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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."
I think the most interesting part of the article was:
Japanese players do not like being thrown into an arena in which they are given very little instruction," said Hideo Kojima, creator of the popular "Metal Gear Solid" games.
"You can head in any direction, 360 degrees. They say, 'What am I supposed to do? Give me hints. Provide me service instead of just throwing me into this arena
I guess that in Japan, society is a lot more regimented and order-driven than in the west, and so they'll seek games that are similar..... If only they'd start buying more of my favourite genre (point'n'click adventure games!) - more might be released then! (although I guess instead of games like Syberia and Syberia II, we'd end up with stuff like "Puzzle puzzle cow fan 3400"...but at least it'd be a start!
Personally, I loved the first 3-4 levels of the game, going into bullet time mode and kicking the living bejezus out of the people, but I also see that they could have done a LOT better.
The only thing the game REALLY had going for it was the story, but as a wise man once said, a game can't be good unless it has good gameplay.
This is the sig that says NI (again)
Yeah, but what about the games that have made a huge impact on the US game market but haven't left a trace in Japan? What about Doom? Half-life? Those two games are easily two of the top 5 games of all time, yet they barely sold at all in Japan.
And also, what about sandbox-type games? They talk about the "relative" success of GTA3 in Japan, but when you compare the sales, there is a HUGE gulf in overall sales between Europe / America and Japan. Furthermore, other "sandbox"-type games have broken the bank here in the US but sold comparatively poorly in Japan. Games like the Sims and the Civilization series are pretty much only hot sellers in the west.
Furthermore, am I the only one who notices the gulf getting wider? I mean, modern western games just appeal to me significantly more than the overly-anime inspired games from Japan. I haven't enjoyed a FF since the SNES, I don't like Resident Evil or the Onimusha series, and I think Nintendo games just aren't appealing anymore. Instead, games like GTA3, Halo, and Madden are the bread and butter of most college-aged males video game experiences here in the west. I think it's an important distinction to make.
I hear ya. I just can't get into US demon-screwing cartoons. They just don't have the same depth as the ones made in Japan.
It's really true. I can't remember the last time I watched an American porno with a plot to it, but Japanese porno is actually very good. If you doubt me, rent Kite. If you get the wrong one, it might not be a porno and you might think it's just a decent movie.
Okay, I may be burning Karma here on a data point of "1" but I'm curious. I am Japanese and have played games all my life.
But I get incredibly sick and disoriented playing FPS. I've tried on several occasions thinking that my vertigo might improve but have finally given up knowing that I will just feel sick in the end.
I can play GTA, Tomb Raider and many a third person games and I love any racer but FPS just makes me sick. I wonder if Japanese (or Asians) are in any way pre-disposed to not orienting with FPS for some reason. Maybe it doesn't make all Japanese sick but maybe we just aren't built for it. Kind of like the fact that, generally speaking, we ain't built for milk (lactose intolerance in asians is high).
Sunny
Be my Friend
Shigeru Miyamoto has a shrine online: http://www.miyamotoshrine.com/ that is QUITE fascinating.
bash: rtfm: command not found
While playing like that can be a fun diversion, it gets old pretty fast.
The real core gameplay for GTA3 for me, though, has been the missions that you're given the course of the main storyline. Right from the beginning of the game it's made very clear where you can get missions to advance the game plot, and it's always pretty obvious where you get your next issue to advance the linear game plot.
GTA3 is about as non-linear as the Final Fantasy games, really. There is a main plot that you are generally ushered towards completing, but there are also a few "sub-quests" and mini-games that you can fool around with, or you can just play around and explore. A lot of games that are popular in America just aren't quality games. They are successful due to marketing, gratuitous violence, ect. Japan is a different culture so marketing has to be done differently, and gratuitous violence doesn't seem to be as appealing to them. However, a game like Grand Theft Auto III, which is genuinely well crafted can apparently enjoy some measure of success.
Generally I prefer Japanese games myself. I think many American games cater to a younger, less mature audience, while Japanese games cater to a older, more mature, intelligent (but creepier) audience. I love the games that Nintendo produces, and though lately I haven't been a big fan of RPGs in general, I generally prefer Japanese style RPGs to American ones. And though I don't have any particular aversion to graphically depicted violence in video games, I don't really see it as a selling point, nor do I find cute, cartoonish graphics in a game a turn-off, if it's done with style. I also would prefer to see hot a hot girl depicted in a game than blood splattering everywhere. American games do sometimes try to give their games sex appeal, but it's done in a really crude manner... see BMX XXX, or Lara Croft, who is simply frumpy compared to hundreds of virtually anonymous chicks in Japanese fighting games, RPGs, ect, ect.
I wish more American companies would take a hint and focus on producing quality titles rather than producing lame franchised garbage and using violence and crudity (and yeah, I know, at least we aren't obsessed with tentacle sex) as an attention grabber.
A lot of American games are really fun and inventive, and there are going to be good games made here that simply don't hold appeal to most Japanese, but there's a lot American developers can learn from the Japanese, and there's a lot U.S. gamers could learn from the Japanese as well... namely to look past the surface of a game and how it's marketed and pay attention how it actually plays. The Japanese could take a hint from many American games though, and remove a little emphasis on storyline... no, I don't want to read through pages and pages of dialog or wait through hours of cutscenes when I'm playing a game, even an RPG.
What I find interesting in this article is the way games like Grand Theft Auto III are referred to as "mature titles", because they involve graphic violence. To my thinking (and probably to the thinking of a lot of Japanese people), "immature titles" would be just as apt a description (which isn't to say I think they are necessarily bad games--I love GTA3... it's just that I think violence appeals to a less mature audience).
I can have a lot of fun playing games with cartoonish characters, because I'm not particularly concerned that a game is depicted in that style... I'm an adult, and a more colorful, kid-oriented style may not have huge appeal (though really a lot of it is really charming... Tarutaru in Final Fantasy XI are just obscenely "awww!"-inducingly cute), but nor does it particularly bother me, and I'm secure enough in my masculinity, adulthood, whatever, to enjoy a game that doesn't involve manhood-reaffirming pursuits like tackling people, driving around a fast, powerful car, or blowing people to smithereens with a rocket launcher.
Nintendo, like any corporation, is concerned with making money, but I don't think for them it's as much the driving factor as it is for companies like, say Microsoft. Personally I'm rather glad they've resisted the temptation to "sell out" and focus their development efforts on stuff that falls outside their traditional domain.
They still have third party developers working on other stuff for them (as far as I know, NASCAR and NFL games available on the GameCube too).
Plus I respect the fact that they've managed to produce a decent console that sells for about half the price of the competitors' consoles while keeping the workmanship of the console itself up to fairly high standard of quality (a GameCube is a lot studier and less likely to break down on you than a PlayStation 2.)
I think Nintendo is a little misunderstood and is too often dismissed out of hand by people too concerned with what it will look like if they are caught playing a game that looks like the Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. They could make some effort to change their image, but at this point I'm not sure it would even be possible... it might be kind of like when Hammer tried to reinvent himself as a "Gangsta" rapper after having cut songs like "You've Got To Pray". They could sacrifice their niche only to not be taken seriously in the end by anybody else anyway.
Games based on movies do almost always suck, going back to Goonies for the Nintendo. They're created as part of a marketing campaign, not because someone thought of a good game that people will like.
Having said that, I thought Enter the Matrix was cool. Not because the gameplay was that excellent (but it was ok) but because they elaborated on the movie universe with the plot of the game. In the second movie, Naobi shows up and says "the machines are digging" but doesn't really explain how they know that. When you play the game, you find out why she knows. That's a big step up from the mindless Star Wars Pod Racing and those type of movie based games.
The other reply mentions Goldeneye for N64. Yes, it's one of the top 5 games for that system. Yes, it's based a movie. But the feature that made that game famous was its deathmatch, which has nothing to do with the movie.
-B