Video Games - Lost in Translation? 509
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."
Regimented psyches (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
Travellers blog, (Score:3, Interesting)
In Thailand, there are a LOT of internetcafes, almost every streetcorner (and a lot of stores between them) have them.
Last time I went (may '03) the game of the day was Ragnarok Online.
It was almost the only game I saw being played there
The other game I saw being played there was C&C Generals.
The game my gf (yup she's thai, in case you're wondering) was/is playing is Rollercoaster Tycoon 2.
In all the time I've been there, the only FPS being played there (in a mall, some comps set up as a lan with broadband access) is Halflife Counterstrike, but I don't think that one really counts since it has had a long enough time to get there.
Back 2 UT2K4 I go, my FPS of choice at the moment.
Their brain has a bullshit filter (Score:3, Interesting)
Stuff like wording, colors and game titles that are cool in the states and in Europe can be interpreted quite differently in Japan.
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.
Is the culture to "blame"? Of course. So the gaming industry must adapt.
Re:Obviously (Score:4, Interesting)
The only thing the game REALLY had going for it was the story, but as a wise man once said, a game can't be good unless it has good gameplay.
Re:I used to LOVE to play (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
On Xbox's lack of success in Japan (Score:-1, Interesting)
Whereas, with Nintendo, we have designed the GameCube from the ground up to reflect Japanese aesthetic sentiments of small size, symmetry, and fitting into the big picture without standing out, a fundamental tenet of Zen Buddhist philosophy -- not to mention the practical advantages when considering the size of the typical Japanese home.
Furthermore, we at Nintendo have always been sceptical of the "Everything and the kitchen sink" approach that Microsoft and Sony have taken with their consoles. We do but one thing -- gaming -- but do it well, unlike our other competitors who want to be a DVD player/CD player/PC/Internet terminal/TiVo. Our philosophy is to focus on one thing -- gaming, and make it our core competency, continuing to come out with seminal hits that people synonimize with the video game industry, Mario, Zelda, and so on.
We are continuing this trend with our future game consoles, and I would advise Microsoft to please do more serious cultural and marketing research if they wish to be a serious contender in the Japanese marketplace.
Man western-eastern culture (Score:2, Interesting)
Sure the market will migrate a little, they are getting McDonalds and a little of Western culture. But do they really need to? I mean is the western culture gonna dictate the gaming scene for all?
I'm in Canada, so I'm influence mainly by the big country south of me.
But I don't like FPS either, I like more brainy, self-involving nature of RTS or RPG style games.
I'm hardly playing games anymore, the last thing I touched was solitary, but if I had time I'll surely get into Final Fantasy Series.
If they think games encourage violence, well its a good thing no?, and "Violent games are not so popular in Japan"
How can this be bad? Even if its a game ??? I understand that there's no connection between violence seen or in games and real life but people should realise, that if somethings are not liked somewhere, then maybe theres a good reason for it...
Writer Trying to Undermine Own Article? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why start an article with all of the crappy examples? Does the author want to convince people he is full of crap? I almost wrote the whole article off after that first paragraph.
Who writes this stuff? Ah. Steven Kent writes this stuff. Steven Kent, if you ever read this, that was some real bad placement of examples. However, the rest of the article was pretty good.
Re:I used to LOVE to play (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, that GTA3, Halo, and Madden are the bread and butter of most college-aged males doesn't matter for shit. As far as I've seen while at college, beer and pizza are also the bread and water of most college-aged males. So, GTA3, Halo, and Madden are on par with cheap food and inebriated idiocy.
Re:Regimented psyches (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Just maybe.. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's really true. I can't remember the last time I watched an American porno with a plot to it, but Japanese porno is actually very good. If you doubt me, rent Kite. If you get the wrong one, it might not be a porno and you might think it's just a decent movie.
Re:Their brain has a bullshit filter (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder if... (Score:5, Interesting)
But I get incredibly sick and disoriented playing FPS. I've tried on several occasions thinking that my vertigo might improve but have finally given up knowing that I will just feel sick in the end.
I can play GTA, Tomb Raider and many a third person games and I love any racer but FPS just makes me sick. I wonder if Japanese (or Asians) are in any way pre-disposed to not orienting with FPS for some reason. Maybe it doesn't make all Japanese sick but maybe we just aren't built for it. Kind of like the fact that, generally speaking, we ain't built for milk (lactose intolerance in asians is high).
mod parent up (Score:5, Interesting)
Not always true... (Score:3, Interesting)
GTA3 *can* be played as a linear game. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:On Xbox's lack of success in Japan (Score:1, Interesting)
I guess that's the difference between american and japanese gamers. I have a hard time imagining a japanese getting excited about a NASCAR game.
I'm not japanese but I still like games with "tuti-fruity characters" better than the "cool" games.
One reason is that all the "cool" games you mention are almost alike. Sports games follow the same rules(duh!) and I have yet to see a truly original FPS.
"Cute" games usually rely on good gameplay and story to attract players something which IMHO is very important.
Re:On Xbox's lack of success in Japan (Score:4, Interesting)
What I find interesting in this article is the way games like Grand Theft Auto III are referred to as "mature titles", because they involve graphic violence. To my thinking (and probably to the thinking of a lot of Japanese people), "immature titles" would be just as apt a description (which isn't to say I think they are necessarily bad games--I love GTA3... it's just that I think violence appeals to a less mature audience).
I can have a lot of fun playing games with cartoonish characters, because I'm not particularly concerned that a game is depicted in that style... I'm an adult, and a more colorful, kid-oriented style may not have huge appeal (though really a lot of it is really charming... Tarutaru in Final Fantasy XI are just obscenely "awww!"-inducingly cute), but nor does it particularly bother me, and I'm secure enough in my masculinity, adulthood, whatever, to enjoy a game that doesn't involve manhood-reaffirming pursuits like tackling people, driving around a fast, powerful car, or blowing people to smithereens with a rocket launcher.
Nintendo, like any corporation, is concerned with making money, but I don't think for them it's as much the driving factor as it is for companies like, say Microsoft. Personally I'm rather glad they've resisted the temptation to "sell out" and focus their development efforts on stuff that falls outside their traditional domain.
They still have third party developers working on other stuff for them (as far as I know, NASCAR and NFL games available on the GameCube too).
Plus I respect the fact that they've managed to produce a decent console that sells for about half the price of the competitors' consoles while keeping the workmanship of the console itself up to fairly high standard of quality (a GameCube is a lot studier and less likely to break down on you than a PlayStation 2.)
I think Nintendo is a little misunderstood and is too often dismissed out of hand by people too concerned with what it will look like if they are caught playing a game that looks like the Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. They could make some effort to change their image, but at this point I'm not sure it would even be possible... it might be kind of like when Hammer tried to reinvent himself as a "Gangsta" rapper after having cut songs like "You've Got To Pray". They could sacrifice their niche only to not be taken seriously in the end by anybody else anyway.
Meridian 59 (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I used to LOVE to play (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Obviously (Score:5, Interesting)
Having said that, I thought Enter the Matrix was cool. Not because the gameplay was that excellent (but it was ok) but because they elaborated on the movie universe with the plot of the game. In the second movie, Naobi shows up and says "the machines are digging" but doesn't really explain how they know that. When you play the game, you find out why she knows. That's a big step up from the mindless Star Wars Pod Racing and those type of movie based games.
The other reply mentions Goldeneye for N64. Yes, it's one of the top 5 games for that system. Yes, it's based a movie. But the feature that made that game famous was its deathmatch, which has nothing to do with the movie.
-B
Re:Culture differences. (Score:1, Interesting)
This is true in photos, videos and even in comic books.
Final Fantasy (Score:3, Interesting)
But FFXI is not the only game with success like that. The entire Final Fantasy series has been popular in both cultures. It is quite possible to develop games that the whole world can enjoy, and Square Enix [square-enix-usa.com] has done just that. And to top it all off, the game is cross platform (both PC and PS2 players are in the same world[s]); something that has never been done before.
This is the best game ever. Ever. You hear me? Go buy it now and meet me on the Phoenix server (Ganiman, Tarutaru RDM).
Re:Obviously (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I used to LOVE to play (Score:2, Interesting)
kindof gives a different point of view on Mario, eh?
funny but not far off... (Score:3, Interesting)
Japan's popular culture shares some things with the US, more and more all the time it seems, but one thing that's notably opposite is that smaller is trendy. Big is cumbersome or wasteful or just generally un-cool. Small cel phones, small cars, small game consoles.
But it doesn't stop with the physical size of the X-Box versus a sleek PS2 or a compact Gamecube. Games themselves harbor this attitude. Enter the Matrix? Big on cramming in exclusive video, big on hype and the kind of cross-media tie-ins that are being blasted all over American pop culture. Lord of the Rings? Similar situation, and big on increasingly flashy battles.
You can see the small/compact type of attitude in Japanese games. Pikmin's my favorite and most obvious example, you've got a quarter-sized hero with armies of ant-sized helpers. In Bomberman, instead of huge over-the top US-style pyrotechnics you've got strategic, controlled blasts.
Some games walk both sides of this cultural divide, and do well in both countries. In Final Fantasy, the worlds and bosses where you do your exploring and fighting are big and impressive but the depth in the little details, the statistics and experience levels... Look how compact and efficient the equipment or character status screens are, the parts of the game where you're really doing your role-playing.
Of course there's way more to American and Japanese pop culture than big and small, but those concepts leak into many areas and most certainly influence game design and reception.
Culture shock (Score:3, Interesting)
US Video Game companies trying to sell games in Japan based on Western Culture concepts and then wondering why they aren't selling?
I read that article and one thing kept popping out and was obvious to me, "Violent games do not sell well in Japan". Then I recalled some successful games not developed in the US like Pacman, Tetris, etc. Ok, what if instead of violent video games, we tried to sell maze and puzzle games to Japan?
Sure US Citizens want to be the big guy with the guns and muscles that uses violence to solve problems, but apparently the Japanese Citizens want to use creativity and thinking to solve problems.
Start thinking using Eastern Culture, if you want to sell games in Japan. They are not all like us over there. We are like Cowboys to them, John Wayne, and all that.
World War II: History favors the victor? (Score:3, Interesting)
The game takes place on what appears to be south pacific chain of islands, and has an "Island of Dr. Moreu" storyline to it.
The game features stunningly realistic gun violence. Lots of sniping through the trees, and running into rooms with a SMG on full auto blowing people away. But the game engine practically SCREAMS for a WW2 game to be build with it. In fact, in parts of the Islands you see old Japanese Zeros, rusting in the bush.
Yet, with the flood of games featuring the US Airborne, or Marines, you could NOT build the game featuring the Japanese soldier as the protagonist. Even though it would be an interesting spin, esp. since the game engine supports boats and vehicles, you could had Japanese tanks and simply epic battles in the bush against Marines at Iwo Jima or other battles of the Pacific.
Americans would not stand for a game like that. Even though games like World War 2 Online allow you to play Germans, and I think you can play Germans in some Wolfenstein mods, nobody would buy a game where you played a Japanese soldier and fought like that. Least of all, the Japanese. They would never buy a game like that.
I used to play a game called Warbirds, an online flight sim. There was a super pilot online who flew Japanese planes exclusively. His handle was "Garner". Turns out, he lived in Tokyo. He once noted to our group that what he did was considered socially unacceptable. He didn't tell people he flew a flight sim or pretended to be a Japanese pilot (and was the best damn pilot in Warbirds to boot). He kept it secret, he was a 30-something Japanese "salaryman", i.e. a middle class businessman/salesman, and it was his secret.
You see many online squadrons and online troop groups that warp themselves in the mystique of the Luftwaffe or Kreigsmarine, whathaveyou. You don't see a SINGLE squadron or group online that wraps themselves in the IJA.