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Japanese Game Developers Go West

Posted by Soulskill on from the bring-ideas dept.

donniebaseball23 writes "More and more Japanese game studios and publishers are looking toward the West. But as the industry becomes more global, is this really such a bad thing? From the article: 'Gameplay is an art that transcends borders, and it simply makes good business sense to keep your eyes open for opportunities no matter where they present themselves, as Zenimax, EA and THQ clearly have. Far from ruining the Japanese gaming industry, it may in fact save some of the best Japanese developers from considering retirement or a career change. They'll be able to make games on their own terms with their own original IP, and shouldn't it ultimately be about these creative types being able to realize their visions?""

3 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. Re:80s gameplay is wasted on AAA titles by Iburnaga · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Experimenting is right. Question: "How much can we slack before the customers realize that they're playing a movie?" Hypothesis: "A whole f*#&ing lot." Results: FFXIII Conclusion: In conclusive.

    --
    iburnaga.blogspot.com
  2. Re:80s gameplay is wasted on AAA titles by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The problem is that there's only so many times you can do the whole "evil demon-zombie tries to take over the world and humble scruffy hero with funny-looking friends acquired along the way run FedEx missions to get the ultimate sword of NecroNegro to vanquish the evil Demon who becomes MegaDemon at the last minute which happens in heaven/hell/memoria/the end of time/the beginning of time. Fuck, man. How many have they made?! They should have called it quits after 8, and even that was full of trite emo-kid shit. I knew the series was going to shit the second I saw the preview of the characters for FF9. The best part of FF12 was listening to the theme in the intro screen, the rest was just fucking boring. The problem with a lot of titles on the newer consoles is that they seem to concentrate on eye candy rather than better gameplay.

  3. Not a big fan. by tycoex · · Score: 4, Insightful

    To be honest I hate it when these Japanese company purposely tweak their game to try and make it more "Western friendly." I enjoy Japanese games, I like Nintendo, I like Squaresoft, and I like Western games for what they are.

    Studios need to focus on what they are good at. A lot of American gamers like Japanese games, I'd much prefer if Western games and Japanese games stayed good at their own thing instead of trying to copy each other.

    What's better, one great Japanese game, and one great Western game. Or a single sub-standard Japanese/Western game?