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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."
Lost in Translation would be an excellent title for a new video game. You can only win if you don't get the girl at the end.
You are in a maze of straight streets with bright neon signs, all alike.
> north
You are in a maze of straight streets with bright neon signs, all alike.
> north
You are in a maze of straight streets with bright neon signs, all alike.
> north
You are lost in translation.
not because it's unpopular, but because no one can get the zoning permits!
Games such as 'Enter the Matrix' ... often vanish... without leaving a trace."
:/
I wonder why
Karma: -2^0.5 . Mainly due to the imbibing of dihydrogen monoxide
... 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.
bash: rtfm: command not found
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.
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.
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!
I've been to Thailand a few times and since I don't expect the taste in games to be that much different from Japan's I'll add my 2 cents here.
.
In Thailand, there are a LOT of internetcafes, almost every streetcorner (and a lot of stores between them) have them.
Last time I went (may '03) the game of the day was Ragnarok Online.
It was almost the only game I saw being played there
The other game I saw being played there was C&C Generals.
The game my gf (yup she's thai, in case you're wondering) was/is playing is Rollercoaster Tycoon 2.
In all the time I've been there, the only FPS being played there (in a mall, some comps set up as a lan with broadband access) is Halflife Counterstrike, but I don't think that one really counts since it has had a long enough time to get there.
Back 2 UT2K4 I go, my FPS of choice at the moment.
This is the sig that says NI (again)
Americans want gritty, realistic stuff. Japanese want weird stuff, cute stuff, and 8-year-old girls getting raped by tentacles. I mean hell... would YOU want something like Enter the Matrix when you could be watching a little girl have simulated sex?
Stuff like wording, colors and game titles that are cool in the states and in Europe can be interpreted quite differently in Japan.
Violent games ARE popular in Japan, but mostly the violent games doesn't focus only on blood and spilled guts. They want focus on the art of fighting.
Is the culture to "blame"? Of course. So the gaming industry must adapt.
MMORPGs experience the same phonemena. I suspect it's a simple difference in values and culture that produces the differences. Contrary to popular (american) thought: Original titles, as opposed to franchises, seem to rule overseas. Unlike my previous girlfriend, who liked Legolas more than me, they don't run out and buy every movie related item they see...sounds like I should be in Japan.
Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
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.
Moo!
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.
o n/5505p1.html]
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-editi
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.
Or, it's because many people here would rather not throw away dozens of hours living the life of a pixelated little man who fights weird monsters in front of psychedelic backdrops. I do enjoy some of those games, but I think it's dangerous to get too caught up in such a timepit. Hey, at least with the shooters we can improve our reflexes and close combat tactics?
Maybe we in the United States are a bunch of closet serial-killers due to the violent, malicious video games we so actively enjoy....
...but look at their hentai. Have you ever seen bodily fluids used (and reused) that way? Do all girls wear those uniforms? Should cartoon figures really do *that*???
I'm torn between rejecting the Japanese altogether or forming the United States of Japan where the best of both worlds collide in an all-out FPS blood sport of bukkake and tentacle rape. Who's with me?
I love your work, Samir - keep up the excellent job you're doing informing Slashdot readers of your work at Nintendo.
It's true the market isn't the same. Cause the culture IS not the same period.
Sure the market will migrate a little, they are getting McDonalds and a little of Western culture. But do they really need to? I mean is the western culture gonna dictate the gaming scene for all?
I'm in Canada, so I'm influence mainly by the big country south of me.
But I don't like FPS either, I like more brainy, self-involving nature of RTS or RPG style games.
I'm hardly playing games anymore, the last thing I touched was solitary, but if I had time I'll surely get into Final Fantasy Series.
If they think games encourage violence, well its a good thing no?, and "Violent games are not so popular in Japan"
How can this be bad? Even if its a game ??? I understand that there's no connection between violence seen or in games and real life but people should realise, that if somethings are not liked somewhere, then maybe theres a good reason for it...
It's funny how I make sense to others and not myself...
and that's why the "Tentacles in the Classroom 2004" bill was passed yesterday, revoking all previous kiddy-porn and bestiality laws on a federal level.
--
In Japan, stuff like animae and manga is wildly popular, it features intricate storylines, often times fantasy based. That's one thing the Japaneese get that I've noticed western audiences never seem to notice: You can do ANYTHING with games, movies, stories, or art...so why stick to simulating real life?
The western world, on the other hand, has Hollywood fever, we like car chases and action, we like sports events watched by millions, we like reality. Kind of depressing if you think about it, almost like we're so fed up with REAL reality we find it amusing to play in a pretend-yet-realistic world. Either that or I've also noticed that some Americans, especially the current generation of teens, seem to feel like they're "retarded" or immature for using their imagination. A shame, to say the least.
I won't speculate on what this means culture-wise anymore than I have done at the risk of trolling, but if game-makers want to sell well internationally, they need to realize they'll either need to rely on seperate product lines tailored to the specific culture of the region, or (and this I'd like to see) start to bridge a cultural gap and create a game with elements of both cultures' preferences, and see how well that sells.
I think Japan would enjoy some more excitement action-wise in their games, and the western world needs to learn to explore their imagination more and do some problem-solving/puzzle type stuff. A nice healthy blend.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
I still like the ability to be able to run everything and the kitchen-sink on the Xbox.. :)
Thank you, Microsoft for the free copy of Mechassault(TM) you gave the linux-techie at the XBOX LIVE release-party in Sweden
But still failed, Panasonic (A large JAPANESE company),Goldstar &Sanyo all made 3DO systems. Good japanese rpgs like Lucienne's Quest & Guardian wars were available. Lots of hentai & TnA games were made.EA put out a awesome fifa soccer and a good virtual stadium baseball.even Need for speed had a japanese version. I say only Dragon warrior & Final fantasy can guarantee a game systems survival in japan.
The relative success of "Grand Theft Auto III" in Japan may be a sign of changing tastes, but violent games are still far less popular in Japan than in the United States.
:-)
Maybe it's just that they don't fall for it the third time. Makes me think about the US people
My nephew got all three LotR games for his gameboy. I have finished the first one, but the second and third are the same (walk and shoot, absolutely[sp] no story in it) and I couldn't be bothered playing them.
bash$
but those games sucked. 3DO, while an excellent console, was poorly marketed and suffered from poor business decisions as well as lack of game developers due to Nintendo's monopolizing practices. XBox...come on. The dang thing isn't really doing that well here either is it? Yeah it is surviving, but barely. We were all surprised when Sony was able to make a good console. Xbox is a nice unit to be sure, but it is basically a full fledged computer, not a console.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
Any article which starts "despite the success of american music and movies in Japan" has got to be questionable. Japanese music and idols dominate the charts; a few foreign groups / singers hit a niche market.
Don't forget the obligatory "Kuso o tabetai desu!".
I'm not trolling, I'm looking for a sincere answer here. I'm one of the many who grew up on Nintendo, but have long since left (since the SNES) because Nintendo seems to be unconscious of our gaming needs.
For examples of things that failed in Japan, they mentioned things like Mortal Kombat and the X-Box. However, they started out the article with mentions of The Lord of the Rings, Enter the Matrix, and the 3DO.
Why start an article with all of the crappy examples? Does the author want to convince people he is full of crap? I almost wrote the whole article off after that first paragraph.
Who writes this stuff? Ah. Steven Kent writes this stuff. Steven Kent, if you ever read this, that was some real bad placement of examples. However, the rest of the article was pretty good.
There's nothing like the grammatical mangling of white blood versus red. Truthfully.
- IP
they also eat strange food and they've got a different word for everything. It's weird.
Now wash your hands.
And on breast bounce.
Opinions stated are mine and do not reflect those of the Illuminati
Here, when I have a choice, I play games without the tuti-fruity anime characters - on playstation. I'm not going to purchase a Nintendo system for that one cool game that might be similar to bond or perfect dark. I don't want to race go-carts around with stupid sounding cartoon characters. I want NASCAR, or NFL football.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
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.
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.
There's a fairly obvious reason why both games vanished without a trace; the former found a Hardline, and the latter put the One Ring on its finger.
[/bad humor]
~UP
Eat the Path.
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
different cultures place value on different things. this applies to a lot of things including video games... surprised? i didn't think so.
mike
I've watched quite a bit of anime, have over a terrabyte of it, and have yet to ever see a tentacle rape show. Graphic sex, yes...graphic violence, yes...tentacles, no. I don't know if the parent is trying to be funny or is just harping about something they're uneducated about.
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
Shigeru Miyamoto has a shrine online: http://www.miyamotoshrine.com/ that is QUITE fascinating.
bash: rtfm: command not found
If I recall correctly, Japan is infamous for its illegal street racing. The tuning gear for their sports cars now imported to the US comes, to some extent, from that scene.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Different strokes for different folks =)
I take it you've never seen Battle Royale, Suicide Club, and Dead or Alive(all very popular with Japanese youth). Please do not portray Japanese culture as more violent then The States, it is just plain wrong.
Creative Demolition
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.
and it was put out by Sammy.
either. So what?
Has this auther ever considered the possibility that the consoles were designed with certain markets in mind?
Microsoft and Sony could have planned to make systems that would sell most heavily in the US while Nintendo planned to make the GameCube the champ in Asia.
From the introduction of the original PSX until the demise of the Dreamcast there were 3 big players in the console game market. They all did fairly well for most of that time. Because there are enough customers to go around. One could even argue that if a company tried too hard to get all of the customers, they'd lose the ones they already had by taking too many resources away from the things that they were doing well.
MS, Sony and Nintendo are each getting a slice of a really big pie. So what if they targeted their products towards different segments of the market?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I've been here (Japan) for 8 years. I was here when the PS1, PS2, and the Xbox were released. IMHO, the XBox failed in this country for one reason:
Sony has completely saturated the market here. I can rent/buy PS2 games in pretty much every conbini (convenience store - 7-Eleven, Family Mart, Sunkus, etc.) in Japan -- even in "remote" areas like Yatsugatake, Aumori, etc. Hell, I think one can buy a PS2 in Doit (think HomeDepot, Lowe's, Wilkinson). I've been to some stores where they only carry PS1/2 goods (Kotesashi Seiyu in Tokorozawa for example). Of course, right before the Xbox was released here, Sony opened the spicket (sales, promotions, etc.).
3cx.org - A truly bad website.
Samir Gupta is a /. personality who makes what seem to be very insightful and informative posts.....if not for the fact that they are completely discredited by his claims of working at Nintendo, which unfortunately he does not (this has been verified). I'm sure if they hired him however, he would make an excellent marketing person.
Perhaps this famous Slashdot troll is not really a troll, but rather one man on a quest to get a job at Nintendo, and pulling a big, illegal, fraudulent stunt to get their attention.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I want NASCAR, or NFL football.
I guess that's the difference between american and japanese gamers. I have a hard time imagining a japanese getting excited about a NASCAR game.
I'm not japanese but I still like games with "tuti-fruity characters" better than the "cool" games.
One reason is that all the "cool" games you mention are almost alike. Sports games follow the same rules(duh!) and I have yet to see a truly original FPS.
"Cute" games usually rely on good gameplay and story to attract players something which IMHO is very important.
Microsoft, unable to obtain a grapplehold of the Japanese gaming market, will retaliate against Japan using their army of black helicopters and their nuclear arsenal probably around 2009.
What will the Supreme Court do, you say? Probably just some lame multi-million dollar fine.
Although you apparently are only a notorious troll and don't really work at Nintendo, you do make a point with the size. I'm in Japan as an exchange student, and I notice that desktop computers are generally very small compared to the computers I'm used to; too small for ATX, at least. The X-Box is big and bulky; doesn't fit well in a Japanese household. Though, of course, having one item that plays both DVDs and games removes the need for the DVD player, so space is saved in that manner, and your comment doesn't really make sense.
Lalala
Wasn't there also a version of the gamecube that played DVDs as well? I think it was made by panasonic. I thought that was a good idea, offereing two different consoles, one with all teh features, one with just basic game playing. And with space at a premium, it's a good thing because people only need one device in their living rooms.
I have a solution but you're not going to like it. (Something I say far too forten to my boss)
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.
I never understood why 3DO did so badly, their PC video games are, for the most part, great. The first online RPG I ever played was Meridian 59 which was free for quite a long time during the beta testing. Then you have Heroes of Might and Magic, and the older Might and Magic's, which were also fantastic.
Actually, McDonalds does sell cheeseburgers in Israel.
I just depends on the religious makeup of the city.
You might not get one in Jerusalem, but if you go to, say the central bus station in Tel-Aviv you could certainly feast yourself on cheesy goodness.
Die warcraft... die!!!
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
Was it the orcs you thought looked just like in real life?
The prescription said only one tablet a day!
Hasn't been for over 10 years.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
As i see it, this is just a different way of cultures, different ways in which parents raise kids. There has been massive discussions and debating about how FPS (first person shooters) affect kids, whether they are harmful or not. Parents have restricted kids from playing violent games, age limitations recommendations has been written on the back of the game. The question is, how well does the society use and adapt this information? I am allowed playing violent games by my mom, the kid on the other side of the block isn't. What i am trying to say here, is basically that people in Japan care more, and that they focus on different things compared to the parents and kids in USA.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
What, with all those bright neon signs? Never!
All the big western hits almost have no luck in Japan (with notable exceptions), but many successful Japanese games do ok or good in the US.
This tells me one thing: that US game companies are quite inflexible on what they produce, especially in big game consoles (PC users are luckier). It may just be the US culture of bigger/better/faster that eventually backfires, for not allowing new and diverse content out (the potential cost of failure is very high).
So they don't like our stuff, and I can understand that, the cultures are different. What I cannot understand is the western adoption of all their games like Pokémon, Zelda, etc. The voice actors (if they exist) are dreadful without fail, the character animation is ugly, the plots are simply missing or stupid or full of the sort of crackpot magic and legend nonsense that the japanese seem so keen on, and it's only in recent years that they've even managed to get the English translation sort-of right. Some arcade games like the latest incarnations of Tekken still have japanese text in-game. They clearly just don't care about the western market, but throw their products at it anyway, where geeks lap it up because it's all mystic and oriental and looks like anime which has pretty girls in, and kids lap it up because they don't know any better and it's the only stuff available for their N64/GameCube/GBA/Saturn/Dreamcast.
The reason the Playstation is seen as a little more "badass" or mature than Nintendo's or Segas consoles is because it does not try to sell itself explicitely on a flagship character. Lara Croft is a possible example, but Sony didn't adopt her as a mascot, they also don't seem to shut out developers as much as Nintendo or Sega did. It's pretty much impossible for a smaller company to ever get a game released on a Nintendo system because Nintendo are such control freaks when it comes to content and finance, and their media is stupidly expensive to produce.
In Japan, they don't like our games because they have games made for their tastes over there which they prefer, which is pretty damn obvious. The two examples of western games given ("Enter the Matrix" and "Lord of the Rings") were both movie tie-ins and thus are really crappy examples. Perhaps UT or Q3 would have been better. I don't care if Japan doesn't like the games the west produces, so what? I care that the balance in console gaming is Mostly Japanese vs. Western Shoddy Attempts By BAM! Entertainment. It's a real shame the market is swamped by all these different Pokemon and Bomberman games that are all the same game in different coloured boxes, and are about as inspirational as a paving stone.
In Asia, video game sales were driven by demand, whereas here, it's driven mainly by marketing.
I lived in Thailand for a few years, which pretty much mainly tracked Japanese entertainment products. Interestingly, all of the games went for market prices... when a cart (this was for the SNES, or "Super Famicom" back then) came out, it would be priced high if it was at the top of the charts, and begin to decline as it dwindled down in rankings. They would also start at different price points depending on how much memory the carts needed, so 4MB ROMs were more expensive than dinky little games that only needed 640KB chips.
Here, of course, we're heavily driven by marketing. The distributors fix a price, at say, $50, and they hold onto that for pretty much the entire life of the cart, until it's so obscure that finally ends up in the bargain bin a few years later. The price doesn't really officially fluctuate with supply shortages, or how well the game does in the ratings, or anything like that. Mostly it depends on how much the producers spend on advertising (and a bit on development costs).
Each system has its good points and bad points... In Asia, you can usually expect to have to pay more for good products in high demand (even if they were relatively cheap to produce and market). Here, you just have to be more careful about paying more for overhyped crap.
The article mentions that First Person Shooters (FPS) are not popular in Japan. Neither is the XBox. Oddly enough, one of the best games in that category right now is Namco's Breakdown, on the XBox. They took a tired genre and injected new life into it. It will be interesting to see how its sales in Japan compare to sales in the US.
planet texture maps and more
The one who collects the biggest paycheck.
...
You are surprised by Japanese culture.
>Make fun of Japanese culture.
A Japanese man talks to you.
>Make fun of language
The Japanese man looks confused
>Make fun of Japanese man in english
The Japanese man doesn't understand you
>east
You are in Scarlett Johanssens hotel room
>look
Scarlett Johanssen is inexplicably in her underwear
>look at Scarlett Johanssen's arse
Nice.
>look at Scarlett Johanssen's arse
Nice.
>look at Scarlett Johanssen's arse
Nice.
>look at Scarlett Johanssen's arse
Nice.
I think Microsocft is a bit full of themselves here. Do they really think that a high selling FPS game (Medal of Honor: Rising Sun) that is largely set in and around Japan is selling well IN Japan because they sold 75000 units of Halo over there? (see excerpt below)
from the article:
"I feel like we tipped open the door to FPS gaming on consoles with 'Halo,'" said Mike Fischer, Xbox director of marketing in Japan. "So Electronic Arts comes in with 'Medal of Honor,' and they sell 200,000 units in two weeks. I do not believe that, and a lot of people feel the same, that they would have sold any at all if "Halo" had not opened that door to that new genre."
Bob:It's German! "The warcraft...the!!!"
Judge:Well, nobody who speaks German could be evil.
Sort of. Pubic hair is allowed, but "genitalia" are not. So unless a girl is very hairy, they'll use a mosaic effect or a blur to disguise the "pink" part of her equipment. Guy's tools are also always blurred or mosaiced.
This is true in photos, videos and even in comic books.
What about Subarashii chinchin mono Kintama no kame aru
[sig]www.masterslate.org[/sig]
This is the great divide in Japanese versus Western cinema as well. Western/American cinema is representational in that it follows a definable logic, that there are rules that the entertainment follows. One of the greatest crimes an artist can do is "cheat" (i.e. break the rules). The killer chasing the coed is trapped in the sewer, now he's in front of her! This would cause Western audiences to throw a fucking fit. Even the highly fantastic (The Matrix) are judged about being "fair" to their own logic.
In Japan it is the opposite: logic is derived from what is presented to the audience. So if a character walks through a door in his house and ends up on Moon, that is fine since the director is trying to say something. American audiences will expect some sort of rationale for it happening (i.e. that he has some sort of To-the-Moon teleportation door in his house). Japanese art design is authoritative from the creative design of the artist.
This thirst for "realism" based upon some ruleset drives the Western aesthetic. Look at the games listed as most popular in the US: crime, sports, shooters. These are genres that attempt to capture some authenticity of an experience.
On the other side you have the Incomprehensible Japanese Videogame Plot: starts reasonably, long character expository dialogue, wierd imagery, enemies dying, enemies revealing their "true form" . The Japanese game is a vehicle for the gamer to experience the designer's 'vision'. The gamer is along for a ride, and his role suppletory to that. The gaming experience improves by how much the gamer can live up to the creator's designs: how well he can sneak and run around in a box as Snake, how totally he can learn the techniques of Forrest Law, etc.
The US saddles the player with the primary responsibility. He is the engine of the storytelling (generally. Only recently have open-ended games allowed a full realization of this).
What is music when you despise all sound?
Final Fantasy XI Online is played by people all over the world, from Japan to Europe to North America, and is very successful. There are even some (crude) translation tools in the game, so Japanese and North Americans can play together. I'm actually quite surprised this game hasn't gotten more press here on slashdot.
But FFXI is not the only game with success like that. The entire Final Fantasy series has been popular in both cultures. It is quite possible to develop games that the whole world can enjoy, and Square Enix has done just that. And to top it all off, the game is cross platform (both PC and PS2 players are in the same world[s]); something that has never been done before.
This is the best game ever. Ever. You hear me? Go buy it now and meet me on the Phoenix server (Ganiman, Tarutaru RDM).
geek n performer who performs morbid or disgusting acts, as biting off the head of a live chicken
After what happened to Zero Wing, a lot of people got scared to export games?
Sales Man 1: What happened to overseas sales?
Sales Man 2: Someone set up us the bomb!
SAILING MISHAP
What I thought strange was that the tone of the whole article was, "How do we get the Japanese culture to accept and play the more violent FPS games?"
I guess I at least expected some balance in the article, mentioning what types of games are biggest in Japan and why. Heck, even the Street Fighter II vs. Mortal Combat comparison was an opportunity to discuss where and why the Japanese draw the line on violence, but no.
Hey, I love my FPS games as much as the next geek, but the genre is oversaturated. Would have been nice to read an article discussing the merits of games that don't normally make it to the US.
I represent one of the minority of adult Western gamers that actually enjoys Japanese games, such as Final Fantasy, because of their exotic settings and lush attention to detail. They are entertaining in a cultural way. I don't particularly enjoy running around trying to shoot things at the highest possible frame rate.
But at the same time, the simplistic one-directional storytelling gets tiresome with Japanese games. I know it may be a stereotype, but maybe it's a Western characteristic to want more choices, non-linearity, a way to go off-script or explore other parts of the map.
As a result I have stopped gaming as much, because it's not easy to have both -- an immersive and fantastical world that allows for freedom of action, but one with a little more maturity, which doesn't involve constant carnage and blowing crap up (or playing dolls, like the Sims). Maybe the gaming market doesn't exist for this middle ground, I don't know.
Of course you're assuming he isn't Thai himself... or that there is such a thing as race...
"A lot of people [still] resent the idea of shooting people in games.", in Japan and other places that is.
See, here in America, home of 12,000 gun murders a year compared to less than 100 in Japan, this makes complete sense. Saying we Americans are a violent group would be an understatement of the ages.
Liking violent video games is merely a result of the asinine, violent way of life we propel here.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
Multiplayer mode was what made the game a real classic.
Steven V.
I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."
This is especailly apparent in the last two paragraphs.
One version of globalization allows for different cultures to encounter each other, share, and learn while remaining relatively unchanged. Another version turns us all into consumers and forces Western culture on us all, so we are easier to market to and make money from.
It's also funny when the author contradicts himself, such as in the intro:
In the West, consumers look for games with ties to blockbuster movies such as Harry Potter or professional athletes such as John Madden.
The type of game makes a difference as well. "Doom 3," "Half-Life 2," and "Halo 2" are three of the most anticipated upcoming games among Western audiences.
Last I checked, there are no Doom, Half-Life, or Halo movies or athelete tie-ins. And John Madden is way retired.
Firstly, you're an ignorant racist idiot that should be dragged out to the street and shot for having such an opinion. Second, it's spelled "Miscegenation". So don't ever try to use expensive words that you can't spell, even on Slashdot. :P ---- this is me sticking my tongue out to you
This is the sig that says NI (again)
Interestingly, jnethack returns 13,800 results on google.
And on breast bounce.
;)
And your problem with this is.... ??
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.
RTFA - Japanese tend to like games with *fewer* things to do. And surprisingly, there are explosions even in quintesentially Japanese games like FF. There were very few opportunities to make choices though, and were basically binary in nature presented to you by antother character.
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.
Yeah, let's be more like that. That's healthy.
Ironically the greatest starcraft player of all time was from the U.K. I wonder if tillerman has a following in japan anyway?
I've often found that Japanese games have a nice rhythm of gameplay. The game moves along at a kind of relaxing pace with the next few moves easily "felt". A lot of FPS and US games seem to have lots of empty-time and lots of high energy time but not a nice constant rhythm.
This is a sweeping generalization, but popular culture in the US says "bigger everything!". Bigger food portions, bigger cars, bigger film special effects, big everything. It's trendy and cool.
Japan's popular culture shares some things with the US, more and more all the time it seems, but one thing that's notably opposite is that smaller is trendy. Big is cumbersome or wasteful or just generally un-cool. Small cel phones, small cars, small game consoles.
But it doesn't stop with the physical size of the X-Box versus a sleek PS2 or a compact Gamecube. Games themselves harbor this attitude. Enter the Matrix? Big on cramming in exclusive video, big on hype and the kind of cross-media tie-ins that are being blasted all over American pop culture. Lord of the Rings? Similar situation, and big on increasingly flashy battles.
You can see the small/compact type of attitude in Japanese games. Pikmin's my favorite and most obvious example, you've got a quarter-sized hero with armies of ant-sized helpers. In Bomberman, instead of huge over-the top US-style pyrotechnics you've got strategic, controlled blasts.
Some games walk both sides of this cultural divide, and do well in both countries. In Final Fantasy, the worlds and bosses where you do your exploring and fighting are big and impressive but the depth in the little details, the statistics and experience levels... Look how compact and efficient the equipment or character status screens are, the parts of the game where you're really doing your role-playing.
Of course there's way more to American and Japanese pop culture than big and small, but those concepts leak into many areas and most certainly influence game design and reception.
>
> And on breast bounce.
Yeah. Tomb Raider would never take off in the West.
Are there any pages that will show and compare statistics for games between the US and Japan. I know there are lots of US review sites, but it'd be nice to see something that showed (in English) foreign sales/popularity.
I'm wondering if FFX2 was as abysmally dissapointing to the Japanese as it was here. Since FF games tends to originate in Japan, I'm hoping that a crap rating in both countries would let Squaresoft know that a sellout with boobs > plot isn't going to fly.
Am I the only one who sees this problem?
US Video Game companies trying to sell games in Japan based on Western Culture concepts and then wondering why they aren't selling?
I read that article and one thing kept popping out and was obvious to me, "Violent games do not sell well in Japan". Then I recalled some successful games not developed in the US like Pacman, Tetris, etc. Ok, what if instead of violent video games, we tried to sell maze and puzzle games to Japan?
Sure US Citizens want to be the big guy with the guns and muscles that uses violence to solve problems, but apparently the Japanese Citizens want to use creativity and thinking to solve problems.
Start thinking using Eastern Culture, if you want to sell games in Japan. They are not all like us over there. We are like Cowboys to them, John Wayne, and all that.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
This is amazing, a +3 Troll ?!?! This a rare find in the /. jungle.
Now, hold on while I try to stick my thumb up it's butt.
"Viewing this site requires the latest version of the Flash plug-in" is definately one of the best games ever made.
If I remember correctly, citizens can not legally own a handgun in Japan. Likewise, getting a permit to own a rifle is more difficult in Japan than the U.S.
I can't believe the article (and none of the other 300+ comments here) didn't mention this. It seems to me that the almost complete absence of firearms in Japanese society would be a large cause of this.
IIRC, the Japanese police don't always carry firearms. If someone could find some info to support/refute this, I'd appreciate it (I have to get to class...).
C'mon, no one said it yet? lol I figured someone would bring up the literal bad-translation from EAST to WEST games, text/language wise.
Sumimassen. Toeire wa, doko desu ka?
Gotta love the survival Japanese!
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
I was playing a new FPS last night. I am an American. The game is called "Far Cry", many of you are probably playing it. It features a mind-blowing realistic 3D engine, esp. with regards to outdoors. Trees sway in the wind, water laps up on beaches. You need a new-ish rig to run it, but it does inspire awe at times.
The game takes place on what appears to be south pacific chain of islands, and has an "Island of Dr. Moreu" storyline to it.
The game features stunningly realistic gun violence. Lots of sniping through the trees, and running into rooms with a SMG on full auto blowing people away. But the game engine practically SCREAMS for a WW2 game to be build with it. In fact, in parts of the Islands you see old Japanese Zeros, rusting in the bush.
Yet, with the flood of games featuring the US Airborne, or Marines, you could NOT build the game featuring the Japanese soldier as the protagonist. Even though it would be an interesting spin, esp. since the game engine supports boats and vehicles, you could had Japanese tanks and simply epic battles in the bush against Marines at Iwo Jima or other battles of the Pacific.
Americans would not stand for a game like that. Even though games like World War 2 Online allow you to play Germans, and I think you can play Germans in some Wolfenstein mods, nobody would buy a game where you played a Japanese soldier and fought like that. Least of all, the Japanese. They would never buy a game like that.
I used to play a game called Warbirds, an online flight sim. There was a super pilot online who flew Japanese planes exclusively. His handle was "Garner". Turns out, he lived in Tokyo. He once noted to our group that what he did was considered socially unacceptable. He didn't tell people he flew a flight sim or pretended to be a Japanese pilot (and was the best damn pilot in Warbirds to boot). He kept it secret, he was a 30-something Japanese "salaryman", i.e. a middle class businessman/salesman, and it was his secret.
You see many online squadrons and online troop groups that warp themselves in the mystique of the Luftwaffe or Kreigsmarine, whathaveyou. You don't see a SINGLE squadron or group online that wraps themselves in the IJA.
"but violent games are still far less popular in Japan than in the United States"
.... ...
.... look at Suffering (has fps mode too btw) it is just more bloody in the NON-FPS mode
Helloo ! Anybody home ?
Silent hill I-II-III
Fatal Frame I-II
Resident evil outbreak ?
if something REALLY freaks me out are these
this is a different violence though from the typical beat-them-up-and-shoot-in-the-head violence, but still
Just to give an example, my wife ran out of the room telling me she would throw up if she had to wathc it any more when I presented her the ending scenes of Silent Hill 3 ! (actually the one before the last confrontation in hell)
Also on FPS:
I love it, and I hate that when they talk about violent games they olways cite FPS, because "it-is-like-you-were-shooting"
For the love of all that you hold dear. don't rent "Kite". it is the most soul destroying waste of film I've ever seen in my life. The ONLY redeeming aspect of the whole movie is fact that everybody dies. I have never seen a movie more pointless and dehumanizing.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Hey back in the day... Atari kicked Arse
Now a days, everyone looks to Japan for the next best in gaming...
But what games that you remember actually have come from Japan, well except nintendo games?
I remember a floppy version of Castle Wolfenstein, a CD version of Daggerfall.. which I dont believe anyone has come close to creating again (im hoping Fable will be up to the challenge)
Seriously, what PC games do you still have on your shelf that you still look at with awe?
Been noticing the same thing. Also have trouble with movies that use sequences of rapid cuts. Guess our brains just can't track as fast they used to.
As is becoming the norm with most American reporting anymore, this article is rather shoddily researched and missing several important points which can provide a good justification for the differences in Japanese and American video game consumers. 1) Most Japanese video game players are much younger than the American audience. Generally speaking the largest market is for children under the age of 14 or so, before juku sessions begin and they have to take the difficult high school entry exams. Look at the top sellers in Japan in a given year, it's almost always Pokemon or other games that appeal ot little kids. At this age either the kids aren't interested in gore or their parents are interested in them not seeing gore. High school is generally speaking also very difficult, so it is not a surprise that games like Mortal Combat (awful gameplay with high shock value) that did well with adolescents fared poorly in Japan. College is kind of a joke there from what I have seen, but at this point most gamers have forgotten or grown out of video games. There are exception to this; but many video games are targeted at one of these two audiences; the very young crowd or the college and young adult crowd. 2) Japanese are racist, as a generalization. Look at Koizumi going to the war shrine, or just check out Japanese streets where you will find no foreign cars hardly, not even luxury brands like Mercedes or BMW. The Japanese probably don't like having to use Microsoft's Windows on all their computers, so I wouldn't be surprised if there is some resentment towards buying more M$ products.
... the Good anime movie == good game" concept.
These statistics are somethat dated now, but in 1997 the US had 187 violent deaths per million population, compared to Japan with 176 in 1996. (Note that family members murdered in murder-suicides were classified as suicides in Japan.)
This immediately made me think of the Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II games for home computers (or at least Commodore 64). When the first movie's license came up, game-programming wiz David Crane had already been working on a game engine involving outfitting a car and driving around a city to destinations. It made a marvellous combination with the movie's trappings: that is, the game (or at least the seed for the game) came first, the movie-related stuff added on later.
The second game, on the other hand, was specifically based on the second movie from the start, and it stank horribly.
I wish this article had opened the door to more of what Japanese market does enjoy. Especially regarding their arcade games. Their taste for simulation games is truly unique to their culture...and I doubt it has anything to do with not liking FPS and violence.
Pht, females never ARE agressive enough to drive.....
You have to remember that there is a significant portion of the console market that does not do PC gaming. Also this happened back when online multiplayer PC games were more rare. So for console only people, this multi-player deathmatch was the cat's own ass.
I remember my freshman year in the dorms one room had an N64, Goldeneye and 4 controllers. People were always over there playing. I, meanwhile, was playing Quake Teamfortress comptetitvely in clan 10 on 10 matches. One of them noticed me playing one day and said I ought to come play Goldeneye. I told them no thanks and they told me that it was SO COOL because you could pay against each other. I told them that right now I was playing against 10 other people, and with 9 more. It was a foriegn concept to them, that there was a game that could do that. It was just that console gaming was all they did, and in that world deathmatches were a new thing.
What's really interesting, though, is his LAST job was at Sega!
I meant Dead Or Alive the extremely violent yakusa movie, not the video game...(which by comparison is a kid friendly game)
Creative Demolition
I would have thought that Slashdot would have known better than to promote products from Microsoft, a company that is so determined to undermine free software. There are many free games available for GNU/Linux. Let's help those projects rather than giving the impression that proprietary software is acceptable.
You can read more about the GNU project at http://www.gnu.org/.
That is interesting - bear with me for a moment. I am an American male (Polish/Swedish/German heritage) in my mid-twenties and have also played games all my life. Games like Wolf3D, Doom, Unreal Tournament, etc. used to not make me ill or anything when I was younger (even a few years ago), but they certainly do now. I can handle some slower-paced FPS games like Enemy Territory, but most of them make me pretty ill (as do third-person 'fast spinning camera' games like Hitman: Contracts).
But what the interesting thing is is that in this time period when FPS games started becoming unplayable, I have also grown to be somewhat lactose-intolerant (I stopped drinking milk five or so years ago, which seemed to let my lactose resistence wear down - though I still eat cheese, etc.). I can't exactly see how they could be related, but the coincidence is intriguing.
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon
Subarashii chinchin mono
Kintama no kame aru
Sono oto wa sarubobo
Iie! Ninja ga imasu
Hey hey let's go Kenka suru
Yes, I have that memorized.Taisetsu na mono Protect my balls
Boku ga warui So let's fighting
Let's fighting love
Let's fighting love
Nyo nyo, the Neko Boy has spoken.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Yep, I even meta-moderate 3-4 times/week. *shrug* Not that I care much about it.
In America we get to see how America won WWII and everyone else just cheered whilst they beat up those commie-nazis.
In Japan we get panties and weird animals with huge heads. And females with huge eyes that scream alot.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent