Video Games - Lost in Translation?

MikeDawg writes "No, it's not a case of 'All Your Base Are Belong To Us'. MSNBC is running an article about the relative popularity of some game hardware and software in the West vs. the East. This article covers the phenomenon of games vs. culture and why video games that do well in the U.S. generally don't do well in Japan, and vice-versa." The piece notes of the Japanese market: "American-made consoles such as 3DO (released in Japan in 1994) and most recently the Microsoft Xbox (released in two years ago) never seem to attract consumers in large numbers. Games such as 'Enter the Matrix' from Atari, and 'The Lord of the Rings' by Electronic Arts, both released [in Japan] last year, often vanish... without leaving a trace."

Comments

Obviously

[Flingles]

Games such as 'Enter the Matrix' ... often vanish... without leaving a trace."

I wonder why :/

I used to LOVE to play

[ErichTheWebGuy]

... The Legend of Zelda. As I recall, that game was made in Japan, by a Japanese developer, even based on many elements from his real life.

Also, as I recall, the game was wildly popular in both regions. Granted, it was a Japanese game ported to the US market. But, aren't most of the best games in the US? My experience with "enter the matrix" was that it sucks!

IMHO, this is another case of results being skewed to some agenda.

Re:I used to LOVE to play

[Woogiemonger]

I used to LOVE to play The Legend of Zelda. As I recall, that game was made in Japan, by a Japanese developer, even based on many elements from his real life.

I wonder if a game popularity's diversity of region is based more on level of detail rather than what the game is based on. I read some of a book, "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud, and while I do think some of its contents is debatable, one thing I couldn't argue with was.. the more abstract a character, the easier it is to think of the abstraction as a representation of yourself, and thus relate to it. So with the older games such as Zelda, Metroid, Pac-Man, and even Space Invaders, I can see them having a region-independent fan base as opposed to more realistic games like John Madden Football or Lord of the Rings.

Well no wonder...

[BEI01]

Games such as 'Enter the Matrix' from Atari, and 'The Lord of the Rings' by Electronic Arts, both released [in Japan] last year, often vanish... without leaving a trace."


Yea, well, there is a reason. Both of those games were crap here in the U.S. as well.

reverse is also true...

[graveyardjohn]

The reverse is also true, but to a lesser extent. Nintendo are not doing so well with the Gamecube (at least in the UK) and this is sometimes down to the perception that the more cartoon-like graphics visible on Nintendo hardware, like the recent Zelda game, are childish. In the west, violence, aggression, sport and speed sells bucketloads more.

3DO

[Moocowsia]

Hmm.. Maybe the writer didnt notice that the 3DO did horrible in the US too... Which might be an indication of why it did bad in Japan. Crap is crap, if you send it to Japan its still crap.

Just maybe..

[exigentsky]

Maybe Japanese people are less obsessed with blowing things up pointlessly and hence prefer better quality entertainment with a solid story and more things to do. They consider video gaming much more of an art, an investment, almost a career. Extremely talented video gamers are close to worshipped, especially in strategy games such as StarCraft. Maybe they also like and want to support their own video game industry.

In addition, "Enter the Matrix" and "The Lord of the Rings" were abysmal games developed quickly to take advantage of the sucess of the movies their based upon. Of course, these movies are exceptionally popular in the US, and it is sure that rabid fans will buy them because they feature their favourite charachters. However, in Japan these movies are not so popular and without playing on the success of the movies, they really do not appeal to many.

Even American game networks such as GameSpy, GameSpot and many others rated these games poorly. As usual, most games that are spin offs of movies suck, god I still get nightmares about the Survivor game. [http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/survivor-ultimate-editio n/5505p1.html]

Don't be suprised that games which base their success on culturally dependent factors such as how well a movie is received, rather than how good the gameplay is don't do well in other places than where the movie is popular.

Re:Just maybe..

[Shwilmo]

Maybe Japanese people are less obsessed with blowing things up pointlessly and hence prefer better quality entertainment with a solid story and more things to do.

I would be careful here. I think it's pretty clearly stated in the article, and been said many times in this thread, that "more things to do = bad" in Japanese gaming culture. They like games with single storylines and definite direction. Example: As a western gamer, my favorite RPGs of the past two years have been Morrowind and Knights of the Old Republic. Those games both offer a HUGE variety of things to do. Yet both are decidedly "non-Japanese" because they have very open, branching storylines. Games that are played like storybooks are much more popular in Japan than here.

And to counter your point about "blowing things up pointlessly," I could say the same thing about you training your characters up to level 99 so you could beat Ruby Weapon (or whatever), whereas at least when I'm playing Halo I'm sitting in a room with my friends enjoying healthy competition. It goes both ways, don't assume that one side is inherently "better" than the other.

Dead Horse

[wan-fu]

Is it just me or has this horse been beaten enough already?

I'm pretty sure that by now, everyone knows that certain games and genres just don't translate well.