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

I agree

[tgv]

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.

Re:I agree

[xe1fer]

You were eaten by a grue.

Re:I agree

[mattjb0010]

You can only win if you don't get the girl at the end.

Nice to see someone targeting a game at /. readers!

Re:I agree

[Luigi30]

You can't be eaten by a grue if there's neon around.

You see a staircase down saying 'Escape'.
> down
It is dark.
> look
It is dark.
You were eaten by a grue.

XBox not selling in Japan

[Anonymous Coward]

not because it's unpopular, but because no one can get the zoning permits!

Re:XBox not selling in Japan

[Powercntrl]

Penny Arcade called, they want their joke back.

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

[IntelliTubbie]

... 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.

Wow, that guy must have done a LOT of acid.

Cheers,
IT

Re:I used to LOVE to play

[Shwilmo]

... 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?

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.

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.

Re:I used to LOVE to play

[kfg]

It's an interesting observation. Perhaps it can best be summed up with the phrase:

"East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet."

The phenomenon is so glaring it's a wonder that nobody has noticed it before.

KFG

Re:I used to LOVE to play

[kfg]

. . .on par with cheap food and inebriated idiocy.

And lord knows you won't find any of that in Japan.

KFG

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.

Re:reverse is also true...

[pommiekiwifruit]

You had to put the five year limit in to rule out custer's revenge, yeah?

Regimented psyches

[Paul Townend]

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!

Re:Regimented psyches

[alphaseven]

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.....

Grand Theft Auto sold surprisingly well in Japan, but I sort of wonder what they're doing in it. Maybe they're just driving around, obeying traffic signals, listening to the radio, watching the sunset...

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.

United States of Japan

[djcreamy]

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?

Music?

[aitsuda]

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.

Re:Also breasts

[CyberDruid]

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.

And on breast bounce.

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.

GTA3 *can* be played as a linear game.

[tukkayoot]

Most of the people I know who've played Grand Theft Auto III tell me how think it's great that they can jack any car they see, recklessly drive around and perform little tricks, run over whores, then get out and beat children with a baseball bat.

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.

Why the Xbox failed in Japan

[kir]

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.).

Re:I wonder if...

[Jussi K. Kojootti]

Maybe it doesn't make all Japanese sick but maybe we just aren't built for it.

Some industry people agree with you. This is from Scott Millers (3DRealms) blog. See especially point 2.

Compared to Europe, the Asian territories (specifically, Japan) are more challenging for selling Western games. There are three high barriers for us to overcome to be successful over there:

1) aesthetics - you've probably noticed a predilection for cuter anime style characters in Japanese games. Namely, there's a preference for characters to have slightly larger heads and larger eyes, and for environments to use a high contrast color palette. This is out of sync with the more realistic style that most of us Western game designers employ. Crash Bandicoot is one of the best selling U.S. developed games ever because they designed their characters from the ground up to be compatible with Japan.

The disconnect we have with Asian-style aesthetics is only going to be exacerbated as the average age of US gamers (currently 28 years-old) continues to increase. As adults we're obviously going to want more realistic and less cartoony games.

2) camera - games that have fast moving cameras severely limit their audience in Asian nations because people there have a tendency to get dizzy or sick from jerky movement. First person shooters are almost impossible, and 3rd person action games with simplistic follow-cams are just as bad. I remember a specific instance when working at a development company in Yokohama where I was playing a game of Descent and my Japanese co-workers had to avert their eyes from my screen because they were getting nauseous!

Games like Ratchet and Clank 1 & 2 are huge in Japan partially because their camera spin speed is very slow, and they use smart, well dampened algorithms to avoid jerkiness. This was intentional because these guys were thinking about the Japanese market from day one.

3) difficulty - games that are too difficult or punish the player too often have trouble in Japan too. People tend to get lost in complex 3D space, so I remember reading a post mortem on Sly Cooper (I think) where they said that they added lots of infomration sign posts, arrows, and clues to help guide Japanese players through their levels.

Re:Travellers blog,

[zero_offset]

my gf (yup she's thai, in case you're wondering)

We weren't wondering.
Just in case you were wondering.