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Land of the Rising Fun
I very patiently waited all week before linking to 1up's multi-part Land of the Rising Fun feature. It details several very good, very Japanese titles they've had the pleasure of playing lately. A lot of them are for the DS (no surprise), with Chulip, Odama, and Contact particularly appealing. From the piece: "I've loved Japanese games ever since Pac-Man rocked my childhood. Unfortunately, as the medium matures, its seems more and more Americans take issue with Japan's willingness to defy logic in the name of entertainment. Are the frequently goofy aesthetics of Japanese games a dangerous creative rut? Maybe not. Goofiness is making a comeback, thanks in no small part to the Nintendo DS, which is reaching new audiences with experiences that emphasize creativity above anything so mundane as mere realism."
Japan and North America are two different markets. Japan is a very interesting testing ground for new concepts and ideas. North America relies on a more tried-and-tested methodology. In the end this leaves North American and even European gamers is a stagnant rut of the same-old concepts continually rehashed and re-released.
Japan is what is keeping creativity in the industry, because companies know that whatever they make will sell to some success over there as long as its not foreign. Foreign meaning Microsoft, mostly. In North America, we see games made for our market fail miserably (Mark Ecko's Getting Up, for example) when some new ideas and brought forth.
It's not an end-all equation, but the people wearing suits in the game industry want to make money and Americans will buy the same thing repeatedly again and again. Sell them what sells, you'll do fine. Or will you? The American market is now so saturated with the same ideas that without any fresh ideas and concepts the market may crash. That's only speculation, though.
Viva la Revolution.
Electric Pickle Online - gaming news, etc.
Goofy never died - just look at Warcraft. From the first game nearly every character/class/item/goal has been half joke, and it's turned into the biggest "fantasy" franchise (behind Final Fantasy?) out there these days. As long as you don't take fun too seriously, you'll have an audience.
My kids watch a lot of Pokemon. The plots and humor are sometimes "odd" such they are not predictable, at least compared to what I am used to. Lack of predictability makes it kind of refreshing.
Perhaps Japanese kids *will* find it predictable because it fits their culture. It appears the advantage of watching other nation's entertainment is more surprises. However, sometimes it does not make a lot of sense to the other group and it leaves you scratching your head a bit.
Table-ized A.I.
that Japanese games companies are especially creative, or is it just that western companies have lost the ability to be so, under a deluge of sequels and licensed franchises?
Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Rising Fun.
I'm sorry, but I do not agree. Pokemon, Digimon et al was just a fad that became VERY boring the longer the series continued. Pokemon's creator said that he wanted his company to become big like Disney one day. I'm sorry, but to become like Disney - no matter how bad people perceive them to be - you'll need quality and class... Pokemon didn't offer that at all. We bought some Pokemon tapes for our son a couple of years ago... he watched them once. Don't expect Pokemon, Digimon et al to become classics that people wiil have on their bookshelves.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
kidnapping a woman from the train, keeping her locked in your apartment, and raping her repeatedly until she became so degraded that she can't think of anything but sucking your cock which strangely she has come to crave.
Which reminds me, your mom says to call, she misses you.
To think that sequels are an American trend is a mistake. Street Fighter, Megaman (Rockman there), Pokemon, Tekken, Mario, Sonic, and numerous RPG franchises (if you're willing to count them) are examples of major Japanese franchises that will never die.
I personally played through Chulip all the way in Japanese and always lamented that it would likely never see the light of day in the US... I know it isn't the first time, but it's good to see the west finally wake up to what it's been missing (and what we here take for granted)
Thank you for keeping Slashdot in check. I expect to see you around the next time someone posts a Yakov Smirnoff or Simpsons joke.
If I had a nickle for every Japanese girl I have seen running around with a cutesy little keychain doll given to them for free by their cell-phone company attached to their $300 Louis Vuitton handbag, I could probably buy one myself.
The Japanese sense of style is completely bizarre, and what little translates in the American does so more as a joke than literally.
My girlfriend: That hat is not stylish. Why are you wearing it?
Me: Because it is a warm hat, and it is very cold out today
My girlfriend: but it is not stylish. Take it off!
Me: Uhhh.....no
My gloveless hatless skirt-wearing girlfriend (in Japanese): I'm cold...
I will never understand Japanese...
Where have I heard that name before?
The only reason we don't have games like that in the US is that you can't sell them at Wal-Mart.
Now, I haven't actually managed to beat any GTA games yet (I got bored with VC because aiming with a thumbstick is so very frustrating, SA has a much better implementation of the targeting scheme but I haven't actually had enough time with the damn game to beat it and I'm way stuck on the shoot down the helicopter mission right now, which I've found to be the hardest mission to beat so far) but I haven't found any prostitute raping missions yet, or even the opportunity to do so. Granted, you can bone 'em and then kill them and get your money back...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The Spore vid, albiet at poor quality, and from quite awhile ago:
= will%20wright%20spore
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXMsWNGcbP4&search
Night Trap was available and its sales were terrible. The market for games of realistic, quietly-permissive extreme violence against women is almost zero in the US.
And its being a shitty game had nothing to do with it?
Not *only* was this a bad pun, but *two* people couldn't resist making it?
[groans]
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
And the Japanese games I mentioned in the original post are any better?
Face it, there is a seedy underbelly in the Japanese game and animation market that caters to pedophiles, would-be rapists, and social degenerates. This marginal group is a black mark on the rest of the Japanese game and animation industry which does nothing to distance itself from the dreck.
Every single EA sports franchise? :-)
Sequels aren't a bad thing per se. The bad thing is when stuff doesn't change between versions of a game. Look at Mario's Jump-N-Run games. There have never been more than two versions using the same game mechanics (Mario 1 and Mario: Lost Levels, and possible Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine), while most western FPS use the same engines and mechanics even in different franchises.
Don't think they are my style anyway
There are several reasons why we don't have games like this in US or Europe, but the main ones I believe are the cultural difference and, yes, a lack of open-mindedness and imagination in the West, both from creators and consumers.
The most popular games here are all the same, look at the UK charts, it's almost tragic: shooting, popular licences, sports, racing, always the same genres, always the most uncreative of the bunch. You serve them the same sport game every year and they buy it ! The public is not even curious towards different games, on the contrary, their difference is the best reason to dismiss them. It's almost an allergy to imagination and it's a feeling perceptible towards art in general too.
There is, to some extent, the same thing happening in Japan, some genres perform better than some others and some licences are more popular than ever, but the major difference is that imagination always has a place in Japan; so once in a while you see an unsual game ranking high in the charts, because the Japanese gamers have the open-mindedness to look into it and sometimes accept its singularity. The other difference also, is that game makers in Japan are willing to take riskes, their approach to game making is, I suspect, radically different than here in the West.
They have a passion for creating new games, even within established genres, like the shooting games that keep coming on Dreamcast. No one in the West would be brave enough support a dead console ! They don't think "how am I going to please the public ?", in the West that would be by giving them their fodder, thrill and violence, but they try fore and foremost to make interesting concepts come alive, concepts that they find appealing, amusing. They think as gamers, not as marketers.
Shinji Mikami, from Capcom, once said the public is stupid. I'm quite sure the same thought must cross many minds in the industry. But in the West, even knowing this, we still give them what they want while in the East they fight to impose their ideas. It is the definition of an auteur, like in the film industry, and that's the key difference perhaps: in Japan they have many auteurs (which has nothing to do with being famous), here we only have a few.
Japan anyway has always been a creative leading force in the world, from their traditional art which deeply influenced European art to the unique style of their animation; it's perhaps because they never completely forgot their past and traditions, which are still felt strongly in every aspect of their contemporary culture, as films like Chihiro and games like Okami suggest.
I think that the people who hold the purse strings at western game publishing houses are too afraid to spend money on a new idea, however creative that idea may be.
:o.
I think it's partly the consumer's fault- they'll rush right out and buy a million copies of ISS Pro, or Project Gotham Racing, but they won't lavish the same money on Oddworld:Stranger's wrath (I'm still reeling from playing that last summer), Forza Motorsport (which kick's Gran Turismo's simulation ass, and had play over xbox live) or Lumines for the PSP.
They can't really be blamed though- when crap like L.A. Rush (which sponsors Pimp my Ride here in europe) and every other indistinguishable sequel are pushed at them through ads on television and in magazines - just so bosses can reclaim the cash they spent on making a steamin pile of predictable shit.
If every game (or movie, or album for that ) was given advertising in accordance to what it deserved or now novel it was, rather than how desperate the management are to at least make their money back, then a lot of smaller, original game producers out there would make more money than the original ones, and people would buy more, better games.
Personally I spend my money where the quality is- in the sense that if there are no great games around, then I won't buy any- but if three come out at once I'll get them all. The same goes for movies too, where I won't go to the cinema if there's nothing worthwhile on , but might go three times in a week if there are a few good movies around. It's sore on my wallet though
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
Oh, I didn't see that Pun coming. Land of the Rising Sun, I mean Pun, err.. Fun! :P
In the Soviet Union, signatures writes you!
here's an idea for a revolution... how about we boycott these ridiculous extortionist prices they charge us for games! games should cost $10 maximum! these rip off merchants disgust me.
Leisure suit larry, lula 3D, the singles, all kinds of "virtual girlfriend" and "strip poker" games...
The West has plenty of shitty sex games too. Japanese ones are often more paedo or tentacle-oriented, but we certainly have the "would-be rapist" and "social degenerate" thing covered.
There is a huge difference between cultures here. Japan likes to make their sequels new and unique, while everywhere else seems to repackage the same damn game over and over.
And yeah, Spore look amazing. But do we really need another Halo, PGR, MoH, Elder Scrolls game etc etc etc to get to one lousy decent and unique game?
How often do you see innovative titles like Nintendogs and Brain Train top the charts. In the US it's usually the FPSs and EA sports titles. That's not to say there's no innovation in the US, but it just doesn't sell as well. I wonder what Star Wars and Lord of the Rings games are in development.
In Japan, an FPS, RTS, or open-ended RPG is considered out of the ordinary -- and they don't sell. The Metroid Prime series, for example, has not sold well in Japan.
Seems to me that the "West" (or at least the U.S. and Canada) are more receptive of different games/genres than the Japanese are. Actually, the Koreans are pretty open minded too, IIRC.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
The parent post shows one of the biggest issues when discussing "innovation", it's not very well defined. As the old joke goes, ask 5 people to describe "innovation" and you're likely to get 6 different answers. The definition really depends on each individual.
For example, the parent post says that all Final Fantasy games have, "Random battles, spells and bosses." Of course, so do many other games in the RPG genre, such as the old Wizardry games. How much change is needed before something is really innovative? Does Darklands count as derivative because it has random battles, spells, and bosses? Even though the "spells" are in terms of alchemic potions and prayers to saints? Does the historical setting of fantasy medieval Germany score some points? But, if these features make the game different and "innovative", why does a change in a system in Final Fantasy (such as the Materia system in FF7) or the setting (such as the industrial setting of FF7) fail to qualify? (Personally, I'll disagree that the changes to advancement like the materia system or sphere grid are "little" changes.)
Likewise, people can say things are innovative out of a lack of knowledge of games. The parent post says that Deus Ex is innovative, but many of the features found in that game first appeared in the System Shock series. So, does this mean that Deus Ex isn't really innovative? You could make similar arguments for Fable (which shares similar gameplay with Rune) and Black & White (which you could argue just puts Dogz or Catz in a more interesting environment.)
So, the original question remains: what is the limit for something to be innovative? Does it have to be completely different than anything that came before? I don't think that's realistic, because every game borrows some element from other games. Are sequels automatically disqualified? Not really, you can have innovative mechanics and gameplay wrapped up in a familiar type of story; however, some sequels are obviously just derivative. So, where do you draw the line? Can you make that consistent?
Of course, this whole argument ignores the fact that innovative games are very risky, and that the market is very hesitant to support anything too unfamiliar. For example, you need to have something identifiable (like a name such as "Final Fantasy") before people will try something "new" out. On the other hand, games that have been widely considered innovative (such as DOOM, The Sims, etc.) have been the catalysts that have grown the industry by leaps and bounds.
Some thoughts from a professional game developer,
Brian "Psychochild" Green
MMO developer's blog
Shamelessly copied from http://www.di.fm/edmguide/ when he is describing JPop.
"Is anyone even surprised that this kind of stuff would come from Japan? That whole country is like Bizarro world. They do everything we do, just in a really strange way. It reminds me of that scene in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" where they go near Toontown, and you can see clouds of smoke and yelling and fighting and all sorts of haywire shit happening above the horizon to signify the complete and total lunacy of the place. Japan is just like that. The whole world continuously scratches its head at the far east, then sits back and watches to see what wacky thing the Japanese will do next. I mean, I'm sure the culture is swell once you get past all the incest and pedophilia and giant robots and all, but after that--huh? Japan is super crazy place, 100 PERCENT! Note: there's actually two forms of Jpop. The faster kind which gives the hardiest Dance Dance Revolution masters a run for their money, which is indistinguishable from Eurobeat, and the more bubblegum kind, called Shibuya-kei. You can tell which is which."