Japanese Game Developers Go West 84
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?""
Re:Gameplay may transcend borders... (Score:1, Informative)
But, to get back on topic, there's certainly gay erotica [wikipedia.org] with effeminate men. However these tend to be created by women, and marketed for women who enjoy such things. Media created by gay men is know as "bara" [wikipedia.org], and goes for muscular men. Because of this, both examples you shown can be considered gay if done in excess. And of course, Gears of War is a damn sausage fest.
Re:By "west" you mean east, right? (Score:3, Informative)
While I understand the history, I've always found the terms "East", "West", "Middle East" and similar non-geographic geographic/cultural nomenclature to be arrogant at best. West of Japan is China, and they may end up being the new west if the arrogant USA doesn't get it's intellectual act together.
The world is not some flat map that some idiot in the 1800s drew on paper. I agree that using the pacific was probably a pretty good idea for a separator there on paper, but the general terms of "East" and "West" as used by most talking heads is just shallow-thinking.
Sort of like the words/terms "perfect storm", "actually", and "blog" really annoy me.
Now get off my lawn.
If you are using the English language then the terms East West etc. are valid. These terms have their origins in Graeco-Roman culture, i.e. the occident [wikipedia.org] and the orient [wikipedia.org] which identify regions that had cultural similarites and connections. Of course with such generalisations there will inevitably be some blurred lines and inaccuracies. With the advent of colonialisation and globalisation the geographic/directional connotations of West and East have lost some of their importance.
In Japanese you may use whatever terms you like, as you might know all foreigners could be referred to as gaikokujin or the more impolite gaijin, but the economic and cultural power of the "Western" nations in the 19th and 20th centuries has led to the term Western becoming adopted in some senses. In fact
historically, the Portuguese, the first Europeans to visit Japan, were known as nanbanjin (literally "southern barbarians").
from wikipedia [wikipedia.org].
Before you make any silly western colonial superiority statements against me, I am from a nation that suffered from colonialsm, so I am not biased in that regard.