Discussion of the Japanese Gaming Industry... there will be cake...

[Wolf Kanno]

So a friend of mine brought a certain issue of EGM to my attention recently. The whole issue discussed the Japanese industry and how it has fallen behind in Western development.

Some cited that Japanese gamers have become too fickled, while others feel its more about the gaming companies fear of trying new ideas and branching out to foreign technology. What are your thoughts on the subject?

[Roto13]

I can post that article tomorrow, if anyone wants to read it. :P

[Karellen]

What sort of time frame are they talking about? As in, the last 5-10 years or just this generation? Either way I would be interested in reading the article since I think that's a pretty hard claim to back up. Unless they were purely talking about RPGs or something.

[Nifleheim7]

The whole issue discussed the Japanese industry and how it has fallen behind in Western development.

I have read this statement a couple of times in the last 2 years at sites like Gamasutra and Kotaku,coming mostly from Japanese developers themselves (Yamaoka and Kojima are the first to come in mind).They were talking about technology and not game design though.Even so i find this statement a bit exaggerated.
If it's possible i'm curious to read the article.

[Aerith's Knight]

No cake!?

ZOMG How could you betray me like that! >:[

*shakes head and leaves*

[Croyles]

I dont think they have fallen behind technologically, design wise possibly.
The area in which they seem to be really behind is market variation.
Ever wondered why a high minority of western gamers like eastern games, but eastern gamers know scrap all about western games?
I think thats a real shame and sort of shows you that japanese developers are shy of branching out. I get the feeling that japanese people instantly dismiss a game if its not made on their home soil, which bothers me...
Well ok the west churns out FPS after FPS but theres still variation in other examples...

Is anyone else bothered by this?

[Dreddz]

The increase in costs for developing big elaborate games for the PS3 or 360 have spiraled out of control these days. Most Japanese devs who aren't Konami or Capcom don't have the money to make these type of projects. Plus Japan have turned more to casual gaming so most Japanese devs have turned their attention to making games for the Wii or DS, and for the most part they have surpassed other regions in terms of innovation and quality in their games.

I think both Sony and Microsoft are to blame as well. They have made it clear that its the western market they are focused on and that's why they spend their money funding games like Killzone 2 and Gears of War 2, giving Japan the cold shoulder. They need to sort their stuff out and start giving Japan a lot more attention. Sony actually do a good job when getting Japan to make interesting games for them, Team Ico is a good example and games like White Knight Chronicles are also good examples. Shame they don't help Japanese devs a bit more.

[Roto13]

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[Nifleheim7]

Well ok the west churns out FPS after FPS

You saved your post right there!

I always thought of Japanese developers to be more innovative than western studios (with a few exceptions once in a while like LittleBigPlanet).I don't think they lack designwise,it's the hardware and technical knowledge in which (in some cases) they're left behind.
Just look what Nintendo did in this generation.Love them or hate them the fact is that they opened the industry to a whole new market.I think variety helps to make the industry more mature.I don't want games to follow the example of the Comic book industry which is about the same fanservice over and over again.
Like Dreddz said many Japanese developers have limited budgets compared to the big western studios but that doesn't stop them to be creative enough to compete with the west.Hardware limitations forces them to be more inventive.

[Croyles]

Well I can actually think of a lot more examples where the west has been creative and innovative.
Yeah the west produces too many FPSs. The same can be said of japan of making too many RPGs. While different RPGs may offer more variation between each other than FPSs between each other, the west still does a lot more than FPSs while the east in comparison, while doing things other than RPGs, not as much. I am not including the Wii into the equation here because while things like Wii sports and those sort of inhouse games are innovative in a way (though they dont appeal to me a lot), thats only nintendo and the rest of the stuff they produce, like Mario, Zelda etc etc is MOSTLY using the same formula, thats if you count SSBB and mario kart already as old school, which I do (great games btw, but thats not the point).

And that thing with budgets, im not sure if that is really all that truthful. If your comparing little east companies with little west companies then yeah the west has all the kaching.
Yet Japan has Konami, Capcom, Namco, Square Enix and others that all have huge budgets and probably all fall into the top 10 biggest publishers/developers in the world, not just Japan.
Oh and what about Nintendo? By now every single employee must be about as rich as Bill Gates lol, I think they could be doing a lot more than they are, despite whether or not they are already great.

Yet with that much manpower/womanpower and money, they hardly ever look to the west for inspiration while the west does take inspiration from the east, that was my main point.

This is probably because of the japanese market, where most people rather play smaller games. This brings me back to the market variation point.

I love Japanese games. Patapon, RPGs, etc etc are all great.
Their game design is flawed in that it doesnt take inspiration from the world, but only from itself, while the west does it differently. If they could look at more games for inspiration, their games would now not only be slightly better than most western games, they would probably tower over them and urinate on them while up there.
Thats what I was TRYING to say.
I dont even know if im bringing my point across well, but it makes sense in my head.

[Bolivar]

Their game design is flawed in that it doesnt take inspiration from the world, but only from itself, while the west does it differently.

I don't know about that one. How many JRPG's have you played with Churches with Crucifixes over them and monsters from greek mythology as bosses?

I think the main focus should be what the hell happened to the Japanese leading the industry? Reading the article, it just made me so sick of the rhetorical mutterings of how "western games have deep character customization and open-ended worlds" while "japanese games have linear storylines" - it's such a cop out. Mostly because it fails to account for just how boring so many of the most open world games are, and how disappointingly western developers with "innovative" ideas have failed to deliver. Peter Molineaux, that's all I have to say.

Man, I really can't wait for Valkyria Chronicles. Owning a next-gen system, I really felt for the first few months after the shine weared down that there really weren't many titles interesting me. And I damn sure attribute that to Japan's absence. With the current consoles being dominated by westerners, I feel the same rehashed mediocre gameplay, lackluster stories, and safe & proven formulas/genres are all that has been churning out. Please don't take this argument to the extreme - I could go down the list of western games that entertained the crap out of me in the last few years, but I feel like I haven't played anything as effective as Metal Gear Solid 3 until.... well, Metal Gear Solid 4...

[Croyles]

Their game design is flawed in that it doesnt take inspiration from the world, but only from itself, while the west does it differently.

I don't know about that one. How many JRPG's have you played with Churches with Crucifixes over them and monsters from greek mythology as bosses?

None if you count out FF, but that wasnt my point anyway. I wasnt talking about the stories, i was talking about game design.
How could you call that inspiration from western games? Its inspiration from the west, but not from western games...

[Vyk]

I actually agree and that might have something to do with why I stopped playing Japanese games. I never really analyzed it. But I guess that could definitely have something to do with it. I never really cared for simple pick-up-and-play games. Sure you can play a lot, but its so simple it hardly qualifies the price tag. Which really only leaves me with cheap adventure games (I don't like Mario and Zelda anymore, too cookie cutter. Their own fault, for copying themselves too many times. Which is what is being discussed I presume). Metroidvania games. Which suffer from the same things. And JRPGS. Which... suffer from the same things... Its true. Though you can change the storyline, the characters, even the battle mechanics. All JRPGs seem too similar to me. Same with everything else. I've maxed out on japanese adventure games and platformers. Its all the same to me. The differences are only skin deep. Its all lather rinse repeat. After playing Fable, KOTOR, and Oblivion I've seen true differences. Though they don't have the character and charm. They have the innovation and depth though. And real, not forced drama. The differences are unquestionable. Whereas I tried demos of Blue Dragon, Tales of Vesperia, and Eternal Sonata and they all seemed so bland to me... So very... old. I've played those games before :/ Too many times. I -want- to enjoy a JRPG again. But not the same one I enjoyed when I was 10 with just more spit and polish

[DMKA]

Pretty much all gaming, regardless of country, seems pretty blah at the moment. You've got Japan which is doing cool innovative stuff with consoles but doesn't seem to be doing much of anything in the way of actual games, while you've got America that keeps making the same first person shooter over and over and over and over.

So I dunno.

[Vyk]

I don't even count shooters when I consider games anymore. So maybe my perspective is a little off kilter

Everyone used to say XBox was nothing but shooters and sports games. And I was always like wha? I never touched either. In the end I bought DOOM once the system was dead. But that's it. The only shooter I have for my 360 is ... Mass Effect? If that counts. Though I've played Halo 3 (Didn't like it, because it was just a Halo remix. Not a new Halo) and Jericho (which got horrible reviews, but I'd actually recommend it, because it does try new things and I think it succeeds in a very comic-booky fake kinda way)