Again, as always, great work. Much respect from my humble iPad in Japan.

-Jon Brewster

I was at a dinner about a year ago with game developers and journalists from America, Canada, South Korea, and even China. Naturally, games came up, and I brought up Nintendo in particular. Everyone mentioned their favorite Nintendo game, but when I asked about modern design, there were a few issues, particularly with Nintendo, but Japan as a whole.

The first is online play. It’s really not that big here. PC Gaming in general isn’t big, and if you go to the PC section of many stores, it’s usually “adult” games, with tons of “pink” (and skin tones). Popular games tend to use local play. Look at the Wii U in general, but also Monster Hunter 3G (maybe it was “Ultimate” in the states) and the latest Pokemon. They’re designed for local play because Japan is a densely populated country. My city of 42k is considered a rural village in the “inaka” area I live in (Japanese “countryside” is generally based on population and distance from major cities, whereas for me, in the states, it has much more to do with availability of technology and the amount of wildlife/farms).

Creativity’s another. Look at Minecraft, Terraria, and other building games. Those games do well in Japan but… for some reason, Japanese developers just don’t get it. They’re recycling their own games again and again rather than experimenting with new genres or tactics. Comparing Mighty No. 9′s alpha to the latest Mega Man games shows that even the tried and true formulas can get a solid enough spin, but I feel like, outside of the RPG, Japanese are slow to try anything new.

And that’s the final issue. Japan actually doesn’t allow a lot of foreign games in. Steam is rather locked up if you’re in Japan. There are a lot of games that you can’t buy/play because the creater/publisher might translate/regionalize the game later. Other times, barriers are simply put up to prevent the games from coming in. Blizzard has tried to get into Japan several times, but it just doesn’t happen. I know non-gamers from China and Korea who know what StarCraft is, but if you talk about “Blizzard” games in Japan, people think you left your Playstation out in the snow. There were some stories that I can’t repeat (off the record comments), but even when presented demos, some Japanese devs simply play for about 15 minutes, say how the game isn’t traditional, and mention that it will never do well in Japan.

IMO, the time that Japanese game companies started to fall was during the PS3/360/Wii generation. That was the time where game development became really complex to develop for the new consoles thus big budgets needed to develop a game. Small companies don’t have the resources to do it and even big companies struggled.

Some companies manged to churn out quality and interesting games though, like Konami (mainly thanks to Kojima) and Capcom. Even Square-Enix struggled with the development of FFXIII and Versus (infamously delayed a whole generation and re-branding it to FFXV and releasing it for the PS4 and Xbone).

And while the Japanese struggled the Westerners are releasing heavy hitter titles, mainly shooter games like Call of Duty, Battlefield, Gears of War, Halo, Crysis, etc. COD 4 really started the FPS frenzy in gaming communities though. And these games will go ahead and sell million of copies worldwide. Even Japanese players that don’t play FPS games started to buy and play them. It’s a real change in the console/PC gaming scene. And there’s more and more talented Western developers growing, like Naughty Dogs (Gods), Bungie, Sucker Punch, Santa Monica Studios and more.

So some Japanese game companies figured out to release games on handhelds instead, namely for the PSP, 3DS, DS and Vita. As the budget for these games are low, and increasingly more Japanese are buying handheld consoles instead these are the best way to earn their profit fast. And then smartphones came in, and developing games for smartphones are even better in terms of budget and profit. Thus the PS3 and 360 aren’t getting any much Japanese developers support and you can tell by the number of Japanese games releasing on both platforms. So little JRPGs and most of them are crap.

BUT, hope is not all lost though….the indie scenes are exploding now and it doesn’t cost much to develop on the PS4. Not to mention it’s easier to develop games on the PS4 as before on the PS3. So I’m hoping that I can see more JRPGs and action games released for this generation of console gaming as before. And Japanese companies are starting to release their games on the PC as well. Now that’s something refreshing. Exciting times for a gamer!

I was born in 1995, so I was only old enough to start playing video games at that weird “how old is Adult Link exactly” period you were talking about. (For the record, I do prefer the style of games that Japan puts out compared with the Western style, not that I hate Western style, I’ll play a fps occasionally. And I think you’ll find that most of the people commenting are bias towards Japan, Tofugu is a blog about all things Japan after all). I do remember playing Zelda: OoT and MM, but I used to have to play those with my grandma because I would be all like running Link into walls and lava and stuff, lol. The first Zelda I could play by myself was WW, and that is still one of my favorites.

I’m currently going to college to become a game designer. Your article has really made me think about the future of the industry I want to enter into someday. The big question is… should I stick to making the style of games I like, or make games that suit other peoples taste more? And a small question… is there even a right answer to the previous question? I’m still not sure…