K, so, japanese game devs hate us now?

[Shia-Neko-Chan]

What's going on lately? Japan's support for the overseas market is dwindling, lately. Is this how it's going to be from now on?

I was really looking forward to Tales of Xillia back when I'd first heard about it around a year or two ago, but they don't seem to actually be planning on releasing it here, despite it being out and outselling Final Fantasy in Japan a long time ago!

Also, they completed Tales of Vesperia with all the characters and stuff, but they never brought it here.

It reminds me of the phoenix wright series. Already there are two entries to the series that aren't being brought here.

Square seemingly rarely brings things that aren't Final Fantasy here from Japan anymore. Things like Dragon Quest or Blood of Bahamut or Sigma Harmonics...

What gives? :|

 

[McMarbles]

Maybe they read all those Western articles about how irrelevant they are and decided "Fine. We're irrelevant. Screw all y'all."

 

[kaioshade]

Maybe they read all those Western articles about how irrelevant they are and decided "Fine. We're irrelevant. Screw all y'all."

Pretty much this. All people seem to write about is the "death of the JRPG" and how Japanese developers need to essentially clone western games to remain relevant. So why waste time, money, resources localizing games for a market who clearly despises them?

 

[Weaver]

It's likely a business decision. The world economy is in a slump, my guess is some publisher decided the cost of translating and finding a North American publisher (if the publisher isn't international) wasn't worth their expected sales.

Or, perhaps to save money, dev teams were simply given less money to develop games with and decided to save costs on translation (I'm not sure if the developer is traditionally tasked with translating, or if the publisher outsources to a translation team).

 

[Shia-Neko-Chan]

Maybe they read all those Western articles about how irrelevant they are and decided "Fine. We're irrelevant. Screw all y'all."

Huh. I'd forgotten about those. But come on where does that leave me? I actually prefer their game development style and now I don't have much to look forward to. x_x

 

[Rivenart]

I always hate this too, I could give such a long list of Square games alone that never made it overseas, all of which have developed some following and even people that translate them for free for some, but unless it's a numbered FF they just won't take the risk. Even with thier beloved Compliation of FFVII they didn't want to even try bring before crisis here, yet they released FFIV-2 in several formats in english.
Blood of Bahumut looked really interesting, as did Nashasi no Game (The Ring style story but with a game). Even the recent Type-0 release looks like an awesome FF game filled with the large variety of other things to do FFXIII lacked, yet they have no interest in bringing it here, seems so silly if it is as good and true to past FF games as it looks releasing it in english and preferable on a console could have clawed back alot of fans they've lost of late.
Look at Reccettearre (sp?), the original company said they had no interest in translating it as it didn't do that well in Japan, but it became a surpising hit over here, outselling the original release, apparently making "plenty" of cash (argeements in place to not state the specifics of profits but generally hinting at they have done well and even are going on to translate more now), it's rumored to have increased sales of the original version too.
All these companies complain about not making enough money, moan over used game sales yet they turn thier noses up at piles of cash if it requires the slightest amount of work.

Eastern RPG's and stuff have lost favour though over here as western ones have taken a grip on the market but when eastern rpg mean releases like FFXIII can you blame them? Still it's no excuse for those games that bring something new and gain a good following, the makers of Game Dev story seem to be happy with all that money they are making from re releasing all thier old games in english on IOS.

 

[TehCookie]

I don't think Japan hates us, we hate Japan. People don't want Japanese games they want patriotic American shooters. Japanese games became a niche market for "japanopiles" to a lot of people. Probably all 12 year old who love CoD, but they're the biggest market in gaming.

 

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

Well the problem isn't with shooters but rather the unwillingness to do Dark Fantasy for anyone not named Atlus/Fromsoftware. We don't mind Japan, we just find them too childish, the WRPG scene has pretty abandoned the notion their stuff is for kids and just go for adult content. Japan needs to do that if it wants the love of the western crowd.

 

[LilithSlave]

Pretty much this. All people seem to write about is the "death of the JRPG" and how Japanese developers need to essentially clone western games to remain relevant. So why waste time, money, resources localizing games for a market who clearly despises them?

And that, my friends, is sad.

Believe it or not, bad reviews and poor community hurt games worse than "piracy" ever will. Hate, of games, is much more negative to them than playing them before buying them.

And I absolutely hate the current state of video games, industry and community. The jRPG is dying, and Westerners who hate anime are killing it! Every time a Western community decides jRPGs are inferior and jRPG fans are inferior, the jRPG dies a little more. Killing, my favourite genre of video game that I grew up on as a child.

Forget pirates, screw the people who are ostracizing and stigmatizing this whole genre in the West. I'm bitter about this. Because, because of people like this, not pirates, but all this hate, nobody in Japan wants to release games I'm dying to play in the West.

Because of y'all, not pointing this at anyone here, but the people who do this, the majority who do this, us "weeaboo ****** cunts" don't get to have more games we want to buy. And are forced to import games for around $90, buy and import more expensive systems because of region locking, and even learn a whole new language just to play a darn video game.

 

[Shia-Neko-Chan]

Well the problem isn't with shooters but rather the unwillingness to do Dark Fantasy for anyone not named Atlus/Fromsoftware. We don't mind Japan, we just find them too childish, the WRPG scene has pretty abandoned the notion their stuff is for kids and just go for adult content. Japan needs to do that if it wants the love of the western crowd.

What do you mean by that, though? The Japanese market is full of adult-content!

It's just not all about European medival times and dragon slaying or Space Marines who shoot lasers or Modern Warfare between the US and the Russians, which are all scenarios that people in the US seem to equate with mature content all the time.

Their stuff is something all their own with designed worlds and lore, stylish, yet varied characters (usually), and artful worlds with adult issues about the characters themselves, the situations they encounter, and the personal demons they usually have to battle within themselves.

Just because Phoenix Wright is rated teen, that doesn't mean that's for children. It's a game about a defense attourney who needs to defend people against wrongful accusations of murder and usually must find the (usually insane) murderer himself.

What's so inherently childish about that? What's so inherently childish about the Japanese game development philosophy?

 

[Epona]

Maybe they read all those Western articles about how irrelevant they are and decided "Fine. We're irrelevant. Screw all y'all."

Except that it's always been like this. Many games have never been released outside of Japan or were released in Europe/North America but not the other.

 

[Shia-Neko-Chan]

Maybe they read all those Western articles about how irrelevant they are and decided "Fine. We're irrelevant. Screw all y'all."

Except that it's always been like this. Many games have never been released outside of Japan or were released in Europe/North America but not the other.

No, it's getting worse. Even flagship titles like phoenix wright, Tales, and Dragon Quest are being withheld now.

 

[Epona]

I don't think Japan hates us, we hate Japan. People don't want Japanese games they want patriotic American shooters. Japanese games became a niche market for "japanopiles" to a lot of people. Probably all 12 year old who love CoD, but they're the biggest market in gaming.

Well now if you wanna say that then how do you explain that western consoles and games don't sell well in Japan. If we hate Japan because we don't want Japanese games then the same must be true in reverse to a much larger degree.

 

[Epona]

Maybe they read all those Western articles about how irrelevant they are and decided "Fine. We're irrelevant. Screw all y'all."

Except that it's always been like this. Many games have never been released outside of Japan or were released in Europe/North America but not the other.

No, it's getting worse. Even flagship titles like phoenix wright, Tales, and Dragon Quest are being withheld now.

Flagship titles like Final Fantasy were withheld until Final Fantasy VII. The Tales games were withheld before now too, the first Tales game was never released here on the SNES. In fact, because of low production runs of the Tales games they are niche titles.

 

[targren]

What's so inherently childish about that? What's so inherently childish about the Japanese game development philosophy?

Nothing. It's just something WRPG fans say when something triggers the "Us Vs. Them" gland rattling around in their heads. They play up the "Dark grittiness" of their own boring genre and decry colorful characters and fun, not-gloomily-orchestral music as "childish."

Gods fuckin' forbid people enjoy different things on this rock.

 

[Shia-Neko-Chan]

Maybe they read all those Western articles about how irrelevant they are and decided "Fine. We're irrelevant. Screw all y'all."

Except that it's always been like this. Many games have never been released outside of Japan or were released in Europe/North America but not the other.

No, it's getting worse. Even flagship titles like phoenix wright, Tales, and Dragon Quest are being withheld now.

Flagship titles like Final Fantasy were withheld until Final Fantasy VII. The Tales games were withheld before now too, the first Tales games was never released here on the SNES. In fact, because of low production runs of the Tales games they are niche titles.

And then they started to be brought over here to sell to the overseas market.

And now Tales overseas support has been pulled after an array of flagship titles in the series were translated and sold here.

The entire series of Phoenix Wright was brought over, plus a couple newly released spin-offs. Support for that series has been pulled, too.

It may have started out as a segregated market, but it doesn't change the fact that the overseas support of japanese devs is worse thanit was, say, 4 years ago.

 

[Epona]

Well the problem isn't with shooters but rather the unwillingness to do Dark Fantasy for anyone not named Atlus/Fromsoftware. We don't mind Japan, we just find them too childish, the WRPG scene has pretty abandoned the notion their stuff is for kids and just go for adult content. Japan needs to do that if it wants the love of the western crowd.

What do you mean by that, though? The Japanese market is full of adult-content!

Funny thing about adult content, it's usually immature.

Yeah, adults don't think tits are "OMG COOL" and adults don't think that overuse of the F word (that's a western game thing) is "OMG COOL" either but in both cases, kids love that stuff.