The Decline of the Japanese Gaming Industry

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

It doesnt need freedom its needs real grittiness that has influence every WRPGs. Give me bordellos to visit, casual tasteful sex instead of striptease, morally flawd cast.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Maybe it's less "decline" and more "stabilization"?

A business model where a company risks its survival on every AAA title it releases, because it invested all its assets in that title, is untenable. A stable and healthy balance between investment and profit will go a longer way in keeping you in business. Not polarizing things into a market of AAA+ franchises which play it incredibly safe, and one of low budget indie titles with niche appeal, could make for a pretty healthy market.

This isn't to say Japan hasn't lost its dominant position on the global scene; It most certainly has, as all other markets have grown. And while some companies might have found a better balance between investment and payout, others undoubtedly suffer from financial limitations. This isn't necessarily a sign that the market is in decline, though, it's probably still in better shape than most other markets, certainly in the long run.

Also, the Xbox One has yet to launch in Japan, meaning that it would make sense for Sony to prioritize getting a sufficient volume of PS4 consoles on the markets where they're competing. Worse than not selling a PS4 to a guy today is not selling one to a guy who can go buy an Xbox One instead, since then you won't be selling him one at all.

That's another thing lost to people; a period of rapid decline is typically always followed by a period of stabilization in order to get accustomed to the new status quo. If you don't do that your chances of contraction or outright collapse increase exponentially. Western studios...do not understand that. They seem to think that stability is some kind of sin and thus NEVER turn off that obsession with trying to be bigger and better. That is a good instinct. But there are times when it's not needed.

You can rephrase it as "being overtaken by the West" if you want, but you end up in the same place. Japan once made the most of the most popular games both at home and abroad, these days they just make the most popular ones at home.

Uh, the always made the the best ones in Japan. So this is nothing new.

Since the Japanese do not play many Western games, Japanese developers have been slow to include genuine improvements or new techniques from the West into their games (or possibly they simply don't like them or seem them as beneficial).

"Improvements" is a very broad term

Take for example just one aspect, narrative. Now for certain games, like fighting games you could argue that they don't need narrative and I wouldn't have a problem with a fighting game that got rid of it completely (see for example Virtua-Fighter 5). But if its there, we can have a look at it and Street Fighter 4 is a good example of a typical, if particularly poor example. You get cut-scenes at the beginning and the end, but these do little or nothing to explain who the characters are or what the story is and the story has little connection who you are actually fighting in the arcade mode. On the other hand the Western developed Mortal Kombat has an incredibly detailed story mode, there are cut scenes before and after each fight letting you know who you are fighting and why and the story has a clear beginning middle and end and the things that happen in the middle largely make sense (its still cheesey hokum of course). Story was seen as being important enough that it got a large piece of the development budget. Soul Calibur V has a similar story mode, except that it lacked consistant cut-scenes, making do with a lot of artistic style sketches and the plot was, to me at least, incomprehensible and cringe-worthy. The worst offender, to my mind, was King of Fighters XIII which had a story mode, where nearly the whole story was told through text which scrolled about ten times slower than an average human would read and so became incredibly tedious very quickly as well as making the game feel incredibly cheap.

Except Mortal Kombat was late to the party in making a narrative for fighting games. At best, you could say that MK was late by two years (Blazblue came out in 2009). At WORST they're a full DECADE slow due to games like Melty Blood and Guilty Gear X.

Now I could have talked about other things. How for example Final Fantasy XIII is losing out to Skyrim and Dragon Age in the West because the Western games are offering open worlds and choice systems that let the players 'create' (to arguably a limited extent) their own stories, while FF is content to tell it's own.

And often those "open world" experiences are easily shattered and have no pacing. Furthermore, open world is not a plus. It's a descriptive. A style. While you may have a preference for it there's nothing that makes it overall objectively better than another style. And it's not even anything new to Japanese devs with stuff like Legend of Mana, Romancing Saga, Harvest Moon, Metroid, Uncharted Waters, ZELDA.

And as for Moral Choice systems, again, it's nothing new to Japan. Shin Megami Tensei has had it since the SNES days. Tactics Ogre had you make decisions that didn't just affect the ending, but the ENTIRE STORYLINE OF THE GAME. Definitely far more profound than anything Bioware, CD Projekt, Obsidian, or Bethesda have ever thrown at me.

Twenty years ago both Eastern and Western gamers enjoyed side-scrollers like R-Type, but today its instructive to contrast say a Japanese schump, like DoDonPachi with say the mosquito levels from Rayman Legends. Similarly you could talk about the way in which, while many Western games strive for reality, certain Japanese games still feel 'gamey'. Consider the way in which Shadows of the Damned still uses bright glowing power-ups and (some admittedly interesting) game mechanics that don't have more than a passing acquaintance with logic (that can also be part of the charm of course).

And again, that's not a positive, that's a decriptive. If anything it just means Japanese devs are far more honest about the fact that they're making games. They're more secure so they drop this "immersion" excuse due to the fact that the game is supposed to pull you in BECAUSE of its gaminess, not in spite of it.

 

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

And it was back then, nowadays Japan has slipped quite a bit and the West is building a mosaic out of it.

 

[LaoJim]

Uh, the always made the the best ones in Japan. So this is nothing new.

I'm not talking about 'best', I'm talking about most popular. There's nothing wrong with anyone liking the games currently coming out of Japan more than Western games. Somehow the Japanese have lost the broad appeal that allows them to sell huge amounts of games to the West, which is the issue here.

"Improvements" is a very broad term

Okay, I guess what I said here doesn't quite match up which my argument about Narrative in games. Lets say that certain features or techniques are sometimes highlighted more by the two sides.

Except Mortal Kombat was late to the party in making a narrative for fighting games. At best, you could say that MK was late by two years (Blazblue came out in 2009). At WORST they're a full DECADE slow due to games like Melty Blood and Guilty Gear X.

I'm not claiming that they are the first to have a story, I am claiming that they have done it better than anyone else before. I've not played Melty Blood or Guity Gear X, but BlazBlue's story, at least for me, is completely incomprehensible, full of annoying characters, cheaply told with static images, and full of bizarre sexist humour. I realize that I'm being harsh here, and you may well disagree. It may very well be the superior fighting game (though somehow I've never got on with it), but Mortal Kombat spent more money on developing the story, presumably because they thought it was important that they be able to tell a good story and explain who the characters in the game are and what they are fighting for and I appreciated it (even though I've never like MKs universe or mechanics and still don't particularly)

And often those "open world" experiences are easily shattered and have no pacing. Furthermore, open world is not a plus. It's a descriptive. A style. While you may have a preference for it there's nothing that makes it overall objectively better than another style. And it's not even anything new to Japanese devs with stuff like Legend of Mana, Romancing Saga, Harvest Moon, Metroid, Uncharted Waters, ZELDA.

And as for Moral Choice systems, again, it's nothing new to Japan. Shin Megami Tensei has had it since the SNES days. Tactics Ogre had you make decisions that didn't just affect the ending, but the ENTIRE STORYLINE OF THE GAME. Definitely far more profound than anything Bioware, CD Projekt, Obsidian, or Bethesda have ever thrown at me.

My specific point here was really specifically about Final Fantasy, as the biggest JRPG out there, and the specific design decisions it has made. I acknowledge that there is still innovation in some other titles, but I think it is a fact that many of the big JRPGs are content to tell a story mainly through cut-scenes, something which Western RPGs started to shun.

And again, that's not a positive, that's a decriptive.

Yes, it is descriptive, but its possible for people to prefer one or the other. These descriptions are showing how Western and Japanese games are different, and increasing I would say these differences are important for people choosing what to buy. And some of these differences may well be stopping many people in the West from buying Japanese games in the numbers they once did.