Why Japanese Games are Breaking Up With the West

[DEMONKAI]

Article from 1UP. Makes sense to me actually. I Figured so on the whole issue of Japan and the west in videogames these days. So it makes sense that "Japan isnt showing xbox 360 any love now out there". Like i said before games like COD ruined a lot of minds the way western gamers think on video games. Damn there everything has to be FPS and in tunnel vision so to speak. Im not hating on that FPS crowd because i love a good shoot em up but lets face it, if it aint something to do with that style or Gears of war not many of the crowd on this side of the planet are turned on. I never stopped liking Japanese games but i did see at one point the light seemed to be dimming out like they werent coming to hard with new sh*t except Metal Gear or Final Fantasy. Thats why i say thank god for the Return of fighting games and the new trend of random collabs between different japanese game companies. Thats just my opinion on the matter folks. I been felt that way anyway.

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

"It's not you, it's me." That's the message the Japanese gaming industry is telling the world this week at TGS. "Our games are as good as ever, they're just not for you anymore."

Critics in the west have been crowing about the supposed death of the Japanese industry for years. And while their critiques have a certain degree of truth to them, they're missing the point. Japanese game development did run into trouble during this console generation, but their issues are so removed from the average gamer's experience (workforce and labor management) as to be meaningless. The games themselves are as good as they've ever been, but they're just not made for the entire world anymore. Japanese games are now by and large made to appeal almost exclusively to Japanese gamers. Rather than this being another piece that focuses on the alleged downfall of the Japanese industry, we thought we should focus on why Japanese games and western tastes have diverged so much in recent years. There's no single cause that can explain the phenomena -- the possible reasons range from the social and economic, to the practical and mundane. Regardless, the fact remains that Japanese gamers are now seeking different experiences from North Americans and Europeans.



Gamer taste in both regions underwent a massive sea change in recent years. While the slow takeover of the AAA console space by former PC heavy-hitting franchises, genres and studios like Fallout, FPS games, and BioWare changed the tastes of the western market in the past decade, other forces have been working on Japan in the same time. The reasons for the shift in Japanese gamer taste are numerous, but there are three that western gamers in the country continuously note -- a peculiar emotion called moe, the Japanese concept of hobbies and adulthood, and a tradition of disparaging foreign games.


Moe
The concept of moe (pronounced MOH-ay) is incredibly important amongst Japan's indigenous nerd population, otherwise known as otaku. While there are train otaku, military otaku, and otaku of all kinds, a great many of them focus on the geeky triad of anime, manga, and video games; the three media influence each other and are often linked together. Moe is a word that Otaku will often use at the sight of a cute, large-eyed juvenile character, but when asked point blank "What does moe mean?" most are unable to offer a coherent answer. It is an amorphous concept.

The word is often used by westerners familiar with Japan to describe the lolicon (short for Lolita Complex) art style which focuses on young, often pre-pubescent girls, and seems to feature a disturbing mix of childlike cuteness with subtle and not-so-subtle sexual overtones. This definition is not quite right according to Patrick Galbraith, a researcher of otaku culture at the University of Tokyo. "Moe is an affective response to a fictional character or representations of a character. There are two things that are important to note about this definition. First, we are talking about a response. Moe is used not to describe a character type or style, but rather characters that are likely to trigger a response or are designed with that in mind. This implies that there are a range of different characters that appeal men and women or various ages and orientations. Second, moe is a response to fictional characters, not actual people. Without this distinction, moe is conflated with descriptions such as 'cute' or 'sexy.'"



Moe describes the emotions that otaku feel upon seeing, thinking of, or interacting with a certain kind of character. Depending on the person, this character may or may not fit the little girl image that western game critics have come to associate with the word. It may be used by female anime, manga, or game fans that enjoy "Boys Love" media which feature homosexual pairings between popular characters for example.

So what exactly does this mean for games? It actually depends on which ones you're talking about -- for the biggest titles it means nothing, but it means everything to smaller publishers and developers. The business model for small games in Japan can only be sustained by catering to a small yet rabid fan base that's willing to pay a premium for content. AAA titles normally sell for between the equivalent of $40-$60, while smaller niche titles are usually priced at $80-plus. Small developers make their money by selling less at a higher profit margin, while major publishers sell more for less. If you publish small games in Japan you have to give your fans what you want, and since your fans are otaku who revel in moe, you'll give them games filled with the characters that elicit that response -- which are usually young, childlike girls. Between August and December of this year there are a total of 35 games set for release in Japan which follow this exact model. There are more games like this than there are FPSs in the west. By catering to their fan base, smaller publishers have alienated many western fans.



Moe's effect on AAA games has not been as direct. If you want to make a massive hit, you can't sell it only to the small crowd who wants to ogle 2D characters, as Galbraith points out. "What moe game has as many players as Monster Hunter? What franchise has been as successful as Pokémon? What moe characters have had the cultural impact of those of Sailor Moon or Dragon Ball? The point is that they are not the majority of the audience, and the most popular and bestselling works in Japan are not those targeting moe fans."

If smaller games are catering to an almost exclusively Japanese audience, that still leaves mainstream titles for the rest of the world to enjoy, right? Well, not as many as there used to be.

[Jelux Da Casual]

I'll blame the FPS crowd.

XCOM is being remade, as a freaking FPS, gonna ruin it.

Syndicate has recently been announced to be remade, as a freaking FPS, gonna ruin it.

XCOM and Syndicate were great games as they were, but today's market says nope, make them FPS. They haven't realized they've totally oversaturated the market with FPS. I can name 15 FPS franchises, not games but franchises of the top of my head (hell I can name 15 CoD's right now). It's ridiculous.

[DEMONKAI]

I'll blame the FPS crowd.

XCOM is being remade, as a freaking FPS, gonna ruin it.

Syndicate has recently been announced to be remade, as a freaking FPS, gonna ruin it.

XCOM and Syndicate were great games as they were, but today's market says nope, make them FPS. They haven't realized they've totally oversaturated the market with FPS. I can name 15 FPS franchises, not games but franchises of the top of my head (hell I can name 15 CoD's right now). It's ridiculous.

  well at least i know i aint alone on FPS shooter mania ruining diverse gaming in a lot of ways. I like FPS shooters also but smh...Its retarded now...I lost count on the COD games man ....

man when they made that metroid game FPS a long time ago i was salty about that. when it came back on the Wii by team ninja i felt so relieved

and you know what?


I REALLY hope the japanese take back total control in development of my favorite two Konami game series. Castlevania & Silent hill. That last castlevania game was ok but it was missing something and teh soundtrack sucked and was boring. Silent hill..smh..i kept damn there ALL my silent hills except for that lame Home Coming one I mean hope this next one is good by my Japan peoples need to stop letting the american teams develop for them. one shot is enough. I hope weird games like Fatal Frame and Tecmos Deception series come back too haha

[Jelux Da Casual]

well at least i know i aint alone on FPS shooter mania ruining diverse gaming in a lot of ways. I like FPS shooters also but smh...Its retarded now...I lost count on the COD games man ....

man when they made that metroid game FPS a long time ago i was salty about that. when it came back on the Wii by team ninja i felt so relieved

You know what though? I liked the Prime series, it was more First person exploration that straight up shoot stuff all day long. Prime 3 in particular was fantastic and when I can scratch some cash together I'm gonna get the Prime Trilogy game.

[Vitamin]

In my opinion I personally don't enjoy or like of japanese games. It's not that I don't like their games, I just find most of them boring, cheap, and extremely repetitive. I played and beat lost planet (playing the 2nd one) and liked the gameplay, but I hated the story and most of the character models. In addition of of their games don't leave a lasting impact on me when I do play them and have little to no replay once beaten.

The most recent Japanese game that I have played and actually liked was "Ninja Blade". The gameplay was solid and the story was decent. I was going to mention the Metroid Prime series, but that was made by western developers and was one of the best Metroid game(s) I have every played. And if I could get my wii back I would finish playing Metroid Prime 3.

In addition, I am also a PC gamer and 1/20th of their games even make it to PC, and most of them are extremely bad ports to begin with. And I wouldn't blame FPS games because their games don't sell well here. Are the top selling games in the west FPS? Yes, but so are third person games like Prototype, Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, God of War, Batman AA, Uncharted and more.

Games like Onimusha, Tekken, Marvel Vs Capcom, Dead Rising, Castlevania, and Megaman are games that I like and want more of from Japan. And it looks like Asura's Wrath will also be a great seller in the west.

[DEMONKAI]

nah when the newest games of COD. Gears or war and even Battlefield hit stores in the US folks go crazy man. Even that damn Halo.
You cant tell me FPS shooter games dont do well...thats the reason why japan feels a lil salty about the 360 now because thats most of the games pumping from it. PS3 is a japanese system so more so they are going to get those diverse imports pumped out to the north sooner or later. Its not often microsoft gets a hold of a jap import like that first. As for Lost planet...eh well it didnt leave an impact at the time. Gears of war crushed all that, even Bioshock outshined Lost planet. And Ninja Blade was hot like Ninja gaiden but not as painfully tough.

But yeh i agree on those old classics you mentioned but at the same time man theres a crap load of japanese games you havent mentioned also (console & arcade) that we grew up on as kids. That list is too long though. Anyway We all knew they were hard @ss games but they were hella cool. If those games werent we wouldnt have been spending all those damn quarters at the arcades . Pacman hands down was like crack to people. To me thats a f*ckin hard @ss game still till this very day But its addictive once you battle to beat anothers score

"Fun factor"

Notice all those japanese games of days past and even very early 2000 are very memorable. i Cant say that for too many american or Euro games man.

except for what?:
The First Halo game
Fallout 3
DOOM
MK series (hard as Hell man)
God of war (pretty tough man)
GTA 3 & vice city
Half life 2
Alan wake
Bioshock
COD4
Battlefield BC2
&
Dantes Inferno
 

[Kriven]

The problem with mentioning games like Prototype as "Not an FPS so there!" is that games with that style and genre evolved out of the FPS and Sandbox mindset.

Also, it's not like Japan is only responsible for JRPGs. That seems to the biggest gripe coming from Amerinazis. "We dun need JRPGs anyways!" But Japan also brings us a diverse set of platformers, racers, adventures, puzzles, and essentially every other genre.

[SanjiSasuke]

I don't think FPS has much to do with sandbox, that was prett much exclusively founded by Driver and GTA. In fact I can't think of many FPS-Sandboxes and those that do exist are quite new (Dead Island, Fallout, Borderlands).

I think "Jap" games are unpopular, not Japanese games. We still like MGS, RE, MvC, No More Heroes (Jap Developer, even though its a Ubisoft game) etc as much as any other.

[-Whiplash-]

The problem with mentioning games like Prototype as "Not an FPS so there!" is that games with that style and genre evolved out of the FPS and Sandbox mindset.

Also, it's not like Japan is only responsible for JRPGs. That seems to the biggest gripe coming from Amerinazis. "We dun need JRPGs anyways!" But Japan also brings us a diverse set of platformers, racers, adventures, puzzles, and essentially every other genre.

The Prince of Persia series are american (well canadian) games and it's good and it's not a sandbox or a FPS.

Same thing with sly, Jak, ratchect and clank, the elder scrolls series, Burnout, KoTor, Dragon age, fable...

[Hectotane]

That first post:

It's kinda sad when you witness the GIGANTIC distance between what people are capable of and the garbage people create now.

Case in point is the fighter Arcana Heart 3. On the plus side; it's has a deep fighting engine and an array of powerful characters. On the negative side; it's "fap fantasy fuel" which includes some jail-baits (some of them saying they're older than they are), and it's for the "hate-on-young-guys" crowd. In more creative hands, it would've gave Capcom et al a run for their money.

I grew up during the "beat-em-up video game" era starting with Street Fighter II. And it saddens me to see everyone in the West mainly commit to shooters, ghetto games, and rehashes. It also saddens me to see Japan's (niche) video game industry commit to those reality-challenged mental cases and closet pedophiles who are willing to pay large amounts of money for something that proves how right they are.

The King of Fighter series is a TOTALLY AWESOMAGE orz game series; with 2002 UM featuring a roster of 60+ different characters. Outside of MUGEN, it CAN'T GET as awesome as this anymore.  Maybe it's because people don't want to do it or that they can't do it legally...

Since the thing for skilled people to do now is waste their talents on someone else's sick and disgusting wishes, I guess I should just stick with MUGEN. That way, I can atleast have a choice.

[deadmangunner]

I am a big rpg, action/adventure, and platformer gamer myself though I have liked some sandboxes and fps myself. I would like to see microsoft make more of an effort to get back in good graces with japan because I like would like to see more jrpgs or other japan style games on xbox360 but, I doubt that is going to happen. I would say the American game market is lacking japan style games because they have been focusing more on pumping out fps, sandboxes, and western rpgs. I like the bio ware rpgs some of the other western rpgs but, still I kinda miss not having as many jrpgs to play because I grew like those a lot because they are always bright and colorful and usually light heart plus they are very long so I do not have to worry about getting a new game very often. Most of the jrpgs today seem to have drifted to the handheld market these days which kinda bugs me because I like playing big epic jrpgs on a big screen even though playing them the go is kinda of nice, I have always been more of a big home console gamer. I can say I would like to see japan style games make more of a come back in the western market because even though I do love a lot of the new western style games like Mass Effect or assassins creed I still love to have my Castlevanias and Suikodens because they have been a big part of a lot my found gaming memories in my life and the japan style game will always be some of my most favorite games of all time I mean heck Castlevania 3 is still what call my favorite platformer game of all time because it is challenging, I can play through it in a short while and I can play countless times and it does not get old I play it like once or twice a year most of the time plus the awesome sound track is something I like to listen to a lot.

I think in time the japan style games will make a come over here in the USA but, it is going to take a while.

[Hectotane]

I know it's a long stretch for Japan's entertainment industry. But in order to gain acceptance in the world, they need to stop thinking inclusively and learn to venture outside the box. They should learn to be a bit more co-operative and helpful to those who, already, think that their ideas are TOTALLY AWESOMAGE orz; and that their message could spread wider if they could translate from one culture to another.

They also need to stop "making U-turns and hurrying straight back to their supposedly loyal fans" whenever they make a loud-enough fuss over they're changing their product in order to gain more fans who aren't otaku.

It's not impossible if it can be done well and with more seriousness than humor. The lot of live-action movies (ala Street Fighter, King of Fighters, and Tekken) would've been better if the people behind the original series actually gave said movies' creators a hand (as oppose to refusing to help out because they think it'll be "ugly non-Japanese, non-moe garbage").

[deadmangunner]

I agree with that Hectotane. If Japan had other people help them out with the games then it work better. Also I agree that them changing the well working formula for a game series just because the supposed fans that are not real big fans of series say so is dumb (FF13 ). Now though is good to take some suggestion as long as it does drastically change the core mechanics of the game, slight tweaks are ok as long as they are done to tighten the core mechanics and not totally change them into something completely different.