Strangest Japanese Videogame Genres Discussed

Thanks to GameSpy for their column discussing a number of videogame genres that are popular in Japan, but not in the West. Picks include the more obvious such as dating sims ("Players look through the eyes of a young man and try to woo a variety of girls by making the proper dialogue choices"), pet raising sims ("where you raise and, uh, feed an everyday hamster... or a rhinoceros beetle"), and even voyeurism-based titles such as Primal Image, where "...poorly constructed 3D women with frightening facial features played brief animated sequences while you took pictures before the time limit ran out." Have Japanese-only genres such as dating got the capacity to take off in the States?

Comments

I've played my fair share of dating sims

[Hackie_Chan]

When I was in Asia over a year ago I bought a couple of them... Guess what? Turned out that more than one of them had very adult material in them. However, it was interesting nevertheless to see how they differ from us when it comes to taste in gaming. The biggest hits in '99 such as Unreal Tournament or Quake 3 might just've been as popular as a certain tentacle rape games in Japan (sorry, I just had to cram in "tentacle rape" somewhere in this post...)

I've only played a couple of English translated dating games, and they were also adult oriented. Kind of sad since I'd like to see these type of weird genres become more popular here for the sake of stirring things up in the market. We're too stuck in the moment where everybody wants bullet time, realistic physics and graphics with heavy guns and big, powerful explotions.

The Sims is a fresh breath of air, very revolutionary too. But... There's just too little experimentation these days in the market. Which is really sad. Oh well.... Maybe some day we'll see a company spawn a growing market of translated japanese dating sims. For once I'd like to play one without it ending up having sex with the girl in the end (and no tentacles!).

Americanized dating sims?

[Lord_Dweomer]

I don't know how good of an idea it would be to have Americanized dating sims....I mean...don't get me wrong, I've played a couple translated Japanese ones and enjoyed them, but I don't think our society is quite yet ready to handle them.

Also, I'd be interested in a REAL perspective on who actually plays dating sims in Japan, as opposed to some blatantly offensive GameSpy article. Is it a publicly accepted genre? Or do people get mocked for playing them over there as they would inevitably be if they played them over here?

The last reason I don't think we should Americanize dating sims just yet is that the people who create mainstream entertainment in our culture still have yet to learn how to tell a good story. I mean, take a look at Hollywood for example, every now and then they turn out something decent, but for the most part its crap. Same with video games. And of all the types of games out there, dating sims require some of the BEST storytelling. You simply can't compensate in a dating sim with better graphics.