Sunday, 29 November 2009
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Can Gaming Survive Without Japanese Game Developers?
Courtesy of Aaron R. at Koku Gamer
There is no doubt whatsoever that Japan’s influence in the video game market in past times has been paramount. From the classic titles found in arcades to the quirky yet fun console games they produced, gamers of all ages have enjoyed some fantastic games. From Mario to Solid Snake, Tetris to Street Fighter, everyone knows of the great games developed by this little gem of a country. The Japanese influence on gamers was at one stage absolute, and to say Japan ruled the video game market, seemed to some, an absolute fact.
If we look at the PS1 era we see what is perhaps the most dominant era Japan enjoyed. SquareSoft were so good that almost every game they released was guaranteed to receive critical praise. They could do no wrong, titles like Final Fantasy VII, VIII and IX, Chrono Cross, Vagrant Story, XenoGears and Parasite Eve were all fantastic titles. Of course there was Ergheiz which was a letdown but nobody’s perfect right? Capcom invented a totally new genre with the acclaimed Resident Evil series, Namco dominated the fighting genre with the Tekken and of course Konami redefined the action genre with the classic, and my personal favourite, Metal Gear Solid. Take into account Gran Turismo and you can easily see that Japanese devs were on fire, and that was only on the one platform. On the Nintendo 64 you had titles like Super Mario World, Ocarina Of Time, Majora's Mask, and Mario Kart 64, all of which had their loyal followers and certain degrees of critical praise too. These games were developed with consoles in mind, and offered a far different experience to their Western developed, sometimes PC orientated counterparts. Quirky story lines and unique worlds were definitely part of the Japanese game dev psyche, and were well accepted by the general console audiences.
The PS2 era started off with a bang. Square merged with Enix and released some titles that weren’t well received, but backed it up with releases like Kingdom Hearts and of course Final Fantasy X and XII. Capcom released the absolutely amazing Devil May Cry series, although 2 was one that I would rather forget. Dark Cloud was a fantastic title in its time, and it seemed as though Japan was going to continue to dominate the gaming market like they did in previous generations. However, there were a few more Western devs that decided to cash in on the console market, and Rockstar lead the way with Gran Theft Auto 3. While it wasn’t the first Western title to be well received, it certainly became the most successful series during this generation. Even God Of War seemed to steal Devil May Cry’s thunder. There was another event that would help Western devs gain more ground in the console market, one that would certainly change the general style of console games.
The Xbox is, at least in my opinion, what helped a lot of Western devs gain ground in the console market. After all, consoles generally offered a difficult architecture for most Western devs to work with, as most of these developers stuck with PC. The Xbox was basically a PC in a console body, and it offered far more horse power than the other consoles at the time. Games looked far better than either GameCube or Playstation 2 games, and it came packaged with a very impressive shooter to boot. For so long it was said that shooters couldn’t work on a console, and Halo proved all the naysayers wrong. Halo could have easily been mistaken for a PC game, but it came exclusively on the Xbox system, although it was a timed exclusive. Sure, there were TimeSplitters, GoldenEye, Perfect Dark and other shooters, but none of them mimicked PC shooters quite like Halo did.
Enter the current generation and we see the Xbox 360 now leading the PlayStation 3 in sales, and nearly every genre of gaming is dominated by games developed in the west. Square Enix have gone from one of the most loved developers in gaming to one of the most despised. Infinite Undiscovery was average at best, and had one of the most annoying lead characters in gaming. The Last Remnant had an astounding soundtrack, but lacked the gameplay and certainly the looks were disappointing. In fact The Last Remnant was built on the Unreal Engine, an unsure sign when you consider that SE already had the “White” engine developed. Even Resident Evil 5, the series that invented the survival horror genre, was in a lot of peoples eyes beaten out by the EA developed Dead Space. Even Capcom’s Keiji Inafune had to say this about the games on hand at the Tokyo Game Show “Personally when I looked around [at] all the different games at the TGS floor, I said “Man, Japan is over. We’re done. Our game industry is finished.”
Japanese devs are struggling in this generation. It almost seems like an uphill battle. Even worse is that development breakthroughs for the PlayStation 3 aren’t even coming from the land of the rising sun. Guerilla Games, Sony Studios Santa Monica, Quantic Dream and Naughty Dog seem to be getting the most out of the console. Atsushi Inaba, creator of Okami, stated that “To be honest, I think that western developers are superior to those in Japan overall, so we — the Japanese developers — should realize that we have to work hard to reach the Western level.” Even Hideo Kojima said “Japan has lost…maybe I should quit being Japanese.” Some have even said games should be more Western, or borrow more heavily from western elements. But should they really? Should Japan just mimic Western Devs and create Western style games?
Does Japan Face A Similar Challenge?
I, for one, say no. The market is already flooded with shooters and action games. Japan has a very unique style to their games, one that at times offers something very refreshing to the “KILL KILL KILL” theme behind most games today. Japan can most certainly recover from this, the creative minds in The Land Of The Rising Sun are some of the best. Look at Metal Gear Solid 4, which in my opinion even now offers an experience that no other game this generation can beat. Not even Uncharted 2, my favorite game this year, left me spell bound quite like MGS4 did. Even Japan Studios The Last Guardian looks to be something special, something no other dev could conjure up. If they put more effort into creating unique experiences as opposed to making money, Japan will be better off.
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- From: kokugamer
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- About Me: We are Koku Gamer. No we are not Japanese, the name was the next best thing available after everything else that sounded cool was taken. Still, we searched hard and long (That’s what she said!), and found the nice, wholesome little name of Koku Gamer. We strive to bring you the latest news from the gaming industry, even if it means breaking our backs. http://www.kokugamer.com
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Comments (23)
I don't think we could....I mean, they are clearly superior and far more talented. Period.
I agree they rule 99% of the gaming industry.
But Ubisoft seems to be doing just fine.
If we turned back the clock ten years, then I would say no, because console gaming as we know it today was still a niche subculture. Since platforms couldn't support mass multiplayer play and the concept of online play was limited solely to the PC gaming crowd (think Counter Strike and Quake), successful games required the creativity and attention to detail that Japanese games provided (think Final Fantasy VII, the RE series, and most Nintendo-produced titles). However now that console gaming has evolved and become mainstreamed, I believe that the console would survive should the Japanese developers become nonentities.
But in my opinion, the game that broke Japanese control over gaming wasn't Halo, it was Goldeneye on the N64. Goldeneye undoubtedly popularized the first-person shooter and made gaming accessible to the average person who didn't care about intricate storylines, inventive character development, or spending hours trying to find every single secret in the game. With Goldeneye, all you had to do was go around and shoot a bunch of people while not trying to get killed yourself. And the multiplayer mode? Nothing needs to be said. Western developers ran with it from there.
I have a friend who likes to say that Xbox Live was the end of gaming as we knew it. And hes right, for better or worse, the rise of the online multiplayer community means that games without multiplayer capability will have a hard time competing with those that do.
wtf? everyone knows Tetris is RUSSIAN
I think without the Japanese, RPGs and nintendo wouldn't exist. In role playing game development, the Japanese got it down cold. America can stay alive with FPS, but they can't be role playing to save their lives IMO. Japanese knows character development and the game arts are breathtaking. They know how to make their character designs as well as the layout of the scenery to appeal to the human eye. Anything they do is visually spectacular. For example, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Story wise, it was not very good and wasn't related to the original story, but the visuals were unbelievable. It was very pretty and well done.
The video game industry was invented in the West, but it caught on more in Japan than the West. Consequently, influence gradually moved to Japan. When gaming caught back on, it had survived best in Japan. It was still pretty much a niche industry over here for a long time (it almost went extinct prior to the NES).
The Japanese develop for the Japanese. It's a very closed market. They only sell something over here when they think it will sell well. Some of these games strike us as very quirky. The Dreamcast game Seaman is a good example of this. This means that the Japanese industry, frankly, has become inbred. It's good for its own people, but it seems stagnant to those outside of it. Its RPGs have become stale. It eschewed shooters for too long. In fact, the only genre its isolationism has left it with a solid edge in is the fighting game genre in which it has no peer.
Gaming costs are increasing, and when western games broke out of the PC market into the console market, we suddenly got games developed in Europe, the USA, Canada, etc. While we are similar, we are also different. It brought spice back into things, and there are more people outside of Japan than inside. Consequently, there is more profit to be made catering to non-Japanese audiences.
With few exceptions (most notably Nintendo), the Japanese market is a very narrow market. Its development cycle has adapted to fit this audience, but the environment doesn't have the resources to sustain development as development sky-rockets. Meanwhile, global tastes have changed. In evolution, if an organism adapts too much to a particular environment, becomes too much of a niche organism, then it will probably go extinct when that environment changes. The same thing is true in the video game industry. Japan must evolve or die, and most of its companies don't get it. Fortunately, some companies do.
Personally, I like Japanese games, but I find myself playing more western games; they're just more fun and better adapted to my sensibilities now. Please, Japan, evolve.
@tokyoexpressman@xanga - FUCK YEAH! I LOVED GOLDEN EYE!
Video gaming can exist as long as there are developers period. I don't think being Japanese or American or Russian really has anything to do with it because you have to take into account consumer preference. There are some people who hate Japanese games, and would prefer Madden or Fable or Halo.
Personally, I think the gaming world is now over-saturated with Japanese style games to the point where I don't see much difference from one game to the next; character design, gameplay, and story are all too similar to really be worth the hefty price tags coming with games these days.
Certainly, if those developers disappeared and stopped doing what they do a large part of the industry would die but I don't think it spells doom for the entire fleet. You also have to remember that games aren't just solely worked on by Japanese people (or any one kind of person) as there are hundreds of people in the team that keep the machine cranking.
It doesn't matter what Japan contributed to the gaming industry in the past. As of the present, they are bound to keep recycling stale gaming conventions instead of putting the time into truly innovative content, because stale content sells well in their own markets. To be honest, I think the only people who would notice if the Japanese stopped exporting their games are... um...
Obsessive types? Until they start coming out with new shit, I can't think of any reason to care about what Japan is doing in gaming.
It could but..that wouldn't happen as long as Japan...exist. Nor would I want to be in a world where there was no more Japanese game developers.
What's with the recent blogs of the whole..wanting or questioning the losing of things like JRPGs? People, we aren't the only country out here! There is a reason why a majority western gamers love western gaming...it was made for us. There is a reason why japanese gaming will stay japanese gaming, and they will love their games..it was made for them too, its that simple.
Gaming would survive just fine, but as long as there is atleast one fan for it, there will be someone there to develop it, and it will continue to prosper.
Eventually, western gaming will fall into the same category of "when are we gonna get something different?" "When are we gonna get better?" "Can we break out of this formula?" And I can see it happening very fast, as soon as the next generation of gaming will come out.
@Big_Z54@xanga - America can stay alive with FPS, but they can't be role playing to save their lives IMO.
BioWare would like a word with you. Granted, they're a Canadian and not American company, but still perfectly Western and churning out some of the better RPGs of the past two generations (Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, and most recently Dragon Age: Origins).
But they are an anomaly. The West seems content to churn out shooters at an almost irritating rate (how many Call of Duty games have come out in the past few years), and we're still in the the rhythm game craze...I think we've torn adventure games away from the Japanese though (Uncharted 2 is a standout example).
Haha~ Actually I think both westerns and japanese makers have their own styles of games. Games started out with westerns and japanese ideas was fresh. People liked something different, something they have never felt before and enjoyed that. But as we got used to japanese style games, we realised the common style they have and eventually got bored of it and there came westerns introducing some themselves as new ideas again (along with, of course, technology) Someday we will get tired of western stylized games, and forget about japanese style games, and at that time, they will come out with something that makes us fall in love with them all over again. :D (But I still love the silly repetitive japanese stylized games, it's what made me love playing games after all XD)
i think so
All the good ideas just ran out for Japan
@CyanideNGunpowder@xanga - Like I said. I was merely stating my opinion. I didn't announce it as a fact like I got it from a legitimate source. From what I gathered from western RPGs, they are usually built as an MMO on the PC or another internet connected system. MMOs are enjoyable to a good size crowd, but console RPGs where there is but a single player the Japanese will always reign supreme on that. I stated it was my opinion and that also meant that I do not care for western RPGs that much. I've tried a few, but got quickly bored with them. Japanese develop RPGs on a storyline where there is a beginning and an end. I enjoy the complete story and the fact that there is an ending so that I can feel I finished the game.
These days though, japanese role playing games are getting lack luster with the story and controls, but still they are trying all sorts of ways to be innovative. People complain that it's getting repetitive, but seriously can these complaining people give a suggestion on a better battle system and control that hasn't already been thought up? If not, then they don't have a right to say anything.
I think the current issues reflect the fact that PS3 cost 600 bucks when it came out. All the other crap about better games or development such and such falls far behind that. The Wii was meant for kids almost exclusively, and the more "serious" gamer had to choose between XBox360 and PS3. For almost everybody, XBox was the far more affordable choice.
Also, I think the influence of online (XBoxlive, anybody?) is heavy-handed to current game development... and its not a field that has transcended oceans very well.
japanese game developers are the shit! i love my Professor Layton DS games! and i cant wait for allll of them to come out in the US! how they heck do they come up with those crazy puzzles!?
FIRST of all, tetris was not made by japanese game developers, its of russian origin
"Tetris (Russian: Те́трис) is a puzzle video game originally designed and programmed by Alexey Pajitnov. It was created on June 6, 1984,[1] while he was working for the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre of the Academy of Science of the USSR in Moscow."
and, to answer the title question, yeah... look at centipede, asteroids, tron, and pong, the predacessors of the gaming industry, they werent made by japanese developers.. then there's quality indie games that flourish the market now, like stuff by popcap and pixel junk. there's a whole lot of developers out there that are making good games who arent japanese. it's just that they arent mainstream..yet.
Great, thoughtful article. I'll never lose my affection for Squaresoft/Square Enix/JRPGs though haha.
I have to say that I totally agree with the assessment of the OP. Japan is not beaten and at the very least it isn't beaten so badly that it cannot recover and reclaim the "throne" or whatnot. And I certainly hope that Japanese devs don't decide to mimic Western games. I have nothing against Western games, but I still like the Japanese games better. They have more depth most of the time. Right now, as the OP mentioned, the majority of games in the Western world are more about a "KILL KILL KILL" mentality. Not that there isn't killing in the Japanese games, but there is more depth and reason behind it. Rather than you are on a military mission, or you have to kill so many pedestrians or gang bangers to get such-and-such amount of points so you can get/do such-and-such. Okay, so that was a very bad generalization, but you know what I mean. :p
I, too, think if they focused less on how much money they could make, and more on creating unique experiences with the games they develop, they'd be better off. After all, if they make awesome games, the profits will roll in anyway. I would think the real money would be in making more unique games.
Then again, I might be looking at this with tunnel vision as per just what I would like to see more of. I can't speak for other gamers. :p
You mean to say that something GOOD actually comes out of the US!?!? No way.
If we look back the clock a decade before, then
I would say my answer is no, because console gaming where highly developed by them but now i Personally feel that the gaming world is
now over-saturated with Japanese style games so far where I don't
see much difference from one game to the next; character design,
gameplay, and story are all resemble the previous versions of their own gaming style.
This is what I think about all the time because one of my deepest ambitions is to work in Japan, for a Japanese gaming company. Let's not even get into anime, manga, or hentai for that matter, right?
After reading the post and some comments, I'm really surprised at how so many people think that the Japanese don't do anything new or innovative with their games. I'm not too crazy of a shooter fan, but I can't hate them. I don't just mean FPS, but third-person as well, although there's not too many of those out there (you can count Halo being third-person when doing certain actions). So . . . about shooters . . . what has actually been really "innovative" with them? You run, you gun, you may hide more like in Gears of War, or you may spam grenades and n00btube like in Call of Duty. Still, in terms of innovative gameplay, although there's been a few noteworthy games, nothing really pops out for me (note that Portal isn't a shooter).
I am a person who almost always needs a story in the games I play. They don't necessarily have to be RPG's, although they really get into some better story-telling in that genre. I have more fun playing shooters in more mission-based settings, rather than going around killing people (probably because I'm terrible).
Now, good storytelling doesn't always equal fun gameplay. For me, personally, I really didn't enjoy Jade Empire, although I admit that the hype that surrounded the game gave me high expectations. It's an action RPG, and it could have been more fun for me if the battles didn't work in such a rock-paper-scissors kind of fashion. I really didn't feel that the different styles made up for the lack of combos, because it was still the same kind of button presses with similar results.
Back to my original mention of being "innovative". Since Japan seems to have a lot of these "quirky" games, then why aren't any of them considered "innovative"? I doubt anyone has played a rhythm-based game like the Patapon series. For those of you who remember, they even created TWO games based off of mosquitoes, known in the west as "Mister Mosquito".
People seem to enjoy games like Okami and the Katamari series, as well as the creators of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus.
In fighting games, the western developers are set really far back. Mortal Kombat really isn't that exciting for me anymore. Other games would be the Def Jam series, which is entertaining, but it isn't as fast-paced as other fighters. You have games like the Dead or Alive series, which have a nice speed to them. There's also the Street Fighter series, the Tekken series, the Soul Calibur series (also Namco), the Smash Bros. series (not a traditional fighter), and Melty Blood.
For rhythm games in general, the western developers can compete with Japan, although I can't recall a western-developed dance-based game that has been commercially successful. Of course, there's guitar hero and rockband, but both of those are centered specifically around rock. DJ Hero will be able to get other music genres, but these are rhythm games based on songs we've come to know and love. There should be more original songs, more original content, maybe even more rhythm-based games like Rhythm Heaven. Not all songs have to be licensed to be enjoyed.
In general, if people want "quirky" and innovative games, then they can play World of Goo or Little Big Planet. Those games are both fun, fresh, still feel new, and they have a lot of replay value (more so with LBP). I'm only mentioning this because despite the number of fun games and innovative games I mentioned, western developers know how to make these style games as well. Japan can survive, and people need to stop thinking of them as RPG-making factories. It gets really annoying to think that people think western games only equals FPS and Japanese equals RPG, with South Koreans making the radar with their PC-based MMO's.
And I'm sure by now, the OP knows that Tetris isn't Japanese, and that the Japanese weren't the first ones to get their hands on the game, even if they're stereotyped as being hardcore Tetris players.