games. I'm not really interested in today's serious business video games. Most of what I purchase and enjoy is low-budget software from small companies and indie groups. So that's my point of view.

It's easy to forget that romance games and porn games don't sell as well as they once did. See this worksafe article for some details: http://visualnovelaer.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/rewrite-sold-24424-copies-what-on-earth While Konami has managed to sell a good number of copies of Love Plus, most companies are struggling. The growth experienced during the Playstation era has subsided.

Yes, many romance games and porn games let fans express their Perverse Sexual Lust. But keep in mind that PSL is a trope that spans many types of media. Fans can get obsessed with fictional characters in many different contexts, whether or not the original work encourages them. For instance, I'm looking at the Moe article, and seeing some western examples under the video games section: Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Baldurs Gate.

Does porn exist in western games? It most certainly does... though until it became easy to distribute freeware and indie games online, it was a small and secretive category. These days, there are contingents of English speaking game creators who are making NSFW content and mods. To know more about western porn games, browse the adult category on Mobygames.

Likewise, there are now English speaking fans who are creating romance games and visual novels. Just a few individuals are creating harem games and NSFW content. In fact, there's more and more people making reverse harem games, both as freeware and as indie games.

And thus, the point.

But the way it's pronounced is not -_-

MOEEEEH

You forgot the gratuitous tildes.

~~~~

There you go.