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."

Comments

American games are all the same.

[Komarechka]

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.