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Role Playing (Games) Entertainment Games

Japanese Not That Interested In Online Videogaming? 65

Posted by simoniker from the land-of-the-singleplayer-sun dept.
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."
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Japanese Not That Interested In Online Videogaming? More

Japanese Not That Interested In Online Videogaming?

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  • What? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Kethinov ( 636034 ) on Sunday July 11, 2004 @12:54AM (#9664839) Homepage Journal
    Yet FFXI has how many subscribers just in Japan alone? Far more people than this survey covered. Data == flawed.

    • Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bugbread ( 599172 )
      And yet note that Final Fantasy XI is considered a terrible flop in Japan. Sure, it's a successful MMORPG, but sales (and even income taking into account monthly fees) are horrible for a Final Fantasy game.
      • MMORPG != console game. Internet games have always been less popular than console games. Comparing FFXI to FFVI, FFVII, FFX, etc is comparing apples to oranges. Many die hard FF fans do not consider FFXI to be a real FF because it's an MMORPG. They're two fundamentally different things, so comparing them is a pointless endeavor.
    • Yet FFXI has how many subscribers just in Japan alone? Far more people than this survey covered. Data == flawed.

      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'

      • 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.

        But pretty damn big for a MMORPG. FFXI has overtaken Everquest in subscriptions, becoming the most popular MMORPG currently in existence.

        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.

        This is all comes back to the fact that my understanding of surveys != flawed. Single player console game

        • Your original statement: "Yet FFXI has how many subscribers just in Japan alone? Far more people than this survey covered. Data == flawed."

          A survey works by polling a small number of people to statistically determine the nature of a much larger population. Any option which gets a significant number of responses (above the margin of error,) such as people who said they've played online games in this poll did, will mean that far more people in the full population fit this option than the survey covered. To

          • I will make this simple.

            The survey fails to factor in the already established obvious fact that online computer gaming is vastly less popular than single player and console gaming. Just this already makes their entire effort look silly, but despite that, the conclusions are misleading because they give connotations that this characteristic is purely Japanese in nature because their data is so highly limited and selective. This makes the data flawed, or more specifically the data gathering method flawed as
            • This makes the data flawed, or more specifically the data gathering method flawed as well as the conclusions.

              I will also make this simple, the only way survey data itself can be flawed is if there is a bias in the question, or a problem with the sampling. The results can be used to make bad decisions, but that's a problem with the analysis, not the survey itself. A survey that shows that 95% of the perisoners in the US think that prisoners should be paroled earlier instead of building new prisons to hold

              • I will also make this simple <massive comment>

                Perhaps you didn't understand the meaning behind my original use of that sentence? Brevity is your friend.

                So all right, you want to pick some damn nits with me? Fine. Interviewing a few hundred Japanese people is a perfectly valid survey. And we'll even toss in that it's valid to make broad generalizations about their entire culture based on a tiny fraction their populace. "Valid" or not, it's still absurd to claim that Japanese are not interested in on

        • But pretty damn big for a MMORPG. FFXI has overtaken Everquest in subscriptions, becoming the most popular MMORPG currently in existence.

          This is like saying chocolate covered ants are the most popular sweet insect confection currently in existence. It's practically meaningless because the entire genre is so damn small.

          If MMORPG's are ever going to be considered successful, the bar is going to need to be set a lot higher than a couple hundred thousand subscribers worldwide.


          This is all comes back to th

          • Not enough study has gone into the problems inherent in online gaming; problems which are getting worse if anything. Until that happens, online gaming will never be a mainstream activity.

            This is essentially my entire point. The survey is utterly pointless because we learn nothing new from it and it's data has simply been doctored to present a certain image. It's ridiculous to say Japanese are not interested in online gaming when you interview 200 people while tens of thousands more play online games as es

  • (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.
    • Most of us can't, and don't. Which is why every new MMORPG is predicted to become wildly popular, and every new MMORPG is a big disappointment.

      It's not like it needs huge tweaking, either. Drop the box or the monthly subscription, either one, and I'd be much more interested. But I'm not sure it's possible for publishers to swing that in terms of the need to make money. The only real solution I can see is some sort of massive peer-to-peer server solution. It would sure solve the cost problem, but man,

      • Actually, I'd be satisfied with a open, available server so that there'd be free competition in making servers ("worlds) available. That way the market itself would set fair prices.

        I refuse to pay money to tie myself to a monopolic service-provider that overcharges, and that I have to pay to to have any use of my purchase.

        Yes, that'd kill the wet dreams of many game-companies, "let's make an MMORPG, and then we can collect not only $50-$70 for the box, but an additional $15 every month from every player

        • Actually, I'd be satisfied with a open, available server so that there'd be free competition in making servers ("worlds) available. That way the market itself would set fair prices.

          Neverwinter Nights has sort of gone this route; the only problem is the license terms on the game don't allow persistent worlds to actually charge anything at all, so they are forced to make do with donations from the players to pay for server costs. (As an example, I submit Exaria [exaria.net], where I adventured while I had broadband ac
      • Drop the box or the monthly subscription, either one, and I'd be much more interested.

        I think this is starting to happen. Right now, you can buy most Blizzard games, and get free online play with them. Granted, its not an MMORPG, but Diablo 2 is a fun game with friends. On the other side of the coin, I recently got into an MMORPG [istaria.com], mainly because they did offer the client as a free download (with 7 day free trial), and then the standard $13/month subscription. Granted, it was a 1 GB download, so doing
    • Probably because there are so many Americans who love to blindly shell out cash for entertainment. America loves to be amused. And it does sure seem like more and more MMO's are released each year, many of them low quality and repetitive. I don't understand how game companies expect make a profit off of MMO's anyway, as they're so time consuming it's difficult for most to juggle more then two at once (aside from the mounting subscription fees) unless it's a sure hit - with this extra payment involved, a ga

    • No shit. Charging $100 for a box and then $10-20 each month for further entertainment is like selling you a house and then charging you rent once you already own it. I vote with my wallet, but not every consumer seems to care. MMORPGs which follow the Ragnarok Online payment scheme have my respect, as they charge only the monthly fee. Likewise, Guild Wars has my respect, as they will charge only the box fee.

      But as far as Sony goes, fuck them in the eye.

  • They say that the number of people who have never played online games has *risen*. How exactly does that work?

    • Perhaps the number of net users increased at a higher rate than did the number of people who play or plan to play these games.

      • Good point, that is a valid interpretation. However, my guess is that their sample size (300) is too small to make any really significant conclusion. Maybe if they surveyed the same group of people over a period of time it would work better.
    • They say that the number of people who have never played online games has *risen*. How exactly does that work?

      Have you seen "Man in Black" ?
    • Online games cause early death?
    • They say that the number of people who have never played online games has *risen*. How exactly does that work?

      They _don't_ say that the number of people has risen, they say the _percentage_ has risen. It entirely depends on how many people they asked. They might be more gamers to ask this year, in which case it's entirely possible that the number who have played an online game have dropped.

      • in which case it's entirely possible that the number who have played an online game have dropped.

        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 :)

    • No they say the percentage of people who never have and never will has risen.

      That percentage can rise by people who previously said "Never have, but I'd like to" change their votes.

      But most likely its due to a small sample size.
  • 100 percent of my family does not play online video games and 100 percent intend never to do so!

    (Nothing beats being able to reach over and punch your opponent. You can't do that online.)

  • Title a little misleading (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Sunday July 11, 2004 @01:57AM (#9665070) Homepage
    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.
    • Wich RPG's did you play? Certainly none of the recent ones. Baldur's gate most certainly falls outside the boat. Planescape tourment as well. Maybe you and I got different memories and ideas about "pre-destined" but much of the Ultima series as well. Nevewinternights might count.

      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 dec

      • Defining genres is never easy, is it? "Remember RPGs before and after Baldur's Gate?" Yeah. I loved them. I also love Baldur's Gate. If you want me to go through the list....

        Bard's Tale (series). Great areas to explore, statmonkey characters, and really one of the more fun games I've played, even to this day.

        Ultima (1,2). Hardly RPGs, but amazing for their time. You create a character, you go through the quest, you beat the bad guy. Fun games, but maybe not in-depth enough to be called RPGs.

        Ulti

  • It's Japan! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You know, Japan is so rediculously overcrowded who would blame them for not wanting to escape to a world populated with... MORE PEOPLE!

  • Bizarre conclusion to draw... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RogueyWon ( 735973 ) on Sunday July 11, 2004 @02:33AM (#9665176) Journal
    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.
    • 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".

      When you couple the results of the survey with the sales results of online games in Japan, I don't think it's a real stretch.

      Final Fantasy XI has a huge Japanese player base, despite broadband being pretty much essential for it.

      People keep saying this. What huge player base? FFXI sold 180,000 copies in Japan. As a percentage of the population, this is similar
  • 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.

    • Re:Broadband and the like (Score:4, Insightful)

      by foidulus ( 743482 ) * on Sunday July 11, 2004 @06:46AM (#9665641)
      If anything, it is actually cheaper, this as an example [ocn.ne.jp] keeping in mind that $1 = 108 yen about(though usually that number is higher), also they offer a lot more options in case you really don't need a ton of speed.
      However, I dont' know how many houses actually have broadband. I'm not sure on this, but I do believe that a smaller percentage of Japanese own computers versus Americans. With the advent of relatively decent data services on one's cell phone(email, entertainment listings etc) I don't think a lot of Japanese are actually interested in computers.
      Also keep in mind that Japanese age demographics are also different from the US. Due to a very low birth rate and very restrictive immigration, as a percentage, there are a lot less youths and a lot more elderly people in Japan than there are in the US.
      • Broadband here (in Japan) is cheap. If you're lucky enough to live in a house (instead of an apartment), or your apartment is relatively new, you can get a 100 Mb fiber connection for around $50 per month. Even without, if you live in a city (as most gamers do), you probably live very, very close to your telephone exchange (yay population density), so you get 12 Mb DSL for about $20 or less a month.

        You're right, fewer Japanese own computers than Americans, but in the last 5 or 6 years, the gap has narrow
    • While I lived in Japan, it only costed me about $40US to get an 8 mega bit connection. I was connecting to US server based games with a lower ping than my friends could back in the states.

      Almost everyone I knew had a connection, and 12mb were just starting to be advertised. Japan is wired and rocking.

      The problem is, most people don't have time to play online games. Kids in school are usually taking after school courses prep'ing for college entrance exams, and salary men usually don't get home until 8 o

  • Simple explanation (Score:3, Funny)

    by mivok ( 621790 ) on Sunday July 11, 2004 @04:44AM (#9665463) Homepage
    the people who do like the online games are too busy playing them to answer a survey.
  • Premium online gaming != online gaming

    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 a

    • Japanese not being interested in online gaming is like me saying I'm interested in goat pr0n. Let's take a "random" 300 people from the farm fields and ask them how many video games they've played in the last 5 minutes... or let's remember that video games have been pouring out of Japan for the last 3 decades and they have FFXI which is the second largest (argueably) MMORPG in the world next to EQ (according to last released numbers).

  • Arcades (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Blackwulf ( 34848 ) on Sunday July 11, 2004 @10:28AM (#9666473) Homepage
    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.

    • Re:Arcades (Score:4, Interesting)

      by MilenCent ( 219397 ) <johnwh AT gmail DOT com> on Sunday July 11, 2004 @01:44PM (#9667812) Homepage
      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.)

      Actually, I think the arcade industry's dying here is because most arcade games are knockoffs of a previously existing game, even more so than in the computer and console markets. Arcade games were most popular in the U.S. during the 80's, a time when people from all walks of life played video games.

      Fighting game fanatics may still run out to the arcade to plunk quarters into SoulCalibur 2 and Tekken What-#-Are-They-Now, and DDR junkies are a relatively recent addition to the arcade population, but overall, arcades in both the U.S. and Japan cater to the hardcore gamer community, which is invariably young, male, and obsessive.

      It just so happens that there are more Japanese young males who are that hardcode about gaming than American, and their higher population density means arcades can make money more easily. Meanwhile arcades haven't been seen as cool in the U.S. since the early 90's; the last non-pinball arcade game I was really obsessed by was Rampart.

      Not to discount your point, that's certainly part of it, but there's a bit more at work here I think.

    • Re:Arcades (Score:2, Interesting)

      by binaryspiral ( 784263 )
      Arcades are dying because one reason - the games suck.

      All the U.S. arcade game makers have shifted to console - because they can make a lot more.

      Our local arcade has a smattering of what I would call real honest to whatever god you like" arcade games. The rest are those quarter sucking ticket spewing light boxes that suck in every 4 year old from all four corners of the mall. And that makes the whole trip to the arcade even worse.

      queue flashback music

      I remember when an arcade was a place. A dark room, j
  • It's tough to turn the concept of tentacle-rape into an MMORPG.

    Okay, well, maybe not.

  • Most of the world is not japanese.
    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

  • offline online (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Allison Geode ( 598914 ) on Sunday July 11, 2004 @02:08PM (#9667966)
    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.
    • 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 spli
      • 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/p
        • 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 meet

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