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Japanese Not That Interested In Online Videogaming?
Thanks to Video-Fenky for its weblog entry detailing the results of a Japanese survey about online gaming. When asked: "Have you ever played a premium online game?", 54.3% of the 300 Japanese net users surveyed said "No, and I have no plans to", increased from the previous year's survey and "now the majority." In addition, the question "What do premium online games need to become more popular?" elicits 56.0% suggesting "Better prices", and 20.3% want "Better payment systems." Apparently: "The [Nikkei-relayed report] concludes that while Japan's net infrastructure has improved greatly over the course of a year, work remains to be done on more useful payment systems and more interesting content."
Yet FFXI has how many subscribers just in Japan alone? Far more people than this survey covered. Data == flawed.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
(See subject.)
Game companies were all going nuts over the obscene amount of money they could make via MMORPG subscriptions. Why Americans can put up with that crap, I'll never know.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
They say that the number of people who have never played online games has *risen*. How exactly does that work?
See you, space cowboy...
I'd guess... Large increase in birthrate amongst gamers? ;)
(Nothing beats being able to reach over and punch your opponent. You can't do that online.)
-- There is no spoon. Only fork.
The survey actually says that 50 some odd percent of japanese are disinterested in "premium" online games. "Premium" online games include Evercrack, Unfair Online, etcetera. This does not include XBox live, by far the best thing that has happened to online gaming. You'll note that XBox live is also not as successful in Japan as it is in other places, largely due to the XBox not being as successful in Japan. *
Overall, though, I can't say that I disagree with the assertion... The American MMPO premium game (with a few exceptions) was refined perfectly into The Sims Online: a game where social interaction collides with repetitive, trivial tasks to produce something roughly devoid of fun... certainly not fun enough to warrant a monthly fee. Now, if you take a Japanese consumer and put them down in front of Everquest, a largely english RPG appealing to American sensibilities about personal responsibility, bootstraps, yadda yadda, do you think it will resonate with them? Do you think it will resonate with them enough to convince them to pay A: 50 dollars for the application, B: 15 dollars every month, and C: 50 more dollars every 6 months for the expansion pack?
Furthermore, if you look at Japanese RPG's vs American RPG's, the American RPG's are about hard work and character building through self-improvement. Japanese RPG's on the other hand are about fulfilling the destiny of becoming the savior of the world. I've played a lot of Role Playing Games in my day, and I can't think of a single Japanese developed game in this genre where the character wasn't pre-ordained to become the savior of the would through birthright or destiny... A Superman complex, if you will. American RPG's are filled with characters that rose to heroism in the face of adversity. Like Batman. Characters that are normal people who do extrordinary things because of the circumstances they find themselves in. This distinction, while slight in a movie or single-player realm, is significant in online RPGs. You can't have 100,000 characters running around who are all Jesus. Even in City of Heroes everyone is just a normal, hardworking crime fighter.
I'm not saying that no games have cross cultural appeal, but delivering what the Japanese normally want impossible in a MMPORPG. Add in the fact that MMPORPG atrophy is high (most of the people I know have played a MMPORPG, and gave it up due to waning interest), and we can't even get right what "we" want. I'm sure that Japan will someday become a bastion of online gaming equivalent of Korea, but they need more Japanese developers than just SEGA and Square trying to push the boundaries and explore what makes the games appeal to the Japanese gamer.
* Full disclosure: I've come to respect the XBox, but I would hate to see my favorite pastime handed to a serially convicted monopolist.
The ______ Agenda
You know, Japan is so rediculously overcrowded who would blame them for not wanting to escape to a world populated with... MORE PEOPLE!
I'm a bit bewildered by how we got from the figures in the article to the conclusion that "the Japanese aren't interested in online gaming".
54.3% wouldn't be interested in a "premium" online game. I can only assume this refers to subscription based titles such as Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies and Final Fantasy XI. This leaves 45.7% who potentially would be. These figures do not sound massively out of line with the figures in the US and European gaming markets. By their very nature, as well as their reputation, subscription-based massively multiplayer games are going to exclude a pretty large section of the gaming market. In particular, penniless students are going to be put off by the price, under-18s are going to be put off by the fact that many of them require a credit card for subscriptions (which usually then involves getting dad to pay) and then you've got the people who just plain prefer another genre.
Final Fantasy XI has a huge Japanese player base, despite broadband being pretty much essential for it. I've said for some time that the reasons that the Japanese don't tend to play online games as much is that they just don't get online games marketed at them. The PC and the X-Box, which are far and away the most popular (and in my opinion, the best) platforms for online gaming have a negligable presence in the Japanese market, by virtue of the nature of the games sold on them. When Sony/Squenix finally sold a game that both appealed to Japanese tastes and required online play, the results were spectacular. For Nintendo to continue to ignore the potential of online gaming in Japan is nothing short of madness.
Most RPG's have the main character just a normal person with no "specials" starting out to do something. About the only one that comes to mind is that MS "diablo" clone forgot the name. There you are just a regular farmhand who decides to take revenge for an attack. If I remember correctly you got nothing special and start fighting with farm equipment.
Sure there are differences between japanese RPG's and western RPG's but personally I see them more in the decission taking. Most western RPG's seem to want to give you moral choices like "do I save person X"/"kill them and take all their money"/"save them for a price" while in the few japanese games I played this was always prechosen. (Please don't list the japanese games that are not like this I only played a couple). From what I seen of the Final Fantasy series it is more like an adventure with fighting then what we would call an RPG.
As to why the japanese wouldn't want to play it. Well that is only a valid question if westerners DID play it (not want to play it in a survey, people can say anything in a survey, these figures are meaningless unless people put their money where there mouth is).
MMORPG are a gigantic failure. There is ultima and evercrack and the rest are pathetic. If you look at the number of active subscribers vs the numbers speculated then you can't help but conclude that westerners don't want to play mmorpgs either.
Why not? Well I recently cancceled my subscription to SWG after just a couple of months. It is not the money, I work and can easily afford it. It is not the payment system, SWG has 3, creditcard, automatic bankpayment and prepaid gamecard.
It is the gameplay. You compare them to single player RPG's but they are nothing like it. SWG comes closer to a cross between Diablo and Counter Strike and Arcade style games. Let me explain.
Diablo is a levelling up game, no story (certainly not enough to play it over and over). Just go out do missions for a few hours and get lvls/money/goodies. Is this fun? Well to a point but considering the sales figures not to many. At least diablo is honest, it is not sold as a story RPG. Most customers want more then a levelling threadmill.
Counter Strike. SWG has PvP. The two sides (rebel and imperial) can fight it out, if you are overt on either side the other side can attack you. Slight problem? It means every game server has a couple of kiddies running around using every exploit available to prove how leet they are. No room for a rebel doctor or an imperial scout. You got to a tooled up warrior wearing only certain parts of certain armour and 2-3 weapons to count. Just like CS kiddies who spend all their time learning every exploit in the game and use aim bots and similar. (note that CS while seemingly popular can hardly be considered a game that appeals to wide audience)
Arcade style games. I don't like console games as the only difficulty from them comes from giving the enemies insane hitpoints. SWG developers seem to love this however. Your character has perhaps 3000-4000 hitpoints. The enemies in the recently opened Death Watch bunker got a quarter million hit points + 100% resists. Considering you do about 2000-3000 damage minus resists and that the enemies respawn every 3 minutes it soon becomes clear that this is not just insane, it just plain isn't fun.
There is the crafting system (all the equipment and supplies you find in a RPG is made by other players) but just ask yourselve how much fun it is to endlessly click on a very bad interface (way to many clicks needed on different screens and the screen flashes between screen in a way sure to give an epeleptic the seizure of a life time if they are in a hurry). Designing clothing can be some fun, same as image styl
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Anyone know how many homes have broadband connections in the Japan? Is it affordable? Because if I didn't have broadband in my house, I certainly wouldn't look twice at online gaming. I'm kind of ignorant as to how that's coming in other parts of the world.
And how many gamers are there total in Japan? Far _far_ more people than this survey covered. Your understanding of how surveys work == flawed.
And as for FF11, last i heard it was a few hundred thousand subscribers at most, which is pretty damn small for a Final Fantasy game. The franchise as a whole has sold about 50 million units, and the later titles were selling more than the early ones i'm pretty sure. Unfortunatly i can't remember where i saw a chart that breaks down sales by title.
Squarenix may be making tons of money from that comparitively small group of people because of the recuring subscription charges so it might by a huge financial success (or it might not, i don't know,) but as far as reaching a large percentage of the gamers in Japan goes FF11 is an abysmal failure.
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in which case it's entirely possible that the percentage who have played an online game have dropped. See, it's an easy mistake to make even if you know the difference if you're not watching your words carefully :)
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the people who do like the online games are too busy playing them to answer a survey.
300 people != reasonable test group
Also, you can't make such a sweeping statement when the result is so close. I'm starting to get a bit sick of people who think it's so black and white. The ability to play online is still more popular as a commodity than many single titles, and if charged as such can compete and be profitable.
Nintendo apologists seem to be toeing some kind of 'party line' spouted by President Iwata, claiming that "no-one" wants it, which is pretty annoying. I'm happy with and enjoy the ability to play online, along with the 2 million plus other PS2 and Xbox owners, and many many more PC owners. More than anything I appreciate the choice. I really don't understand the agenda of people who create articles saying no-one wants it.
The few people I know that are in Japan (not enough to make any scientific study or anything) don't do online gaming because arcades are still popular.
If given a choice between:
1. Sitting at home on their couch and playing a game online against someone else
-OR-
2. Going down the street to the local arcade and playing a game against someone else face-to-face where the social interaction is there and you can actually see the person
They would choose #2 every time. (Here in America, we have chosen #1, because it's less hassle then actually getting dressed and going to an arcade, hence why the industry is dying over here.)
That's not to say online gaming will NEVER be a success over there, but it's just taken longer than normal, because they're more hesitant to lose the social aspect of gaming. But now that Broadband is getting more and more available in Japanese homes, that might shift.
But even in Korea, where PC Gaming is ruling the day, they still go to LAN Centers to play them rather than play them from home. (But, admittedly, this is more of a money issue than a social issue - it's expensive to get your own rig and a Broadband connection over there!)
But I can understand why people like Nintendo aren't concentrating on online. There really is only a small portion of the audience, even in the US, that plays online. The last number that I heard was that only 10% of Xbox owners also have Xbox Live, and a less percentage of PS2 owners have PS2 online. Out of all of my friends here, I am the only one with any kind of online gaming connection - they're more than happy just to play Halo on Friday nights with their friends...They could care less about online play. So Nintendo's trying to focus on the experience that all 100% of their userbase can enjoy, rather than just the 10% of us hardcore nerds that go online.
If I want a great online multiplayer experience, I'll go on XBL. If I want a great singleplayer experience, I'll play my Gamecube games.
It's tough to turn the concept of tentacle-rape into an MMORPG.
Okay, well, maybe not.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Just because they dont all want it doesnt mean the rest of the world doesn't either.
On a side note, I am japanese and I do want online games
Sorry but "300 net users" is too small a number, and likely not even the right demographic to survey on such a topic.
i used to play a few games online, but the behavior of online people just kills it for me, even in rpg's (i was a subscriber to phantasy star online for a year.) and i can honestly say, aside from the behavior issues, multiplayer with a few friends on the couch next to me is scads more fun than online (i still occasionally pull out phantasy star online for gamecube and play that, not online, but with a few friends, split-screen, and have more fun than I did playing it online.) the difference betweeen online or split-screen/lan multiplayer is significant: its just more fun with people in the same room as you! thats why halo is so popular: it sets up a good activity to design a get-together around.
Heheh.. anyone remember when online services were billed by the hour? Playing Air Warrior alone cost me over $100 one month.
Get on a PC with broadband. Grab a game that allows for FREE online play. Grab Teamspeak and a Headset. Get some friends with the same setup - and you're now doing the same thing... without paying a monthly fee.
Most games out there have multiplayer - heck, even grab some old multiplayer game like quake, Tribes2, Half Life, and all them - you can talk smack to your friends when you whap them upside the head with the crowbar for free.
Then again the 26 seat MOHAA server we rent costs $100 a month... but split among our group it's much less than any monthly charge EA or Sony will ever get from me.
i've tried that, too, and its not the same. you seem to miss the point of my argument.
some background: my pc is broadband, and I have plenty of online-play-for-free games with voice chat. but you know what? as cool as Unreal tournament 2k4, as fun as quake is, i never play them, because the experience of playing with an anonymous coward isn't the same as playing with a friend sitting on the same couch, and then breaking for pizza while another friend takes a turn. its about socializing, and talking/playing with people you don't know (or ever will) takes something out of the social experience that I enjoy.
I've never met the people that share our server face to face - but I know their kids names, birthdays, and a lot of other stuff I would normally only remember of friends. Some are from Canada, some are from the states. All of us have a great time playing the game as a team. We share a stronger bond that the anonymous players do - we're friends.
I didn't miss your argument - I was simply replying with my version of online gaming and what I've found works for me and my new friends.
We're planning a group meeting sometime next year - it's tough to find a middle grown when you have 2,000 miles between the farthest people.