Are JRPGs Proving Unpopular in the West?

[Wolf Kanno]

Found this amusing article (http://www.dailytargum.com/inside_beat/video_games/are-jrpgs-proving-unpopular-in-america/article_d16705ee-ad19-11e2-860f-0019bb30f31a.html) and while I don't necessarily agree with some of the articles points, I do feel the topic itself is valid. So do you agree disagree? Why and Why not? Is it because people want hyper-"realism" and those cartooney designs are turning Westerners away? Or do you feel its more about the genre regurgitating too many of its own elements making every game a bit too predictable? Or is it because the genre is trying too hard to emulate other successful franchises? Perhaps you feel feel the article is wrong and will simply point out the genre is alive and well just on handheld and then proceed to go into a rant about the gaming community's total racism against handheld gaming?

[Shauna]

I was gonna come in and say that they're probably doing okay in Europe since we were handed the Operation Rainfall titles without having to fight tooth and nail for them, but then I noted the article was about America. :p

I would honestly say that RPGs are just a niche genre. They probably don't sell as well as other titles/genres, which is where the notion that America doesn't want them comes from. I imagine it's the same thing that's plaguing horror games - they don't sell as well as other genres, therefore nobody wants it. Not unpopular, but not as popular, and that's risky business. :3

[Pike]

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of it had to do with the Xbox's rise. Unlike Nintendo, Sega, and Playstation, Xbox was never big in Japan and there weren't many Japanese games developed for either of its incarnations so far. So as Xbox slowly chips away at Sony's base, Japanese games get less exposure.

I could be way off the mark, I suppose, but it's a thought :bounce:

[Skyblade]

Go to the General Square Enix forum and explain why Final Fantasy has topped the PSN charts for so long. Explain why the best selling game on the Vita is Persona 4 Golden. Ni No Kuni or the Operation Rainfall games also spring to mind. JRPGs seem to be doing fine to me.

[Depression Moon]

They've been unpopular since the beginning among the casual crowd, regarding the core, yeah now I'm seeing less and less of them than before. Back in the PS1 and 2 days I had no problems finding a good amount of quality JRPGs. I just want them to come back some day soon, because I miss them.

[Del Murder]

They're unpopular because there hasn't been as many good ones as there have been in the past.

[Slothy]

I really don't think they're unpopular in the West, I just think that the core audience that likes them has never been as big as people imagined it was.

Basically think of Final Fantasy as the Call of Duty of the genre. It generally sells a lot, but most games in the genre have never, and can never expect to, sell as much as that.

but we do see fewer JRPG's these days than we used to, and I think the reason why kind of spirals out of my point above: AAA development is expensive and the Japanese market has kind of shifted more towards handhelds and mobile devices than it used to be. There's certainly still a console market there, but it's hard to make a JRPG with AAA production values and sell enough to make a profit. Even when the name on the cover is Final Fantasy.

There's a reason that there seems to have been a number of higher profile JRPG's coming out on the Wii and DS instead of the PS3 or 360 in the last several years. Selling a few hundred thousand units, or even just tens of thousands, is just more reasonable on those platforms.

[Bolivar]

Final Fantasy XIII sold more copies on PS3 alone than Mass Effect 2 did on every platform combined. The Elder Scrolls throws a wrench into this comparison, but those games are on the popularity level of Mario and Call of Duty. Final Fantasy was never that popular and few games in history have been.

Every genre has its winners and losers and just because a few JRPGs sold a paltry amount of copies does not overcome how Eschalon: Book One, Gothic 4, or Legend of Grimrock did the same.

To answer some other OP icebreakers:


Or do you feel its more about the genre regurgitating too many of its own elements making every game a bit too predictable? Or is it because the genre is trying too hard to emulate other successful franchises?

I think everyone on this forum will agree, this definitely isn't endemic to JRPGs, much less Japan.

RPGs just aren't popular, period. It's why every Western one who goes or tries to go big has eliminated all vestiges of RPG mechanics in order to appeal to the masses. So has the new trend of Japanese Action RPGs like Monster Hunter, God Eater and Dark Souls.

In any case, it doesn't matter. There's still lots of great JRPGs coming out, on handheld and console. Even PC now that Ys is all over Steam.

[Del Murder]

Final Fantasy XIII sold more copies on PS3 alone than Mass Effect 2 did on every platform combined.
That's simply false, unless you talking about global sales, which is not the point of this thread. ME2 on 360/PS3 sold more than FFXIII on PS3 in North America and Europe. This doesn't even count all the PC sales ME2 had.

[Pike]

The Elder Scrolls throws a wrench into this comparison, but those games are on the popularity level of Mario and Call of Duty.

Elder Scrolls was pretty damn niche until Skyrim came along. Arena and Daggerfall were hardcore DOS dungeon-crawling territory. Morrowind and Oblivion were popular and sold fairly well, but they were far from being any sort of global phenomenon. I was working at GameStop when Oblivion came on the scene and no one gave a crap. Meanwhile there were midnight releases for Halo 3 and World of Warcraft expacs. Skyrim is the game that put TES on the map.

(Sorry, I get touchy when it comes to TES :shobon: )

[Shauna]

I just did a little bit of digging and FFXIII didn't sell that much better in NA compared to Japan. 1.87mil sales compared to the 1.57mil in NA. But then you could chalk that up to people around the world just not liking FFXIII. xD

EDIT: That was just PS3 sales! Including the Xbox sales kicks FFXIII up a bit in NA...

2.7mil in NA, and 1.88mil in Japan.

(Source of figures here http://www.vgchartz.com/)

[Slothy]

Final Fantasy XIII sold more copies on PS3 alone than Mass Effect 2 did on every platform combined.
That's simply false, unless you talking about global sales, which is not the point of this thread. ME2 on 360/PS3 sold more than FFXIII on PS3 in North America and Europe. This doesn't even count all the PC sales ME2 had.

Looking at the vgchartz info it would seem that FFXIII just barely outsold Mass Effect 2 in the West (by about 300,000 copies), but I don't buy those numbers. They indicate that PC sales in North America were literally zero. Sales numbers for digital platforms like Steam just aren't available anywhere and the game has been available for download on PS3 and I'd assume 360 as well for quite some time. There's no way I could be convinced with the available data that Mass Effect 2 was outsold by FFXIII.

[Shadowdust]

Found this amusing article (http://www.dailytargum.com/inside_beat/video_games/are-jrpgs-proving-unpopular-in-america/article_d16705ee-ad19-11e2-860f-0019bb30f31a.html) and while I don't necessarily agree with some of the articles points, I do feel the topic itself is valid. So do you agree disagree? Why and Why not? Is it because people want hyper-"realism" and those cartooney designs are turning Westerners away? Or do you feel its more about the genre regurgitating too many of its own elements making every game a bit too predictable? Or is it because the genre is trying too hard to emulate other successful franchises? Perhaps you feel feel the article is wrong and will simply point out the genre is alive and well just on handheld and then proceed to go into a rant about the gaming community's total racism against handheld gaming?


I don't think there's any one thing that has led to a lack of interest from western markets. Between poor advertising, long development periods, and lackluster innovation in gameplay mechanics the genre has simply lost notice. And with prices for games being sky high at a time where the economy is struggling leads to a more cautious consumer.

I have found this to be an extremely underwhelming generation for JRPGs. I have a library of this genre spanning from the PSX and PS2 generations. And then I look at this generation, and my collection is sparse for any console I have. In order to accumulate what I have, it has taken three consoles and one handheld. That's unacceptable for success. How many people can really afford three consoles and then buy games for each at $60 minimum?

The real shame is that JRPG publishers have largely ignored the most affordable platform available, Steam for PC. With the advances in gaming worthy integrated graphics on PCs, it could be a largely lucrative market for Japanese publishers. And granted, piracy would increase in these games but so would their visibility. I am running into more and more PC gamers these days than I ever did in previous generations and I really think it is because of platforms like Steam which allow for some pretty affordable games. I personally find my own consoles collecting dust as I continue gaming on my PC instead.

Those are just a few thoughts I can drum up right now. Obviously, there's more to the story than what I think on the subject. The one thing I really hope for though is the return of the JRPG in its former glory to western gamers. I really miss kicking back with a new JRPG that doesn't require hand cramping on a handheld. :P

[Matthewtheman]

It depends on the JRPG. Ones from moar well-known JRPG series' such as FF, KH, and Pokemon are popular, but moar obscure JRPGs aren't.

[Bolivar]

If anyone can find any counterbalancing numbers that'd be awesome.

But even if Mass Effect 2 did sell 20,000 or so more copies in the West, I think the point stands that JRPG popularity isn't the big deal "journalists" make it out to be. It has big blockbusters, modest-sellers, and lesser-known entities just like any other genre.

And it's a great time to be a fan, especially in light of the last Nintendo Direct conference.

[Wolf Kanno]

The real shame is that JRPG publishers have largely ignored the most affordable platform available, Steam for PC. With the advances in gaming worthy integrated graphics on PCs, it could be a largely lucrative market for Japanese publishers. And granted, piracy would increase in these games but so would their visibility. I am running into more and more PC gamers these days than I ever did in previous generations and I really think it is because of platforms like Steam which allow for some pretty affordable games. I personally find my own consoles collecting dust as I continue gaming on my PC instead.

Those are just a few thoughts I can drum up right now. Obviously, there's more to the story than what I think on the subject. The one thing I really hope for though is the return of the JRPG in its former glory to western gamers. I really miss kicking back with a new JRPG that doesn't require hand cramping on a handheld. :P

The issue with Publishers and I think what might be part of the issue with bringing these games over is something that I've heard come up from the anime publishers, which is that Japanese companies tend to charge an arm and leg to get publishing rights outside of their country. I think this is why we see such a huge gulf in the genre with people like Vanillaware and Atlus publishing smaller obscure games (because its probably cheaper than trying to bring out something bigger) and why the main big JRPGs are published in-house by big studios like Square-Enix and Sega, the issue for smaller companies is that sometimes, these publishing fees and the actual sales don't work out for them and so they may see a huge loss. Sometimes the gamble works, Atlus made a killing with Demon's Souls but due to the game's popularity, Atlus lost the publishing rights to its spiritual sequel Dark Souls because Sony outbid them when the publishing rights came up.

For the big titles, I think we are seeing fewer because the sales don't equal the costs to produce and we're reaching a point where JRPGs that don't have a major company funding and publishing it or they are not small enough to be cheaply translated, tend to fall into the cracks. I think the idea of digital distribution will help publishers and frankly Square-Enix and Atlus have been making good use of things like Steam or the Big 3 Online shops, but this is of course only going to work on how much Steam and the Big 3 try to screw the publishers when it comes to allowing them to have their games on their distribution networks. I mean if Atlus has to pay a Japanese company a certain amount of money and sign over a generous percentage of total sales, spend money to translate, possibly VA work plus advertising, and then turn around and have to pay another generous amount of money to Steam for the privilege of selling their product on it, then the bottom line is probably going to be too small to bother unless they feel the game will be so successful that its high sales will offset their losses. Course that's assuming it work this way but considering you get free advertizing and don't have to deal with distributors, I'm certain whatever price tag Steam is offering is quite nice for a company that can do the translation work in house. I'm not sure how well it would work out for a company that is mostly dealing with being the middle man between Japanese development studios and the actual consumer.

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On a different note, there is also the issue of the dwindling big console JRPGs, we can agree the genre lives on with handhelds but what do you suppose is the real reason behind the genre slowly disappearing on the main three consoles. I mean at the start of the generation there was a ton of JRPGs released and then it kind of just stopped happening as often. I mean the WRPGs came to be but I don't really feel like they really overshadowed actual JRPGs because I don't really feel like any Big Budget titles came out at the same time as them.

If the genre is alive and well, why does it seem to be retreating from the big consoles, have we simply been living in the delusion that this genre was really designed fro handhelds and that's why they are taking off on them because they finally found their true home, or do you feel there is a reason JRPG companies are too afraid to make titles for the big boy consoles?

[Fuzakeru]

Numbers and reality aside : it does FEEL like JRPGs are less popular.

I refuse to live my life without a PS2 in to because I have a TON of JRPGs and I collected half of them by just walking in a store, seeing some cool cover art, reading the back, and buying it. I seemed to always walk out with a different JRPG every time I went in to a game store despite being up to date or not.

I feel like I now have to hunt in a game store for a JRPG title. It helps having a DS/3DS since a lot of JRPGs seem to have found a nice niche there but it is disappointing to now not just run across titles in the stores.

There's plenty to find online and purchase ( and I'm not against that ) but I miss the lucky happenstances.

[Dr. rydrum2112]

I am throughly disappointed with the jrpgs/console rpgs that game out this generation. In my mind it isn't time for ps4/neXtBox till this generation has a better games...

[Laddy]

To be honest I would say up until this generation WRPG's were a bit niche and it wasn't until the genre released game more accessible to general audiences that anyone bought them in large numbers.

As for JRPG's, there has simply been a lack of innovation and quality and the genre needs to realize how they're going to evolve and adapt to survive in the West. Most Japanese RPG's that did well over here really WRPG's (Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma). And with the exception of Xenoblade Chronicles, there's been a relative lack of innovation to keep audiences interested.

[ShinGundam]

To be honest I would say up until this generation WRPG's were a bit niche and it wasn't until the genre released game more accessible to general audiences that anyone bought them in large numbers.

As for JRPG's, there has simply been a lack of innovation and quality and the genre needs to realize how they're going to evolve and adapt to survive in the West. Most Japanese RPG's that did well over here really WRPG's (Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma). And with the exception of Xenoblade Chronicles, there's been a relative lack of innovation to keep audiences interested.
DkS and DD are action RPGs not WRPGs.
Xenoblade Chronicles is your grindy Korean MMO style.

As for innovation, I usually find this criticism to be filled with hypocrisy. Truth is JRPGs took off in late SNES/PS1 era and started getting bigger budgets and more development teams. This led to a wider variety of rpgs and lots and lots of high quality rpg titles. Then the Japanese video game market crashed and became more fragmented with PS3/360/PSP/Wii/DS and budgets took a nose dive and everyone just wanted to make cheap as possible rpgs for DS/PSP, then slightly less cheap rpgs for PS360wii. We reached point that specialized studios like Tri Ace and Game Arts don't get any contracts to make a major RPGs some even moved to work on social games and free to play games.

[Bolivar]

Yeah I think there's been a decent amount of innovation in JRPGs with Dark Souls and Demon's souls, which come from a very Japanese tradition as the spiritual successor to King's Field, and White Knight Chronicles also bringing in a lot of interesting ideas with online multiplayer, as well as evolving the FFXII system, which should be the new "traditional" JRPG combat system.

Then you have Valkyria Chronicles, a very bold step for SRPGs, and these are all console titles; after that comes the creative push on handheld with Radiant Historia and the like.

Honestly I'd say WRPGs are just as niche. Skyrim pretty much shed the last RPG vestiges that series had left, and we've all seen Bioware turn Mass Effect and Dragon Age into action games with dialogue trees. I doubt the popularity for the rest of the genre is really all that high.

[Renmiri]

I've been playing a lot of Bioware games and posting on their forum (ME3 sucks, DAI rules ) and it surprised me to see the amount of people who despise JRPGs as "outdated", "story too convoluted / doesn't make sense" and "JRPGs are not RPGs they are interactive movies since you don't get to chose anything", "too cartoony / childish" and other complaints. To the Bioware forum RPGs are CRPGs and JRPGs are just movies O.o

[Forsaken Lover]

If the genre is alive and well, why does it seem to be retreating from the big consoles, have we simply been living in the delusion that this genre was really designed fro handhelds and that's why they are taking off on them because they finally found their true home, or do you feel there is a reason JRPG companies are too afraid to make titles for the big boy consoles?

It's like you said earlier in this post - it's all about returns. I'm gonna guess that cranking out a game for the PSP doesn't cost anywhere near as much as a PS3 or Xbox 360 title. How much time and money must be spent on all those AWESOME GRAPHIX.

Businesses exist to make a profit and since the climate has cooled for JRPGs, it's less risky to make a handheld title than a main console one.

Also I don't think there's any real reason why JRPGs aren't as big as they once were. It's just the same thing as the Anime Boom finally folding; the bubble will eventaully burst for just about everything. The actual quality of the games really has little to do with it IMO. I mean, the two biggest anime ever in America are Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z, neither of which is really that good. Similarly the JRPGs of today don't have to be bad to not sell as well as JRPGs at their peak of Western popularity.

[Bolivar]

I've been playing a lot of Bioware games and posting on their forum (ME3 sucks, DAI rules ) and it surprised me to see the amount of people who despise JRPGs as "outdated", "story too convoluted / doesn't make sense" and "JRPGs are not RPGs they are interactive movies since you don't get to chose anything", "too cartoony / childish" and other complaints. To the Bioware forum RPGs are CRPGs and JRPGs are just movies O.o

This reminds me of the controversial statement that Bioware high ups made around the time FFXIII was outselling ME2 :love:.

The problem is not all WRPGs have you create a character (The Witcher), not all WRPGs have choices (The Elder Scrolls (not alot)) and not all WRPGs have open-worlds (Dragon Age). Even on pen-and-paper, these things have never been inherently necessary to tabletop RPGs (Forgotten Realms modules say hi). Even the whole dialogue-tree mechanic, I'd say is more derivative of early PC adventure games than they are of tabletop. No one plays Dungeons and Dragons like a multiple choice exam.

We've been asking what an RPG is on this forum all the time, and after spending a little time on the other side for the last year, I really think it's just the RPG gameplay and mechanics that makes them heirs to the title. In that way, I'd say WRPGs have moved further away from what makes an RPG than their Japanese counterparts have.

[Pike]

Honestly I'd say WRPGs are just as niche. Skyrim pretty much shed the last RPG vestiges that series had left, and we've all seen Bioware turn Mass Effect and Dragon Age into action games with dialogue trees. I doubt the popularity for the rest of the genre is really all that high.

This is why you play all the older ones :love: Right Laddy?

[Skyblade]

as well as evolving the FFXII system, which should never be used again because it was one of the worst systems the genre has ever had.

Fixed that for you.

While we're on the topic of handhelds, though, has anyone ever considered that they may just be a better platform for RPGs?

[Laddy]

Honestly I'd say WRPGs are just as niche. Skyrim pretty much shed the last RPG vestiges that series had left, and we've all seen Bioware turn Mass Effect and Dragon Age into action games with dialogue trees. I doubt the popularity for the rest of the genre is really all that high.

This is why you play all the older ones :love: Right Laddy?
People who play Dragon Age and Mass Effect for an RPG are playing for the wrong reasooooons~. :spin: