The Decline of the Japanese Gaming Industry

[Strangelove]

 

 

http://www.gamingcap...aming-industry/

 

"personally, 80% of the games I play at the moment are not Japanese. Skyrim, Batman… games like that are more interesting to me right now. Japan need to make more good games to make people think otherwise."

 

-Shinji Mikami

 

“One thing about Japan – and this isn’t just games – is that things that are made in Japan are very much targeted at Japan, whether it’s games, movies or novels. It’s the curse of Japan. My generation is now being exposed to a wide range of influences, that’s why what I want to make is a little bit more in tune with what the people in the west would like”. He went on to say, “I really like the things that are being made in the west. When I come to shows like E3 and see the announcements and go to Comic-Con, I love all the presentations, so really I’ve been thinking maybe I was born in the wrong country!”

 

-Hideo Kojima

 

 

I know this has probably been beaten to death, but I don't believe it's been beaten to death HERE. So let's make orphans of it's children, shall we?

 

If I look at my PS3 collection, 80% of my games are also nonJapanese. Outside of Nintendo and third party PSP games, I feel there's been a big drought of good games from Japan in the last 10 years really. Even if I were to put the best DS and PSP game and compare it to the best PS3 or 360 game,I feel the home consoles would dominate. Im at the point where I dont demand inventiveness anymore. I dont care if youre original or not, just make it good. I dont care if the story makes sense or if your characters look like anime characters and have shitty voiceacting and dialogue, or that theres j-pop playing in the title screen. Im not bothered by that like I used to be. My standards for the aesthetics of Japan's games are at an all-time low. I just want it to play really well. Just fun and deep gameplay. But I truly think that overall, they havent noticed that things have changed. That games are made with a lot of precision and care, that if something is a bit off, were all going to notice. You cant throw a bone at us and expect us to run to it. Were not that starved anymore. I feel like theyre stuck in the past and any time they try to stay current, they sacrifice what they did right and fuck it up.

Another thing people bring up is that japan tries really hard to appeal to western gamers this generation, but they fuck it up. Every time they try to make something like Americans, Canadians or Europeans, they never do it as well. So people just say that Japan should make Japanese games. I agree....but that still doesn't solve the problem. Their games still fall short.

Its not a problem of stealing or inspiring because some great things can come from it like Vanqiush or Dragon's Dogma. Both games that were made with the West in mind, and they were pulled off pretty well, Vanquish especially. So it can do good stuff. I really just think Japan needs new blood. They cant stick to what used to work because it doesnt work anymore and they cant just apply Western mechanics to their games because they cant do it as well. They need to do their own thing and take inspiration from the great games that have come before, no matter where theyre from. All the best Japanese games have been kind of their own things this generation. Catherine immediately comes to mind. So does TWEWY and Gravity Rush. Its like nothing else and it works.

 

 

Short main point of my rant:

People are adamant that this is a myth propagated by western gamers, that we want Japan to fail, but why? Who wants shitty games? Who cares where they come from as long as theyre good? I dont see how an entire community can come together and lie about something that doesn't benefit them in any way. A lot of us, most of us, grew up on Japanese games. We love the shit out of them. Were not going to call shit shit because it wasnt made on our land. That's ridiculous. I think it's time they admit they have a problem. It's the first step, or so Ive heard.

Edited June 28, 2012 by Strangelove

[Mal]

( I think there is an analogy in here, so if it is your petpeeve, then I am sorry. )

The Japanese devs trying to make games appeal to the West always strikes me as odd. JP devs can make good games since pretty much all of us here played Japanese games in our youths and we're from the West, born and raised. Yes, they should change how they make their games but they got to still keep their "voice" in it. I do not want a gaming monoculture. I want it to be diverse. Sure games being made that way will have more appeal in certain regions but a good game is a good game. Who knows, doing that may churn out an amazing game with world wide appeal.

 

And yes, I am comparing video game development/making to agriculture/cooking/ whatever that has core traits it need to have but the final product will still have a subjective element to it.

[Strangelove]

Are you talking about the "Japanese hamburger" comment that the director of Ninja Gaiden 3 made?

I agree. I LOVED Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, and Im not the type of person that finds "challenge" fun. But the game was made with a lot of care and a contains a lot of nuances. Its fun and it's deep.

From what I remember, the NG games sell well, but they never sold THAT well. As a new sequel comes along, the publisher wants more people to buy it. Thats the point of a sequel. To keep their longtime fans and entertain the living rooms of new fans. I personally dont find that mindset wrong.

The problem is that they changed what NG did best - basically all the gameplay. The thought was that appealing to the lowest common denominator would get them tons of new fans. But they broke what didnt need fixing. They didnt even streamline it or dumb it down, they completely broke it. Even the stuff that needed fixing, like the camera, they didnt bother with.

They made it into something the longtime fans hated and the "casual" fans, despite what people think, dont like to play crappy games either. NG3 turned into a crappy game. It was a misguided attempt. Even if they made the game harder and added more weapons and ninpo techniques, it wouldnt fix everything wrong with it. I really think they just reached a point where they didnt know what to do with it anymore, but they need to make a third one. So they tried to be "different" and change things around and thought that would give the franchise some fresh air. But change for the sake of change is not always a good idea. Just being different to be different is bad. I hope they fix it with the Wii U version. Im doubtful though.

[MasterDex]

Its hard for me to disagree with you, Strangelove. Maybe it's because I'm almost completely focused on PC gaming these days, compared to when I was younger, but I just don't have that many recent Japanese titles in my library.

 

I think their success in the 90's led them to stagnate. Like we're beginning to see over here, Japanese developers all jumped on the bandwagons of their successful games and now, nearly twenty years later, most everyone is tired of the lack of originality exuding from the Japanese games industry. As I said though, we're beginning to see something similar crop up here in the west. Most 3rd person shooters these days all follow a similar formula, almost becoming identical in all but visuals and plot. The FPS market is flooded with generic shooters, even if they're not MMS's and strategy games haven't really moved on since the early 2000's apart from a few outlier examples. The only real innovation seems to be happening in the indie sector but that's always been the case. Anyway, my point is that we shouldn't start the death knells just yet. For all we know, 10 years down the line, western developers will be saying the same things as Mikami and Kojima and Japanese nerds will be lamenting the end of the western games industry.

[deanb]

I'm to understand that how games are made now is something the Japanese education/training system isn't set up for. They're good at doing pixel art n such when that was required, and can write a story suitable for budding games industry. But modern games development they're just not having as quick a turn around as necessary so somewhat lacking there and it's having a knock-on effect.

 

Making entertainment for your own country is all well n good, it's how most countries run, I'd say it's rare to make something with international audience in mind, just it happens to resonate with similar countries. We fill up games like Fable n LBP with British voice casts, humour, n charm, and it just happens to work well in other countries. But Japan has been so cut off from the rest of the world. The west had the renaissance together, we share a cultural heritage and thus out entertainment can flow easily.

Japan doesn't have that advantage. But it does have a strong following through the whole anime n following they gained in the 80's n 90's, but they've not really capitalised on it. It does suck cos Japan has some pretty unique games (though there's a degree of "westernisation" going on, which I think is a mistake on their part) and I do agree just having a general bland mish mash of "western games" would suck.

 

I don't think it will go away, but it will become smaller, which in turn means it needs to embrace their indie scene, which some is escaping to the west like Recettear, and learn that they can make cheap games and cheaply spread them around. I think they carry on thinking in the old school ways even worse than some of the big publishers over in the west n thus being hurt by that thinking even worse too. There's tons of Japanese games that they never let leave the island because they don't think it's worth it. If translation is an issue they'll likely find armies of fans willing to translate across for them as long as they make the games somewhat moddable to slot subs/dubs in.

[Strangelove]

I think the same will happen to "us" too. The FPS, the open world game, the yearly installments. I can see these things turning against us. Its already started.

 

And honestly, I think Im partly to blame on my less than enthusiastic view of the Japanese game industry.

I dont know about anyone else here, but im in my mid 20s right now, but when I was a kid and a teenager, I was ridiculously fascinated with Japan. This was before the internet or Toonami, back when the regular person didnt see much from Japan aside from Mario, Final Fantasy and Transformers. When Anime on tv was a rarity and we had to go out and buy Manga vhs tapes and hopefully land on a good one. I ate every little bit of Japanese media up. I just loved it. I grew up on Ghost In The Shell, Ninja Scroll, Akira and hated that The SNES never got any DBZ games. I used to see screenshots of DBZ fighting games in magazines and was really jealous of it. I was so deprived of it, that I didnt care about quality. I played the crap out of DBGT Final Bout, even if it sucked. I loved FF7 like everyone else because I felt Japanese games always did everything a lot more showy and flashy and to my childish mind, better. I remember evry single summon from FF7 because at the time that was the best thing I had ever seen in a videogame. It captured my imagination. The big eyes, the spiky hair, the feminine face, I thought those things were cool back then.

 

But im old now, anime is everywhere, and Ive opened up to a bunch of other stuff. The appeal and fascination is gone. Now I only judge Japanese things based on their quality, not on their showiness. Theres nothing there that I havent seen anymore. The internet has helped with that. I think we've all seen tentacle rape, so what else can anime do? We've all seen gigantic monsters and big swords and seizurific effects in our videogames, so now what?

I dont think japan knows that were numb to their charm. Its not charm anymore if its the norm. Japan is the norm now. Thats just not very exciting.

 

And no, Im not discounting the 80s and 90s classics, even i I were an adult back then, I would still Love FF6, Chrono Trigger and Ghost In The Shell. I just played CT(DS port) last year and I loved it. So its clearly not nostalgia on my part. The games just arent as good. Neither is the anime, but thats another topic entirely.

Edited June 28, 2012 by Strangelove

[excel_excel]

Some groups of people will act like you are killing babies when you criticise the decline of some Japanese titles. The amount of hate Phil Fish got for an out of context sarcastic comment about modern Japanese games sucking was nothing short of silly.

 

I still love Japanese developed games. Some of my favourites this generation like No More Heroes, Xenoblade, Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, The Worlds Ends With You, but I think there's definitely been a decline in the main games in some Japanese franchises. There is something that happened in this leap to the current generation to many Japanese studios. Some have absolutely thrived, finding an audience they never had in the previous generation whilst others have kind of been spinning their wheels, producing titles a lot slower and the ones they do release are of a clear decline in quality compared to the releases they made during the PS2 era.

 

Resident Evil 5 is a weird one. Any atmosphere that Resident Evil 4 had was gone, and the co-op and bizarre inventory changes did not help the game. It turned into an simply an action title, and Resident Evil 6 looks to be going even further in that direction. It was a good game but the lofty heights of acclaim that Resi 2 and Resi 4 got was gone.

 

Final Fantasy XIII I don't even know where to start. Where do you start? Some people do like it. I haven't played a more disappointing title this generation. Ok lets not talk about its quality, but the very fact that it took a demo release to actually start properly developing the game is scary. Like, how does development work like that? They were just making random landscapes and then when it finally came to release a demo they thought 'fuck we better stitch all these landscapes together somehow and come up with a story'.

[Strangelove]

What do you mean with the FF13 as a demo thing?

[Strangelove]

Here's the insane thing about this whole ordeal that really bugs me - it's that a company like Square Enix knows how good their past games are. That's why they do so many ports and remakes and reference them in their newer games(Setzer's Dice as an item and Gilgamesh as a boss in FF13-2), but for the life of them they can't repeat that success.

This goes against my point of trying something new, but I feel that time has passed long enough that the old feels new again. How hard would it be to make a turnbased 2D Final Fantasy game as good and broad as FF4 or FF6? FF4 on th DS was a good remake, so they made The Heroes of Light with the same engine, but they obviously didnt do it with the same scope or deep story in mind. Same thing with FF4 The After Years. They didnt bother at all. They changed the gameplay too.

I think FF6 is one of the greatest games ever made, likable characters, varied and exciting and fun battle system, and a huge and beautiful world. Its 2D and its 16bit, but few things nowadays are as beautiful as that game and it's cities and caves and forests and everything else. The game in my mind, still wows. It captures my imagination. The HD era is costly and takes a lot of time, so their games get smaller and less varied, but another 16 or 32bit 2D game in HD? Thats doable. Its very doable.

Any time Square chooses to go "retro" and tries to be whimsical, they go too far back I feel. THoL was basically as empty and lifeless as FF1 or FF2 in comparison. That's not what people want. Its like they cant balance their games well. They never fully commit.

The indie community has the enthusiasm to bring back 2D SNES games, but they dont have the money or manpower to make something as big as an SNES FF game. Square Enix does. I wish there was a way to combine these two together.

 

 

And no, its not a direction I want the main series to go in, just a side project that I would like to happen. Costume Quest made me realize how much I still like turnbased rpgs. Costume Quest with the scope of FF6 would make for a kickass modern game. I hope thats what the South Park rpg is going to be like.

Edited June 28, 2012 by Strangelove

[excel_excel]

What do you mean with the FF13 as a demo thing?

Basically they were making the game for ages and the same team making the game were working on making the Crystal Engine Tools, and they were taking requests from every person on the team as to what direction the game should take. It took the demo deadline to final make them settle on a vision for the game. If that demo had never happened I doubt the game would have even been released by now.

 

http://finalfantasy....III#Development for the whole story.

Edited July 2, 2012 by excel_excel

[Strangelove]

What do you mean with the FF13 as a demo thing?

Basically they were making the game for ages and the same team making the game were working on making the Crystal Engine Tools, and they were taking requests from every person on the team as to what direction the game should take. It took the demo deadline to final make them settle on a vision for the game. If that demo had never happened I doubt the game would have even been released by now.

 

http://finalfantasy....III#Development for the whole story.

 

I...did not know all of that. I did get that feeling though. There were some weird omissions.

I enjoyed the game and in hindsight, I really dont feel it was any more linear than FFX. FFX got a lot of flack for how linear the areas were and how there wasnt a world map you could really interact with. FFX had houses you could go into AND it was better at disguising how corridor-centric it was. Every area also had it's own identity, mountains, tropical villages, temples, etc. FF13 had none of that. It all looked the same. They could have just changed the game to have taken place in one giant dungeon for the first half, like Tartarus in Persona 3. I think it would have been easier to swallow that way.

I also didnt think the story was so bad, but that's only because I feel there wasn't much of it. Same thing with FF12. I personally feel FF12 to have a weak story, but that's because it also doesn't have much. You can go hours without hearing new dialogue, while FF13 has tons of dialogue, yet theyre both kind of lacking on a central plot. FF13 also tried to spend hours on every character to give them a backstory and make them "deep", but when it got to the end, I wondered why the hell they were all together in the first place. Most of them didnt feel like they were friends. They were just together out of convenience.

 

FF13-2 fixed a lot, but they really did pull a page out of Kingdom Hearts and made the story a cluster of fuck. Its still better than the last few KH games, but theres a huge FF7/FF8/KH2 vibe to it.

 

Also - moms are tough.

[deanb]

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/358437/interviews/shinji-mikami-interview-to-be-told-japanese-games-suck-is-a-bit-harsh/

 

"When I was making Resident Evil 4, Capcom's non-Japanese staff noticed that people overseas were writing that Japanese games suck, and they got upset. But the game we were making didn't suck at all, so it didn't bother me."

[TheMightyEthan]

"But the game we were making didn't suck at all"

 

You poor, deluded man. Any game that is greater than 0% escort mission automatically sucks at least a little.

[Alex Heat]

"Yes, there are amazing games - just not enough of them. So many are based on anime or fantasy - games that only appeal to Japanese people. Most gamers overseas aren't interested in anime."

 

"Shit, it's almost as if they're sick of all of the anime tropes or something!"