Why does SE believe that people don't like JPRGs?

[Psychotic]

I think it's also telling how FFXIII outsold nearly all the games Wolf mentioned.

If it had any other name than "Final Fantasy XIII" would it have? We can never know, but in such a hypothetical scenario somehow I doubt it. It's particularly telling that its sequels combined struggled to match even half of FFXIII's first week sales.

[Bolivar]

So did X-2, which some people felt was a better game than the original.

[Psychotic]

Final Fantasy X-2 matched 65% of Final Fantasy X's sales.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 matched 45% of Final Fantasy XIII's sales.

Lighting Returns only matched 14% of Final Fantasy XIII's sales.

Incidentally, I think all of the sequels above are better than the original but that's not relevant. What's relevant is the number of people who enjoyed the first game and wanted more because we are assessing the quality of that first game and not its sequels. It is evident that the majority of the people who played Final Fantasy XIII did not want more.

[Spuuky]

JRPGs generally do not require excellent hand-eye co-ordination with precise timing, but that doesn't make them a City Building Sim.

???

[Loony BoB]

Both genres don't require expert hand-eye co-ordination and precise timing. Basically differing them from the likes of FPS games, Fighter games, etc. which do require such things. A different set of skills required.

[Mirage]

My JRPGs require good timing.

[Loony BoB]

I don't imagine they require FPS-level stick accuracy and timing, though. I imagine you all get the point regardless of semantics.

[VeloZer0]

stuff

References to other genres weren't brought up to imply that they are equivalent, it is to show that things that were distinct to JRPGs are increasingly co-opted into other genres.

Imagine if you will two products, #1 and #2. #1 has features A,B,C and #2 has features D,E,F. If #2 adds features B and C then people who were mainly interested in B & C no longer are solely constrained to product #1. This tends to decrease the market share of product #1, though there are still people who like A and the combination A,B,C.

In this case those features are story telling as a central game role, and (in a more general RPG sense), leveling/skill progression mechanics. The genere can't trade on it's old signature staples as well as it could before, because there is more competition in the market place. But instead of focusing on strengthening the parts/combinations that are unique to the JRPG SE is instead trying to compete in an area it is no longer dominant in (story telling) and ripping up things that it can still offer that other genres don't (turn-ish based combat, etc..).

[Spuuky]

I don't imagine they require FPS-level stick accuracy and timing, though. I imagine you all get the point regardless of semantics.

Oh man, people who try to play FPS games with a "stick" are just asking to lose. I can't believe that people actually play FPS games on consoles. Anyway, that's an unnecessary tangent.

This is just devolving into a discussion about what a JRPG is again. RPGs with stories still exist. If your concern is just to get a "choice-free" story (since the defining feature seems to be removing player agency in favor of a "better" story even though that's not really how it works) then those still exist, too.

[Psychotic]

FPS gaming is more fun on a console than PC to me and evidently millions of others. That attitude baffles me because it's not 1998 anymore and I can't figure out why people haven't noticed console FPS gaming has bloomed. I am never surprised at the ages of the PC elitists still sneering at the idea - you tell me what all the young gamers are playing their FPS games on and I'll tell you what the future of the FPS is surely going to be. If anyone disagrees I'm just going to refer you to Bob Dylan. The song is also apt for the actual topic of this thread

[Spuuky]

FPSing on a console is for people who have never tried it on a PC. There are obviously individual anomalous exceptions, mostly people with bad taste and worse hand-eye coordination.

You're right that it isn't 1998 anymore. Now we can directly compare the exact same game on the PC and on a console to clearly see that the PC version is objectively superior, rather than having to evaluate on different axes. I guarantee, with 100% certainty, that the best controller-using players in the world at FPS X would lose badly to the best mouse-and-keyboard players playing the same game. I don't understand why you would ever willingly make the sacrifice of using a controller for any game that requires aiming. Of course, game-designers know this; they add auto-aim features to consoles, and crosshair drift to PCs, because they are trying to even out the playing field.

I agree that console FPSes are the way of the future. Superiority isn't what most people are looking for. They aren't looking for a better game, they are looking for a game that their friends are most likely to be playing, and that's consoles. It's a bit of a prisoner's dilemma. Unfortunately, consoles will continue to succeed because people don't realize it isn't 2004 anymore and that PCs work with screens just as large and conveniently placed as XBoxes.

[Del Murder]

Wiimote with nunchuck is the best way to play fps.

[Wolf Kanno]

To bring this back to topic...

I like big games, whereas other genres struggle to make cinematic experiences that last more than a few hours. There's nothing wrong with that but it's something I like that JRPGs can give me.

I simply ask why? What makes a 10 hour experience different from a 40 hour one. What did FFVII accomplish that Metal Gear Solid didn't? Both games are filled with filler elements its just that MGS' only takes maybe thirty minutes out of your life whereas VII took over twenty hours to do.

Your "decline of the genre" is hyperbole; it's always been niche, yet there are more JRPGs (and Western imitations) coming out from more developers on more platforms than ever before.

Talk about a turn around, a few years back you would be the first to mention how FFVII opened up the genre for the mainstream and now here you are saying it was always niche despite the PS1 and PS2 literally coming apart at the seams with JRPGs while the last console generation and current console generation are on par with the Western 16-bit era which had lots of RPGs of its own but only a handful worth talking about. Three of the top 20 best selling games on the PS1 era JRPGs and six of the best selling on the PS2 were JRPGs, while the PS3 has 1. That to me shows the genre had a high and now its declined, largely because Square-Enix dropped the ball last generation.

Yes, a lot of them moved to handhelds and mobile but they are not doing well on them (well except Pokemon, but its a phenomena in itself) in the West because Western gamers have been very slow to embrace them. Handhelds are getting better reception but I can't tell you how I often I hear Western players bitch and moan when a new RPG is announced as a mobile. This is where genre is kind of going. The big budget games are too costly and barely make back the money that was put in whereas handhelds and mobile are cheap and easy.

I think it's also telling how FFXIII outsold nearly all the games Wolf mentioned.

Yes, but the Uncharted Trilogy has sold twice as much as the XIII trilogy. That tells me that most of the those XIII sales was mainly based on brand name, anticipation after waiting years for a new installment, and being the first entry on an overpriced console that players would hope would justify proof of admission, not because XIII was some wonderful blissful game. The sequels did terrible with XIII-2 not even selling half as many units as its predecessor, and Lightning Returns hasn't even broke a million units sold and almost half of the games sales are from Japan.

In fact a sales breakdowns shows that NA and EU have bought less with each installment. Skyrim has sold as well as XIII but the difference is that Skyrim's sales are still going up whereas XIII's have slowed to a crawl. So don't try to hold XIII's numbers and give it off as proof the JRPG is still viable on consoles. Most Western RPGs have done way better in the last generation than the JRPG console entries. Of the ten best selling RPGs of the last console cycle, only three are JRPGs and only one broke 2 million, in the PS2 era, all but one was a JRPG and six of the JRPGs sold over 4 million units. Also XIII sold less than both FFXII and X-2, and XII's sales are probably in the same boat as XIII in terms of probably being high based on hype and waiting years for a new installment as opposed to positive reception.

stuff

References to other genres weren't brought up to imply that they are equivalent, it is to show that things that were distinct to JRPGs are increasingly co-opted into other genres.

Imagine if you will two products, #1 and #2. #1 has features A,B,C and #2 has features D,E,F. If #2 adds features B and C then people who were mainly interested in B & C no longer are solely constrained to product #1. This tends to decrease the market share of product #1, though there are still people who like A and the combination A,B,C.

In this case those features are story telling as a central game role, and (in a more general RPG sense), leveling/skill progression mechanics. The genere can't trade on it's old signature staples as well as it could before, because there is more competition in the market place. But instead of focusing on strengthening the parts/combinations that are unique to the JRPG SE is instead trying to compete in an area it is no longer dominant in (story telling) and ripping up things that it can still offer that other genres don't (turn-ish based combat, etc..).

Yeah, this is what I am getting at BoB. I want to know what an epic 40 hour RPG console with all the bells and whistles can provide that can't be either better served by other genres or smaller productions on handhelds. I mean Bravery Default is a nice, visually stunning JRPG for the 3DS so why can it not hold up as well as a console entry?

[Bolivar]

I simply ask why? What makes a 10 hour experience different from a 40 hour one.

Commitment, along with a hundred different other things, none of which are relevant, constructive, or likely to help your argument that popularity is a zero-sum game, where video games can only sell units to the detriment of other video games.

Final Fantasy XIII did not sell less than X-2, nor did its trilogy sell half of the Uncharted trilogy; we've reached the point where you're just making things up. There comes a point where our discussion threads are no longer exchanges of ideas, they're just meaningless words being thrown against eachother, and that's not something I'm entirely interested in doing anymore.

[Spuuky]

I simply ask why? What makes a 10 hour experience different from a 40 hour one. What did FFVII accomplish that Metal Gear Solid didn't? Both games are filled with filler elements its just that MGS' only takes maybe thirty minutes out of your life whereas VII took over twenty hours to do.

Pacing is totally different if the same story is packed into 10 hours rather than 40. For some things, that pace might be better. For others, it might be worse. Both forms offer different things; like the difference between a "mini-series" and a movie on TV. You can delve into things in a lot more detail, if you wish, if you have a longer time frame to work with. You can flesh out a world, rather than carefully structuring the illusion of depth all the time.

And if you are going to immerse yourself in a world, and you love that world, the longer you can stay immersed, the better it is. If the goal is world-immersion rather than a specific story or on top of a specific story, a longer game is inherently better, even if someone incorrectly deems some of the material to be "filler." This, specifically, is what handheld RPGs can't offer nearly as well as a full-production games.

I could tell the story of Crime & Punishment in 200 less pages than Dostoevsky did, by removing "filler." I can assure you I would lose a lot more than that along with it. Have you ever watched a Kurosawa movie? They are very long. The pacing is exquisite. You could tell the same story in an hour-long movie, but it wouldn't be the same story.