Does Japan unfairly shun American games?
Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 9:00am by Boss HogWhile on the topic of Japanese games, Game Trailers tries to answer the following question in round table fashion: Does Japan unfairly shun American games?
In the video clip, analyst Michael Pachter asserts that no Western game has sold more than a million copies in Japan, whereas several Japanese games have done precisely that here in the US. Assuming his facts are right, he’s got a point. Why don’t the Japanese buy games from American publishers when they are more than willing to watch American movies and listen to American music?
Game importer Nathan Paine believes it’s because the Japanese value fun, fantasy, and freedom of ideas (what he calls the four F’s) more than American publishers. He believes American developers rely too heavily on what calls the four R’s: rockets (senseless violence), realism, and rights (or licensed movie games, etc) adding that publishers like EA and Activision are less likely to take risks on new games in favor of steady (albeit plateauing) profits.
Personally, I haven’t got a clue as to why. Penny for your thoughts?
September 25th, 2007 at 9:24 am
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptWhile on the topic of Japanese games, Game Trailers tries to answer the following question in round table fashion: Does Japan unfairly shun American games? In the video clip, analyst Michael Pachter asserts that no Western game has sold … [...]
September 25th, 2007 at 9:50 am
I like to think the reverse.
Why do Western Devs shun the Japanese market?
I mean, we all understand why we find Final Fantasy cool in the west. All it really takes is for a western dev to get into that kind of aesthetic. It never happens though. No. We have 1st person shooter X staring hulking space marine Y using BFG Z. We produce almost nothing quirky, almost nothing that appeals to the Japanese RPG audience, almost nothing in the way of decent puzzle or non-gamer games, and when we do once in a while make those games, we don’t advertise them, we don’t package them well (killed the ratchet and clank games there) and/or we distribute them online via Xbox live arcade (which no one there has).
September 25th, 2007 at 10:51 am
No Western game sold more than a million in Japan? Western Published or Western Developed? What does he mean by that?
DKC is Wetsern Devved. It sold more than a million.
Does it have to be published by a Western Dev?
Does Tetris count? Well it is East of the Meridian. Damn. I wonder if Pachter is taking this “cultural bias” tack to explain how wrong he was over Wii and attempt to cover his ass for being a short-sighted idiot.
September 25th, 2007 at 11:37 am
I agree with Jeff that they get a bit carried away there and overlook some obvious stuff like Tetris which is plenty popular in Japan. But, I’ve been living in slightly rural Japan for a little more than a year now and I do think that Nathan hits upon some key points here with the Japanese market.
Violence (especially involving guns) is definitely quite rare here and therefore seen quite differently. It has to be justified with a convincing storyline and, even then, people here don’t tend to care much for realistic gore. MGS might be the exception for realism but that game is structured more like a movie than your typical game and you often have the choice to avoid violence with stealth.
You hardly ever seen guns on TV and I’ve never see little kids running around with plastic guns playing soldier like I did as a little kid. They’d rather be collecting things like bugs, playing sports or reading manga. To an extent, I think this extrapolates to adult game tastes. If there’s violence it’s has to be more woven in with the story and not the centerpiece. Otherwise people here just can’t relate to it.
I was watching the horror movie “Saw” with my girlfriend from here the other day. Neither of us were a big fan of the movie but she immediately attacked the storyline has being simply unjustified violence. Growing up with US horror movies, I found myself almost expecting there to be hardly any story simply because it was a horror movie. Go figure.
Speaking of storyline, everyone here reads a lot of manga. “Great literature” might be overlooked to the dismay of teachers here but people have an attention span and high expectations for in-depth (and often crazy) storylines. I think manga and games for adults are seen as an escape from the stress of work. Yet another reason why Japanese games often steer clear of ultra-realistic games… people often want to get away from real life here not closer to it. Either way, take one look at a Japanese RPG and the storyline follows a lot like the manga people here all grow up with. Western RPGs are more like D&D where the player steer the story which I think is a turn off to Japanese players.
The in and out-group dynamics of society here tend to push two trends (and I emphasize the word trend because, of course, not everyone is the same). Often, I find people here would rather go with a group mentality than have to make choices alone. Also people are more interested in empathizing with others compared to just thinking for themselves. This later part is even built-in to the Japanese language. When you talk to someone you often are taking into consideration how you think the listener is feeling. A mother for instance might refer to her son as “boku” or the male version of “I” because she is completely empathizing with his viewpoint as she speaks. I think this later concept especially has a lot to do with storyline preferences.
I agree with Nathan that American films are big here simply because the local industry can’t compete in the same way. Western music doesn’t much count since most don’t understand the lyrics they’re hearing. However, I do think Nathan was a bit too one-sided when talking about movie tie-ins. While I totally agree the reliance of western publishes on movie licenses stifles creativity… don’t think that same thing doesn’t happen here. Anime and manga tie-in games are a dime a dozen and there are plenty of crap games to be found.
September 25th, 2007 at 11:55 am
i don’t see how they unfairly shun American games…their games are better anyway
September 25th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
lrn2count
September 25th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Jared says it very bluntly but very honestly.
The Japanese make better games because they put more creativity into their games. Americans…not so much. Very rarely do we do anything creative outside of the FPS genre, which is starting to repeat itself worse than ever. FPSs in the US are like side-scrolling platformers in the 90s. There are just too many of them.
We Americans need to think outside the box in the games industry. Sadly, that doesn’t always pull in the best profit, which is why we don’t. Oh well. Here’s to hoping Japan never stops localizing their products for the US (and they wont).
September 25th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
COMPARE THE 2 BEST SELLERS IN EACH COUNTRY.
America: GTA
Japan: Final Fantasy
Look at production for these 2 games and american games always look pretty shitty no matter how fun they are. Yu could say Japanese are the “ultimate graphic whore and prduction value” americans love their shooting simulators.
September 25th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
greatslack: lrn2type&spell
September 25th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
rokerovakero, Pokemon destroys both of those games in both territories as for as “best selling” goes.
September 25th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Elmer “gets it”.
September 25th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
The “four” Fs and the “four” Rs are both only three.
September 26th, 2007 at 1:41 am
bottom line is first person shooters don’t do well in japan for 2 reasons. and as someone hit on previously, most of the best games made by american companies are either shooters or sports games. and we know that generally american people and everyone else in the world have very different tastes in sports. american football is completely nonexistent outside of the US. baseball is popular in like 5 other countries, as is hockey. the only american sport popular on the global scale is basketball which is turning out to be as popular as michael jackson in the states nowadays. in any case, the 2 reasons FPS’s don’t do well in japan is because japanese don’t like first person viewed games. one can understand why when a good percentages of people playing those games get motion sickness. the other reason was already touched upon, and that is the japanese view violence differently than americans. if you look at japanese culture, japanese anime is what stands out. japanese people aren’t looking at what is the most realistic game out taste wise. they’re tastes are greatly influenced by anime.
September 26th, 2007 at 4:47 am
@AC
Baseball is super popular. TV channels often change the schedule to show a baseball game instead of anime. Konami and co. just make the better sports games compared to *cough*EA*cough*.
For western RPG, most are for PCs and PCs aren’t as popular as a gaming plattform as consoles. Those for consoles are often not more than a hack’n slay in disguise or something like Oblivion. Also, the settings are quite different compared to the typical japanese fantasy setting (too much orks and demons from the netherworld).
September 30th, 2007 at 3:19 am
[...] I Keep It Real wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptWhile on the topic of Japanese games, Game Trailers tries to answer the following question in round table fashion: Does Japan unfairly shun American games? In the video clip, analyst Michael Pachter asserts that no Western game has sold … [...]