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The state of the Video Game Industry in Japan

Archive: 32 posts

Well, I'm assuming most people here know that gaming is in some real big trouble in Japan. Put simply, it's in the gutter. I'm sure many of you would know that, since many Japanese games just aren't being released, and those that are are taking seven years for mediocre results. Now, the subject of this post is directed towards a particular game company, though I'm sure it could apply to most over there, or rather all game companies anywhere. LEt me explain. That game company I am talking about would be Square-Enix.

After the devastating launch of Final Fantasy 14 and the tremendous money sink it has become, Square revised it's earnings for the fiscal years... from an anticipated 1000 million yen in profit to 12000 million in loses. This, I remind you, was a year with two numbered Final Fantasy titles. While Final Fantasy 13 sold reasonably well, it did destroy some brand loyalty and made customers weary of buying more Square games. Final Fantasy 14, on the other hand, can only hope to restore customers faith in the company, let alone recoup the large production costs.

Now, this isn't about how Square's games are losing money. That is obvious. What I'm concerned about, is why.

Some say they just have fallen behind Western developers. Some say their style of game is just obsolete. While these may be true, the fundamental issue is why this is so.

Thus, my thesis. The fundamental problem with Japanese Game developers... While I cannot say I am any expert on the subject, never having been to Japan, I have read quite a bit, and all evidence seems to point to this one conclusion:

They just don't have fun making their games.

While I can't say for sure, there is evidence. Reports from Square say there was no contact between various departments on Final Fantasy 13, and until they were forced to launch a demo with the Advent Children DVD a year or two before release (after 4 or 5 years in development, mind you) they still had no idea how the game was going to run. While some may consider a disorganized group of teams competing against each other while working on the same game fun, it is merely representative of another problem, especially with Square: there is no vision.

Every time I see Square or other Japanese companies talk, they talk about how to "Appeal" to Western audiences. They turn old games into disgusting mockeries, like Front Mission into a Third Person Shooter and Parasite Ever into some sort of Perverted Shooter. They made Final Fantasy 13 linear with the thought that that would make it more like Call of Duty and more appealing to FPS fans. Capcom keeps and printing more and more copies of the same game and resell them for easy cash Company after company is giving their old franchises to Western developers so that they can "Remake" them.

There just does not appear to be any clear vision by anyone about what to do to make an actually good game. Everywhere I see, they try and manufacture it to fit Western tastes- and that there lies the problem. They are trying to manufacture games.

I may be a romantic, but I like to think good games begin with a spark. Whether it be with one person or a group, having some inspiration for some idea you WANT to make- that appears to be the difference.Just look at LittleBigPlanet for an easy to find example. Media Molecule WANTED to make this game, so they pitched the concept to Sony. They made the game THEY wanted to make, and you can just feel the love and, most of all, FUN they felt in the game.

Compare this to Square. I see no concepts being submitted by young designers above a bathroom store, who just want to make a game. It just... looks too much like a business. While I understand videogames ARE a business, what Square- and Japan in general- need to realize is that the people making the game need to NENOY making the game. When looking back at my favorite RPGs- Tales of Symphonia, Tales of the Abyss, Xenogears, Chrono Trigger, the old Final Fantasies- I just... I may be overly nostalgic (even though I was not into RPGs when they were released)... but I feel someone, somewhere along the line had a spark, a story they wanted to tell. While I may be wrong and it may just have been corporate "appeal-to-the-masses" talk... I just feel some love there.

For modern day Japanese games, look at Atlus. While I myself have never played an Atlus game and thus cannot accurately judge them, from what I hear they are not trying to appeal to the masses- they are what they are, quirky Japanese games, and they excel at it. The upcoming Catherine, for example: I wouldn't play it, but something like that just needs some spark in someone's head.

I can talk about 3d Dot Game Heroes, however. Once again, I am merely talking hypothetically about the development, but I feel I can speak fairly confidentially that From wanted to make a tribute to Zelda. They were just a small start up company, no one telling them what to make. thus, they just made what they wanted to, and you can feel the love in the game. It doesn't feel forced, like they want to appeal to a different audience. They did what they wanted to to, and seem to have had fun doing it.

You are probably getting tired of my rambling, so I'll try and cut it brief. Essentially... don't try to appeal to everyone. Try to make a game or level in LBP that you want to make, and hope others like that. While that may seem obvious to us, unfortunately, it doesn't to Japanese game companies. While I know Western companies like Activision and Ubisoft milk franchises like Call of Duty and Assassins Creed, there still seems to be at least some fun had by the people making it. So, yes. Basically, I believe games are only good when the creators themselves have fun doing so. While I may have some logical fallacies and whatnot, that's my essay. I wanted to write it, so I did. Hopefully I proved my point about wanting to do something making it good by this being good.

TL;DR: If you don't wanna read my essay, then may I kindly suggest you leave this thread, because I don't really want to shorten my thing because someone isn't able to read all of it :/ Sorry

2011-06-12 03:44:00

Author:
RockSauron

Posts: 10882

I get this feeling you described with all forms of popular entertainment and do not believe its to do with region.
But with generation.
Entertainment buggers like to aim at younger folk and annoy older people.

My solution is to avoid most popular entertainment unless something really draws me in.
That and the backlog of older movies,games,and books will last me for my lifetime.

(I know one is not expected to know everything but , From is not a small start up, not even close. Armored Core, Demon's Souls to name a few. And they made games for nearly every console PS1 and up)

2011-06-12 04:29:00

Author:
Morgalaga

Posts: 164

That was an interesting read, i agree with everything you said, i hate the simplifying of beloved games just to appeal to a bigger audience, while slapping loyal fans in the face. Skyrim is a good example, its becoming an action game rather than an rpg, to appeal to fps nuts, while losing elder scrolls fans.

2011-06-12 23:01:00

Author:
gigglecrab

Posts: 232

In regards to Square-Enix in particular, I think one of the things you should probably take into consideration is that many of the great talents behind their games have fallen by the wayside. Hironobu Sakaguchi, who is prettymuch the creator of the Final Fantasy franchise is long gone, Nobuo Uematsu is at best a part timer for them and the same could be said of Yo****aka Amano and their most arguably promising neophyte talent Yasumi Matsuno basically had a nervous breakdown partway through doing FFXII. And in their place is mostly the collective talent of people whom the fans have, at best a very mixed opinion of and others whom have very little prominence and/or experience in the industry to begin with. And with that in mind I'm not really surprised the company seems to have lost its way.

I'll also concur about the Japanese gaming industry doing a poor job in their attempts to appeal to Western audiences as they seem to have very limited understanding as to when something needs to change and what needs to remain. At times companies like Capcom and SE can't help but cling to dated gameplay mechanics and their past successes while at the same time they introduce even less enjoyable gameplay mechanics and completely change things that might not have been perfect but certainly didn't have to be completely reinvented.

To this day Capcom has game after game that involves killing one boss after another and then at the end just makes you fight them all over again in rapid succession as a lazy means to "increase" game content which prettymuch becomes a glaring stain on many otherwise wonderful games. At the same time they seem to have no idea what to do with one of their staple franchises, the Mega Man franchise after the Zero games and Inafune's departure, being that their latest entries to it have been old-school callbacks with limited novelty and while many fans cheered at the announcement of Mega Man Legends 3, the fact that the game is going to be based on input from players rather then simply continue and build upon the novel gameplay of the previous ones that distinguished themselves from other Mega Man games betrays the company's lack of understanding in what they have been able to do in the past that appeals to fans. SE is, if anything more guilty of this tendency still; they've been milking FF7 (or rather, the sub-franchise they spawned from it) for over a decade with at best mixed results and in doing so have stunted their own creativity in exchange for the safety net of fan dedication to the company's most well-received game and in effect have bound themselves to it rather then making themselves capable of achieving something greater still. It actually would have been nice, really nice if the first female protagonist of an FF game, Lightning was touted as being her own character with her own merits rather then being promoted as a female version of Cloud (whether the creators were even competent enough to do that is another question entirely). Frankly, the simple idea of a female protagonist probably was the most genuinely innovative thing FFXIII did, but most can agree the execution of everything left something to be desired. I mean, just who thought it was a good idea to make it so that you'd get a game over when the party leader died while in other situations where said character wasn't leader and KOed it wouldn't matter so much? In any case, I just can't help but think that these companies simply aren't displaying enough self-awareness/reflection to understand how to treat their most important franchises in a way that makes them as entertaining or relevant as they could be.

I'm not quite sure if treating videogames as a business rather then an art is the biggest contributor as any successful company must run like a business inevitably to continue to produce games and law of averages dictates that they would inevitably make stinkers here and there. And while indy game companies often do make genuinely remarkable work, many also simply achieve mediocrity while both are still prone to becoming forgotten flotsam within the industry (though the latter is also much more prone to it) and you should also remember that Squaresoft was simply another failing company before the first Final Fantasy, which might also have been the last if not for the virtues of just the right creative talent and audience converging at just the right time. Though I do find it rather ironic given the company's current situation.

2011-06-13 03:59:00

Author:
Dapiek Absaroka

Posts: 512

You're not taking into account that in Japan, for a majority of games, they author their own unique game engine - rather than use "pre-Fab" game engines like Unreal3 etc that most Western Developers use.

The Japanese games industry is still doing fine - it's just that the majority do not get released outside of Japan... which actually makes it a better market than the rest... because it is tailored specifically to their audience, rather than trying to appeal to the global market (which inevitably leads to generic "dumbed down" content).

At least the Japanese are still making games for Japanese people - compare that to the British Games Industry - that seems to make games purely to appeal to the American market (despite the european market being bigger). You wouldn't know that some games were even made in Britian - there is nothing british about them, American Voices, American Locations, American sensibilities.

I'm more concerned about the British games industry than the Japanese.

2011-06-13 11:04:00

Author:
Macnme

Posts: 1970

You know what it really needs?
More RPGs, Japan doesn't have enough RPGs, that's probably the problem...

2011-06-13 11:20:00

Author:
Silverleon

Posts: 6707

You know what it really needs?
More RPGs, Japan doesn't have enough RPGs, that's probably the problem...

We assume that there is a disproportionate amount of RPG's made in the Japanese Market, but that's not actually true.
It's just that the only games to make it out of Japan are mostly RPG's... as the rest of the world isn't interested in their Sushi Chopping games, or their Girlfriend/Social Life simulators.
Just as the Japanese aren't really interested in all of our War-Games sims.

I'm sure there are similar forums in Japan where they are arguing over why the Western Games Industry just doesn;t understand the Japanese market and keep making the same war-games over & over-again , with no variation, or even an attempt to appeal to Japanese Gamers

2011-06-13 11:27:00

Author:
Macnme

Posts: 1970

My point is that Japanese has lost self confidence.
And Japanese/Otaku culture has become synonimous of freakyness in the West, where everyone now wants life like games and not something "fictional".
And besides Kojima, or Team Ico no one can write good stories.
So they don't know where to go and mess everything like you said Rawk.

2011-06-13 14:22:00

Author:
OmegaSlayer

Posts: 5112

Yeah Japan and most other places too... need to create better stories and not that
copy and paste junk that they and some other people can't get over... i mean it I'm am so sick of the
save the world from a mad evil ETC type basic RPG story as a example or even other non RPGs that use it too.
wish people at least try to be creative 30% more of the time. *mew

2011-06-13 14:32:00

Author:
Lord-Dreamerz

Posts: 4261

As a manga reader I can say that Japan is loosing steam even in that area.

2011-06-13 14:54:00

Author:
OmegaSlayer

Posts: 5112

You are judging Japans entire Game Industry output - just by the titles that managed to break out of Japan... and remember that it is western publishers/distributers that decide what games get released over here.

Japan has game genres of their own - ones that don't even exist outside of Japan.

I think that's a good thing... Japan should be making games for Japanese people - America should be making games for Americans - and British making games for Brits. Instead of all of them just trying to make games for the American market. (another military shooter anyone?)

If, while they are making their tailor made games for their target audience, it manages to broaden it's appeal - then that's all well and good ... but you shouldn't court global success... as you are more likely to alienate ALL markets instead of appeal to all markets - if say they were to make a purely Japanese title more Western friendly.... it wouldn't be Japanese enough for the Japanese audience, and wouldn't be Western enough for the western audience.

The Final Fantasy series may be losing it's edge - but that isn't the Be All & End All of Japanese games - as has been stated - Hideo Kojima still tells a good story; & The Last Guardian is on the Horizon

2011-06-13 15:21:00

Author:
Macnme

Posts: 1970

As I understand it, Hideo Kojima's games have roughly equal appeal to both Japanese and international audiences. While some of his games are more well-known and in some cases have only been released in Japan his most significant work, the Metal Gear franchise seems tailored for Western audiences given how entrenced the storylines are in American politics and culture.

Additionally, some of the Japanese gaming industries most highly-regarded franchises such as Castlevania, Metroid and Legend of Zelda are actually much more popular outside of Japan. In fact, an American developer was hired to work on the Metroid Prime games. Thus, it isn't that Japanese game developers are always courting disaster by trying to appeal to a demographic outside of of their nation and it's actually quite possible the state of the game industry would have gone on a different direction if they never tried and some of these franchises never got off the ground. I don't know if it would have necessarily gone in a worse direction, but I do feel that the industry (and its treatment of female characters, as uneven as it still is) is better off with Samus Aran as one of its icons then without her.

Final Fantasy was also probably the first JRPG to achieve significant success outside of Japan and in that franchises' case it may have contributed to its own downfall by continuously pandering (rather then appealing) to the fans but at the same time I don't think isolating the target demographic to a particular sphere is particularly conductive to developer's ability to produce quality either. If anything, it has the potential to limit the sort of stories and experiences a game can provide and stunt creativity. Team Ico notably doesn't even seem to conform to either Japanese or Western expectations as to what a game should be but that is also arguably why their games have such an interesting appeal.

2011-06-16 04:22:00

Author:
Dapiek Absaroka

Posts: 512

Metal Gear Castlevania, Metroid and Legend of Zelda Final Fantasy

All established series dating back to when Japan was the dominent force in the console market, they can still sell well thanks to their established fanbase although that is in decline for some series.

They're doing alright in the handheld market but when it comes to the console market (especially the HD ones) they aren't having much success with new IP.

2011-06-16 11:21:00

Author:
Rabid-Coot

Posts: 6728

Square Enix is a company responsible for many of my favorite games, currently playing a game by them actually, Star Ocean The Last Hope.
I largely agree with what Macnme is saying and that we just are not getting as much games from Japan because they just arent as popular in western countries

2011-06-17 03:01:00

Author:
Snrm

Posts: 6419

True enough. It's hard to judge whether this is the case with Metroid given that outside of the Prime games Nintendo doesn't really release new titles in the series very regularly but after the lukewarm response to Another M the fans might be in for another long wait. I certainly feel that like SE in respect to FF, Konami doesn't quite know what to do with Castlevania after their overall questionable experimentations with transitioning the franchise to 3D in recent years and the implications of Lords of Shadow's ending which effectively rebooted the franchise and turned the overall narrative upside down.

In regards to the company's use of the Metal Gear franchise I'm actually not sure if it really needs to go anywhere as Kojima had, on some level, been wanting out of the franchise since MGS2 but still managed to wrap up the overall narrative rather effectively (albeit with the screwy continuity that was already present for much of the franchise) with the end of MGS4 and personally I don't think there are anymore stories within the Metal Gear-verse that are worth telling beyond sidestories that occur before said game. Kojima himself seems to understand this given his only announced projects since 4 have been two sidestory games and rereleases.

So perhaps the lesson to take from him which ties back into the point Rock was making is don't make games out of a need to perpetuate a franchise, rather make games when you have an idea for an experience that are actually worth experiencing?

2011-06-17 03:21:00

Author:
Dapiek Absaroka

Posts: 512

Well, my point about the Japanese games industry is this... how many other game territories make and release the majority of games for their home audience?
None that I can think of... all European developers have an eye on the American Markets... and all American Developers have an eye on the European markets.
Where-as Japan make and release games for the Japanese market.

I would say that makes them a far healthier games industry than the rest.

The British Games industry is in a far worse state - but no-one cares about that (despite giving the western audiences most of it's truely "Great" titles*)

*contentious statement warning!

2011-06-17 08:00:00

Author:
Macnme

Posts: 1970

Or how about Grand Theft Auto...a perfect example... most people think it's an American made game... and for good reason. There isn't anything "British" about the game at all... despite it being a "Scottish" made game - the only way you would know it had anything to do with Scotland is the Scottish Homeless Drunks, and a Traffic Cone on a Statues head. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4264683.stm)

If you see a Japanese game... you KNOW it's Japanese straight away.... it oozes Japanese culture and style.
But British games seem to ooze American culture and style, which is why nobody knows, or cares, what games are actually British made - or what state the British games industry is in.

2011-06-17 14:52:00

Author:
Macnme

Posts: 1970

2011-06-17 15:01:00

Author:
OmegaSlayer

Posts: 5112

Hm...British developers that just got in the top of my mind
Codemasters (Dirt and Grid are awesome)
Criterion Games (Burnout anyone)
Rocksteady (Batman Arkham)
Ninja Theory (Heavenly Sword, Enslaved, crap in my opinion)
Bizarre Creation (closed now, but Blur has been a real cool and fun different racer)
Media Molecule

British industry seems cool to me

Yeah, British Games Developers make some pretty cool games... but none of them are "British" at all.
Japan gets Japanese Games, America gets American games.
But Europe gets American and Japanese games (even when they are made by British Devs, they still 'look' American), despite being a bigger market than America.

Japan still makes some of the biggest titles in the Games Industry... and games have a much larger market share in Japan than in America or Europe.
Japan's games industry is still very healthy, compared to it's contemporaries. They treat games releases the same way we treat Movie releases - with Red Carpet Premiers and Celebrity Endorsements.
Despite the Games Market being worth more than all other forms of media (newspapers/books/magazines/film/TV/Music) combined, we still treat the games industry as the geeky outsider.

2011-06-17 15:15:00

Author:
Macnme

Posts: 1970

Hm...British developers that just got in the top of my mind
Codemasters (Dirt and Grid are awesome)
Criterion Games (Burnout anyone)
Rocksteady (Batman Arkham)
Ninja Theory (Heavenly Sword, Enslaved, crap in my opinion)
Bizarre Creation (closed now, but Blur has been a real cool and fun different racer)
Media Molecule

British industry seems cool to me

Codemasters - Externally owned
Criterion - Owned by EA
Rocksteady - Owned by Time Warner
Ninja Theory - Independant
Bizzare - Formerly owned by Activision
Media Molecule - Owned by Sony

We do have some great developers but most are owned by foreign companies.
Codemasters are 50% owned by Reliance BIG Entertainment (India) and Balderton Capital (UK) Seems to have the other 50% they can both self publish and publish games from other studios.

Ninja Theory are the only Independant developer in that sample as far as I know but unfortunatly they aren't in a great position, they don't own any IP (again as far as I know) and their recent output hasn't sold that well.

2011-06-17 19:31:00

Author:
Rabid-Coot

Posts: 6728

^^^^;
That's also due in part (foreign ownership of UK devs) because of the UK's idiotic stance on the game industry.
We give tax breaks and public subsidy to loads of forms of creative media - Art Galleries, Interpretive Dance, Ballet, Film etc.
But we give no help at all for the Games Industry... we just allow them to be bought over by foreign companies or just fold with no help at all.

That's why I'm far more concerned with the British Games industry (which we 'should' be world leaders in), than the Japanese Game Industry (that 'is' the world leader).

2011-06-20 12:00:00

Author:
Macnme

Posts: 1970

http://www.1up.com/news/hideo-kojima-japanese-obsession-overseas

2011-06-23 01:18:00

Author:
Rabid-Coot

Posts: 6728

Western culture is rooted in conflict, Japan's culture is very much rooted in the idea of personal growth and spiritualism.

Think about that for a second and it'll seem obvious. The plot of most anime, their fondness for RPG games. Where in Western culture everything is about winning the battle and beating the bad guy, Japanese culture is very much about the main character becoming stronger, defeating bad guys merely being a way to accomplish this ~ Megaman is quite a nice example of this.

Personally I prefer the Japanese approach, but it's not too hard to see that the 2 cultures simply don't mix sometimes.

I think parts of the Japanese game industry are only failing because they're putting so much money into 'westernising' their games, and frankly doing a shoddy job of it, creating some weird off-putting western/japanese hybrids that neither audience likes.

2011-06-23 01:38:00

Author:
Dexiro

Posts: 2100

Umm, slight tangent here but what makes you think the "Japanese approach" indicates greater spirituality then the West?

Japan is one of the most secularized nations in the world, and there are certainly a far greater percentage of people in the US and UK that would call themselves Christians of some denomination (who serve as the reference simply because Christianity is the most popular religion to both places) then there are a percentage of Japan's inhabitants that could seriously claim to be adherents of any religion.

Admittedly, they do like incorperating religious and mythological themes into their media but rarely do they actually promote or explore them deeply; its actually equally possible, if not more likely that games and other forms of entertainment either treat religions in a negative light (ref. BoF2 and FFX) or the religious themes themselves serve no real purpose to the plot besides being stylistic choices (ref. Evangelion in its entirety). Okami, being rooted deeply in Shintoism, was probably the most remotely pro-religious game that came out of Japan possibly since ever but quite frankly only a minority of the Japanese population would count themselves as Shintoists, and that's not even factoring out the percentage of those that just practice Shinto rites out of a sense of cultural tradition rather then genuine belief in it. And besides, games like Okami still played loose with their religious elements when compared to works like say God of War which, as gory as the games were, treated Greek Mythology faithfully while at the same time exploring and driving the very belief system to its very brutal logical conclusion.

In any event, Japan's culture is only more "spiritual" in the very superficial sense that they are more ready to use religious and general spiritual elements in their works then the West, but that's largely because of the slight taboo against addressing religious elements the West has due to it being something personal to many Western people as well as the fact that many attempts at doing so by Western game developers have generally produced games of terrible quality (r.e. Bible Stories). Although, I suppose in this particular regard, Japan really is superior then the West in what they produce but it comes off as more due to a mentality of liberal usage and reinterpretation and lack of personal investment in aforementioned usage rather then actual spirituality much less deeper exploration of religious themes beyond the oft used theme of institutional corruption.

And there I went off again...

2011-06-23 04:55:00

Author:
Dapiek Absaroka

Posts: 512

Well, I didn't really bother to read much of what others have said, but on the Final Fantasy topic, My favorite was always FF:tactics.

I don't know why they haven't expanded on this form of RPG more, I find it the most entertaining out of all the different concepts out there. It has more so of an actual strategic side to it, I find it much more engaging and challenging then the usual formula of, Attack, enemy turn, Attack, enemy turn, Heal, Attack, enemy turn. . .
I know that's not how most RPG's work, but when you boil it down, thats the basis of the battle scheme for most final fantasy games. I'm a HUGE fan of SE, but as most of you have said, there has been a decline in quality. Anywho, back to the game I was talking about, FF:tactics focuses on what I think should be the main drive of any RPG/Strategy game, the innovative side of the Tactics involved in the game play.

This all just my opinion, but I really hope they do plan on going back to the tactics series some day ^^.

2011-06-23 05:27:00

Author:
iKyle94

Posts: 60

SE has released two (technical) sequels to FFT as well as a remake though none of them has been as well-received as the original and it is questionable as to whether SE will be able to actually make a worthy followup after Matsuno's departure from the company.

And other companies actually have explored strategic rpgs further with series like Disgaea, which I'm sure Mac will attest to their quality and I like 'em too. Disgaea itself served as a sort of reconstruction of strategic rpgs after the emphasis on politics and classism of FF Tactics, the Tactics Ogre games and similar games within the genre whereas Disgaea itself is basically a very comedic series that lampoons anime/videogame tropes constantly as well as serving a callback to the halycon days of sprite-based character model. You could say that in addition to reimagining the strategy rpg the series is also simultaneously a glorious exhaultation and relentless mockery of Japanese entertainment media.

While the games do have a significant cult following in both hemispheres from what I understand Nippon Ichi (Disgaea's parent company) itself is rather uncertain of the future of the franchise and themselves with the fourth installment just being released recently. Them's the risks of actually taking creative risks in the business I suppose...

2011-06-23 06:01:00

Author:
Dapiek Absaroka

Posts: 512

Umm, slight tangent here but what makes you think the "Japanese approach" indicates greater spirituality then the West?

.....

I'm not saying the Japanese are all religious nuts, they're just very fond of the theme. While I don't know the finer details of Japanese culture the whole "self improvement" aspect that they love so much often seems to have an element of spiritualism, usually showing itself in the way certain themes or abilities are manifested. There seems to be quite a bit of mythology and tradition as well, but you probably know more about that than I do.

I dunno, I wish I could argue my case better but I'm not an expert on Japanese stuff, I'm just relaying what I've been told by people better informed than me

2011-06-23 06:53:00

Author:
Dexiro

Posts: 2100

2011-06-23 07:01:00

Author:
Dexiro

Posts: 2100

2011-06-23 09:50:00

Author:
jeperty

Posts: 486

I agree with Dexiro's assessment actually.

While it's not a hard and fast rule... a Japanese style RPG will feature a "coming of age" theme - where the main protagonist will venture out (usually after some kind of personal tragedy; "They killed/stole/beat up my Parents/Horse/Girlfriend" / Burned down my Villiage etc) - along the way will meet new friends and allies, who they wouldn't normally expect to associate with - they will grow and learn and in the end come to some personal revelation about themselves - usually discovered from the dying words of the obligatory boss man.
These are similar themes to well known spiritual stories, such as "The Journey to The West" - or even biblical stories.

Contrast that with the average western game - who's story normally consists of "Foreign Invaders are threatening your way of life - pick up the biggest gun you can find and DESTROY THEM ALL!". You then kill wave after wave of Foreign invaders - there is no character growth, no personal revelation. After killing the obligatory boss-man you are the same blood-thirsty killing machine that you were at the start of the game. There's no progression of the character.

I think this is what he means by "Spiritualism" in a game - rather than either market having more "spiritual gamers".

2011-06-24 10:51:00

Author:
Macnme

Posts: 1970

In regards to personal growth, there is a difference between spiritualism (which refers to any sort of religious belief system) and spirituality (a means to discovery, which can involve personal growth and/or religion) but I'm splitting hairs here. And again, using "spiritual" themes in a game doesn't really indicate if a culture is more spiritual then another if those themes are purely window dressing or part of a gameplay mechanic anymore then me wearing a t-shirt with a ying-yang symbol on it indicates that I'm a daoist; similarly, nor does viseral violence being a stylistic and gameplay choice indicate a culture is more bloodthirsty then another (however, if you're going to claim Americans are on average more bloodthirsty then the Japanese at present then I'd agree but due to factors far greater then electronic entertainment).

More importantly, while Western games are generally bloodier and less focused on characterization, they are at the same time moving towards more frequently addressing broad social themes which are notably non-spiritual but also generally more relevant to society. Consider games like Fallout and Bioshock; the games are very violent and the player characters are essentially blank slates but at the same time the bloodshed and freedom of gameplay serve as backdrops to exploring themes like misplaced nostalgia of times gone by and the inevitable failings of any social dogma taken to their extreme. They are admittedly probably not going to be the greatest exploration of those themes, but its not as if characters in a videogame are going to be as potentially as deep as characters in a novel either. And while the goal of these games is often gunning down that which opposes you, its also made apparent that doing so does not automatically correct the underlying themes that set in motion what opposed you. Whereas oftentimes stopping whatever evil force tends to address nearly everything in a JRPG.

I won't deny that part of the decreasing appeal of Japanese games to the Western market can be partially attributed to bloodlust, but at the same it is not as if Western game makers are devolving in their overall ability to create a more thoughtful gameplay experience (not that they all try mind you).

2011-06-25 03:52:00

Author:
Dapiek Absaroka

Posts: 512

For some yes, but there's still doujinsoft games.

I won't deny that part of the decreasing appeal of Japanese games to the Western market can be partially attributed to bloodlust, but at the same it is not as if Western game makers are devolving in their overall ability to create a more thoughtful gameplay experience (not that they all try mind you).
I dare anyone who plays FPSes, to play Silent Hill 2 and Majora's Mask

Blood and Gore don't make games, period.

Hell, some of game ideas I have, wouldn't appeal to some people.(You want to hear my game ideas? It'll have to be via PM)

Sorta of like Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

RE is more popular, because of the action and the zombies, while Silent Hill is still a cult hit series.

I mean, more people seem to prefer ghosts and cliche-ish horror, rather than playing something that's a experience to say.

JRPGs don't get much applause here and some of them are niche games.

EarthBound/Mother 2 wasn't even popular here, until a few years ago and it's a 16 year old game and yet Nintendo won't listen.

The Anime/Manga industry is suffering too, with some of them ripping off of stuff or just having the main characters as ditzy schoolgirls or wannabe heroes.

2011-06-25 21:46:00

Author:
Unknown User

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