This year’s Game Developer’s Conference was pretty hard on the Japanese games industry. It kicked off with indie developer, Phil Fish, claiming that Japanese games “suck.”
As irritating as that arrogance is, it’s not half as frustrating as Mega Man creator, Keiji Inafune, who has once again decided to roll out his anti-Japanese corporate rhetoric. He’s making a regular event of it, and once again, the man is way off.
Before we even look at what he said this time let’s remember the fact that Inafune clearly left Capcom on bad terms (and very rarely is an employer-employee fall out a one-way thing), and is using his fan credibility and fame to take a dig back at the industry that fed him. Bitter employee syndrome aside, then, according to a story at Nintendo Life, here’s the tripe he’s spat out this time:
”At that time I was still at Capcom and I believe that they are one of the few Japanese companies that kept up with Western standards. We always strove to develop games with a global audience in mind.
Because we were able to see the entire global industry we would see things as they were through an unfiltered perspective. I said those words because I wanted to light a fire under the Japanese video game industry before it was too late. (emphasis mine)
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| Suda: proving Japanese studios are still creative |
Now, bearing in mind this statement is made as a criticism of the Japanese games industry, ie, Inafune believes that Japanese game developers should be pandering to western tastes, then I have to say this: the guy has lost his marbles.
It would be remarkably stupid for the Japanese games industry to try and appeal to western tastes. The few times it has tried, it has failed miserably (Quantum Theory, anyone?) It’s also not what western developers do. Here’s a little secret: Western games, the likes of Call of Duty and Skyrim, perform relatively poorly in Japan. Though they’re becoming more critically successful, commercially they’re still lucky if they’re in the charts for a week.
Western developers don’t see this as a case of “oh noes, our industry is dying!” You don’t see Bioware trying to copy Final Fantasy to pander to the Japanese tastes, and you don’t see Activision developers sticking great big spiky hairdos on its Call of Duty characters. No. Western developers make games for the audiences they know best, and then if the game performs well in Japan, that’s a bonus.
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| Mario: proving Japanese developers still make great games |
So why the assumption that the Japanese developers need to sanitise their identity to make games for the western market? Is it because America is the biggest market for games? It is, yes, but Japan is currently the second biggest market for games, and it has some very successful developers, critically and commercially, even though the industry is supposedly “dead” and the games supposedly “suck.” The industry is struggling somewhat right now, but that has little to do with the developers and publishers themselves; the Japanese economy is close to being a basket case, and politically the country is unstable. When this happens, consumer confidence plummets, and fewer games and consoles are sold.
It’s also something that rights itself, eventually. Japan’s economy will recover, and people will start looking to buy luxuries again. But if the Japanese developers have started pandering to western tastes over the Japanese mindset, then they’ll miss out on what will again become a very lucrative market.
So no, Inafune, making games for a global audience is not what the Japanese industry should be doing. If anything it should be focusing more on itself, and then, as history has shown, a percentage of the Japanese games will be hits in the west anyway. There are even publishers (XSeed, Atlus, NIS America) that specialise in proving that Japanese games can sell well enough to sustain a company.
On to another one of Inafune’s comments:
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| Monster Hunter: a rather popular Japanese brand. |
“We must realize the need to develop and rebuild new brands. It must happen now. It will be too late when our brands no longer hold sway. Time is running out and we should have realized this when I made that bold statement a few years ago.”
Branding is not the Japanese industry’s problem. This is the same country that has a chain of retail shops devoted to Pokemon, cosplay (you know you’ve got a popular brand when people start dressing like your characters), and the video game character that replaced Mickey Mouse as the most recognisable character in the world (Mario).
Will some brands die over time? Of course. Very few brands last forever, and the star of some will fade. Inafune is kidding himself if he thinks that’s exclusive to the Japanese games industry though. Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero, anyone? And yet, the good games companies out there find new brands to replace the old ones. Activision found Call of Duty, and Spyro was a massive hit. And there are new brands being discovered in Japan all the time. I hear Monster Hunter is doing pretty well (understatement of the year), and Suda 51 and Grasshopper Manufacture is a massive brand in itself; regardless of what they do, people are interested. So there will be brands to replace the stars of Final Fantasy, Mario and anyone else should they start to wild.
Inafune is a creative man with a lot of good ideas and games. His ideas about where the Japanese games industry should go next is, I believe, more likely to kill it than the current trajectory it’s on.
It's convenient that a man who suggests more new IPs from Japan should happen is currently shopping his own new IP around Japanese publishers.
It's convenient that a man who suggests more new IPs from Japan should happen is currently shopping his own new IP around Japanese publishers.
Yeah, that's true too. 😛 And I don't mean to criticise him for that; I love Ghost Trick as much as the next person.
I just don't agree with his assessment that the Japanese games industry needs to think "globally." That's no more the case than the American games industry. Think about your own market, and if you make a good enough game, it's going to sell everywhere just fine. I'd argue the problem facing the really big Japanese developers is they're trying too hard to break through into the US market.
Yeah, that's true too. 😛 And I don't mean to criticise him for that; I love Ghost Trick as much as the next person.
I just don't agree with his assessment that the Japanese games industry needs to think "globally." That's no more the case than the American games industry. Think about your own market, and if you make a good enough game, it's going to sell everywhere just fine. I'd argue the problem facing the really big Japanese developers is they're trying too hard to break through into the US market.
No need to defend your argument as I agree wholeheartedly with it. Indeed.
I think he's working on an pirate game with animals on 3DS and some unverified Vita game.
No need to defend your argument as I agree wholeheartedly with it. Indeed.
I think he's working on an pirate game with animals on 3DS and some unverified Vita game.
Yeah I really, really cannot wait for that game. I saw a couple of screenshots a few months back, and it looks awesome.
Yeah I really, really cannot wait for that game. I saw a couple of screenshots a few months back, and it looks awesome.
Sada and Miyamoto as prooves of that japanese dev are creative ?
Oh boy, you sure must be kiddin… Infaume is totally right here, Japan is not in the move anymore.
Sada and Miyamoto as prooves of that japanese dev are creative ?
Oh boy, you sure must be kiddin… Infaume is totally right here, Japan is not in the move anymore.
Hi Ettasoeur,
Show me the sales figures where Japanese games are being outsold by western games in Japan, and you'll have a point.
To boil this piece down for the people who I know aren't going to read the piece (not that I'm accusing you of that, Ettasoeur, but I know what's coming); Japanese games are, given the depressed economic conditions in Japan, doing ok. Selling well in America isn't necessary to be successful, as much as the analysts in this industry would like to pretend otherwise.
Hi Ettasoeur,
Show me the sales figures where Japanese games are being outsold by western games in Japan, and you'll have a point.
To boil this piece down for the people who I know aren't going to read the piece (not that I'm accusing you of that, Ettasoeur, but I know what's coming); Japanese games are, given the depressed economic conditions in Japan, doing ok. Selling well in America isn't necessary to be successful, as much as the analysts in this industry would like to pretend otherwise.
Clearly you don´t have any insight as to how the industry works, he´s not trying to make Japanese developers to cater the western audience, what he wants for them is to adapt toe the western development cycle.
One great example of this, is the unreal engine, so far it has let developers focus on actual development of games and less programming making it a progress over the last generation. Think about it, last gen japanese games were all over the place simply because the consoles where less harder to program with, this gen changed all that, graphical quality took a great leap something which is hard to do given the japanese focus on developing all the engines from the scratch, meanwhile we see iterations of many western games year after year.
Just my two cents here.
Clearly you don´t have any insight as to how the industry works, he´s not trying to make Japanese developers to cater the western audience, what he wants for them is to adapt toe the western development cycle.
One great example of this, is the unreal engine, so far it has let developers focus on actual development of games and less programming making it a progress over the last generation. Think about it, last gen japanese games were all over the place simply because the consoles where less harder to program with, this gen changed all that, graphical quality took a great leap something which is hard to do given the japanese focus on developing all the engines from the scratch, meanwhile we see iterations of many western games year after year.
Just my two cents here.
Hi Miguel, thanks for your two cents 😉
I still don't believe this is a problem. Any good company of any decent size should be investing heavily in R & D. If that means a developer/ publisher comes up with an engine unique to is, then that's a brilliant way to differentiate itself in the market. Regardless of what you thought about Final Fantasy XIII's gameplay, the engine itself was exceptional. And Square Enix has just developed one that is as close to true photorealism as any I've ever seen. It's expensive to do, but it's investment, and most importantly, it's smart investment.
And beyond that, a lot of Japanese developers and publishers are investing in those western technologies. Lots of them use Havok, for instance. Nintendo just acquired MobiClip.
If that's what Inafune actually meant (and you're reading between the lines as much as I am to come to that conclusion), then he's not paying much attention to his own industry.
Just my two cents in return 🙂
Hi Miguel, thanks for your two cents 😉
I still don't believe this is a problem. Any good company of any decent size should be investing heavily in R & D. If that means a developer/ publisher comes up with an engine unique to is, then that's a brilliant way to differentiate itself in the market. Regardless of what you thought about Final Fantasy XIII's gameplay, the engine itself was exceptional. And Square Enix has just developed one that is as close to true photorealism as any I've ever seen. It's expensive to do, but it's investment, and most importantly, it's smart investment.
And beyond that, a lot of Japanese developers and publishers are investing in those western technologies. Lots of them use Havok, for instance. Nintendo just acquired MobiClip.
If that's what Inafune actually meant (and you're reading between the lines as much as I am to come to that conclusion), then he's not paying much attention to his own industry.
Just my two cents in return 🙂
saying that Inafune was ever "creative" is a major misnomer. He has never been credited as a designer or a creator in ANYTHING he produced at CAPCOM. EVER. Heck, even his big claim to fame is actually miscredited as who would arguably be Mega Man's creator would be either Tokuro Fujiwara or Akira Kitamura. Inafune is the Ringo Starr of the games industry; a guy at the exact place at the exact time he needed to be.
Plus, let's be honest here, Inafune is REALLY ignoring some other names in Japan in order to make this argument work and his idea that "global" leads to success automatically is flawed. Heck, ATLUS's Persona series is successful BECAUSE it's unashamedly Japanese in its presentation Or Arc System Works that thrives on its ludicrous presentation in its Guilty Gear and Blazblue titles that could only come from Japan. Or how about the plethora of teams from CAPCOM who do Ace Attorney, Ghost Trick, revived Street Fighter and MvC, and even brought back Okami?Not to mention the COUNTLESS smaller devs who have managed to make successful cult classics like Cave Story.
Inafune is wrong about Japan. And even if he were right it's not like those problems are exclusively in Japan. The guy has no right to be spouting off ignorant strawman arguments like this.
saying that Inafune was ever "creative" is a major misnomer. He has never been credited as a designer or a creator in ANYTHING he produced at CAPCOM. EVER. Heck, even his big claim to fame is actually miscredited as who would arguably be Mega Man's creator would be either Tokuro Fujiwara or Akira Kitamura. Inafune is the Ringo Starr of the games industry; a guy at the exact place at the exact time he needed to be.
Plus, let's be honest here, Inafune is REALLY ignoring some other names in Japan in order to make this argument work and his idea that "global" leads to success automatically is flawed. Heck, ATLUS's Persona series is successful BECAUSE it's unashamedly Japanese in its presentation Or Arc System Works that thrives on its ludicrous presentation in its Guilty Gear and Blazblue titles that could only come from Japan. Or how about the plethora of teams from CAPCOM who do Ace Attorney, Ghost Trick, revived Street Fighter and MvC, and even brought back Okami?Not to mention the COUNTLESS smaller devs who have managed to make successful cult classics like Cave Story.
Inafune is wrong about Japan. And even if he were right it's not like those problems are exclusively in Japan. The guy has no right to be spouting off ignorant strawman arguments like this.
Hi Aiddon, thanks for the input!
I agree with most of what you've said there. I think the western analysts get a little too caught up in how poorly sales of, say, Dynasty Warriors does in the west as some kind of proof that the series is indicative of Japan's industry failing.
But in Japan the Warriors games outsells Call of Duty. Just an example, but if people remembered that Japan is a huge market, that western games are not popular there and that Japanese developers do prioritise the Japanese market, I think we'd see less doom and gloom pieces in the media.
Think about GUST for a minute. Those guys make the Atelier and Ar Tonelico games. Both of which are incredibly niche in the west. They sell well enough for GUST to be profitable in Japan, though 🙂
Which is good. I love GUST 🙂
Hi Aiddon, thanks for the input!
I agree with most of what you've said there. I think the western analysts get a little too caught up in how poorly sales of, say, Dynasty Warriors does in the west as some kind of proof that the series is indicative of Japan's industry failing.
But in Japan the Warriors games outsells Call of Duty. Just an example, but if people remembered that Japan is a huge market, that western games are not popular there and that Japanese developers do prioritise the Japanese market, I think we'd see less doom and gloom pieces in the media.
Think about GUST for a minute. Those guys make the Atelier and Ar Tonelico games. Both of which are incredibly niche in the west. They sell well enough for GUST to be profitable in Japan, though 🙂
Which is good. I love GUST 🙂
The problem here is that he's from Japan, so the things outside Japan are more likely to seem more creative to him than the Japanese games do. I can understand why he'd want Japanese game companies to compete on a Global scale, they have been seeing much less success on the global market recently, and western tastes have evolved away from contemporary Japanese games. But it's as you said, the Japanese do best when catering to the Japanese market first and foremost, although I will admit I wish they'd stop catering to the "otaku culture" so much these days, even if it is where the money is – It's damaging the reputation of gaming both inside and outside Japan.
The biggest problem I have, though, is that, as you said, the complaints he has affect the industry as a whole, not just the Japanese market. I really don't see how he thinks Western games are any different in this regard. That's even getting past Assassin's Creed and the entirety of Activision. Creative sequels and new IPs really aren't as frequent here as he seems to think.
Oh yeah, and one more thing: while we haven't seen any gameplay of it yet, Inafune's new IP looks suspiciously like yet another Warriors type game. So much for keeping creative if that's true.=P
The problem here is that he's from Japan, so the things outside Japan are more likely to seem more creative to him than the Japanese games do. I can understand why he'd want Japanese game companies to compete on a Global scale, they have been seeing much less success on the global market recently, and western tastes have evolved away from contemporary Japanese games. But it's as you said, the Japanese do best when catering to the Japanese market first and foremost, although I will admit I wish they'd stop catering to the "otaku culture" so much these days, even if it is where the money is – It's damaging the reputation of gaming both inside and outside Japan.
The biggest problem I have, though, is that, as you said, the complaints he has affect the industry as a whole, not just the Japanese market. I really don't see how he thinks Western games are any different in this regard. That's even getting past Assassin's Creed and the entirety of Activision. Creative sequels and new IPs really aren't as frequent here as he seems to think.
Oh yeah, and one more thing: while we haven't seen any gameplay of it yet, Inafune's new IP looks suspiciously like yet another Warriors type game. So much for keeping creative if that's true.=P
Oh he has the right, just as anybody does. However, being taken seriously isn't guaranteed in anybody's constitution. That's something you really have to earn, which he certainly has not.
Oh he has the right, just as anybody does. However, being taken seriously isn't guaranteed in anybody's constitution. That's something you really have to earn, which he certainly has not.
Agreed with you on all counts, Frog. This does seem to be a case of "the grass is greener on the other side."
RE the Otaku pandering, I reckon they should just leave that to GUST and move on. It's not like anyone else knows how to make a really good Otaku game. 😉
Agreed with you on all counts, Frog. This does seem to be a case of "the grass is greener on the other side."
RE the Otaku pandering, I reckon they should just leave that to GUST and move on. It's not like anyone else knows how to make a really good Otaku game. 😉
I totally agree.
there is just no point in attacking Japanese games industry or always bashing it.
Once something has moved forward, there is no going back.
he can bad talk Japan all he wants, in the end 70% of japanese gaming devs will not listen nor follow his ways.
If he keeps on bashing the industry, it would feel like he hasn't gotten over the fact that he left Crapcom
I totally agree.
there is just no point in attacking Japanese games industry or always bashing it.
Once something has moved forward, there is no going back.
he can bad talk Japan all he wants, in the end 70% of japanese gaming devs will not listen nor follow his ways.
If he keeps on bashing the industry, it would feel like he hasn't gotten over the fact that he left Crapcom
Sorry for the grammar of my last post, I was in a hurry to go out. Anyway, as you said, any good company should be investing in R & D but what if there was a layer of abstraction where you could pour your best ideas without ever worrying about the technical aspects of the engine?
Development of games would be based on trying to make greatest game posible!
I think that`s what happened with the western game development of games, examples of this kind of achievement are games like Arkham City, Gears of War 3, Mass Effect 2, Skrym, Dead Space 2, Uncharted 2 and many others!
If you look at those game you could see that they used game engines they already had and did not have to invest too much on tech.
Japanese developers on the other hand, throw away their engines after using it once, I mean look at MGS4, they used the engine once and then announced the new fox engine instead of creating one more game with it. Many more examples come to my mind: Star Ocean 4, Ninja Gaiden 2, Vanquish, Metroid Other M, Bayonetta, Yakuza 4, White Knight chronicles, Valkyria Chronicles, No More Heroes, Castlevania and many others… What do all those games have in common? Their engines were only used once, maybe twice and then thrown away.
What does this say about the Japanese industry? they just don´t seem to share their engines or technology for the greater good. S-E for example have the Crystal Tool Engine, it is a great engine (incredible graphics as you said), but they only use it for their projects and so far have not licensed it to other game companies. They tend to guard their secrets and don´t wan to share with them with anyone.
Obviously there are some exceptions, take Capcom for example, they tend to recycle a lot, and I really meant it: DR,DR2,LP,LP2,RE5,MVC3. MHtri… and maybe that´s the reason of their success so far, well that and the fact that they exploit their fans.
Huff.. what a long essay… anyway this is mostly my opinion of the state of things in the japanese industry, you guys are welcomed to disegree…
Haha, thanks for the long essay – might not necessarily agree with you, but you make great points and I'm enjoying this discussion!
I think the difference between Japanese developers and western developers is this: to the Japanese developers the engine is a critical part of the game, and something that allows the games these guys make to be differentiated in a very core way. Look at Final Fantasy XIII: There will never be another JRPG or WRPG with that engine, so Final Fantasy XIII is unique at the very architecture level.
Western developers focus more on differentiation from the layer that sits on top of the engine. There might be a thousand indie games that use the Unity engine, for instance, and what separates them is games themselves.
It's hard to compare this to another industry, but let's hypothetically consider the print industry. One company spends a lot of money on inventing its own kind of paper. It's an incredible piece of paper that wows anyone who reads words on it. The other company focuses 100% of its resources on the words that go on top of paper that all of their competition uses.
There is nothing wrong with either approach, from a business and creativity point of view. Company A needs to make sure that it doesn't ignore the words on the paper entirely, because people are only going to keep reading if the content is good. But, if the content is good, then they've got a major advantage over company B, which has nothing but good words.
Same goes for the games industry. The Japanese approach of developing in-house engines for games will work as long as the game development is still sound. And a lot of people don't give Japanese developers their due: they are still producing great games with these engines.
Fair point, indeed japanese development have their uniqueness… I don´t think it have changed much since the Nes days.
This kind of approach is not bad per se, as this was how it worked back in the days of NES or SNES era. No matter how crappy a game was, it was guaranteed to sell an amount of copies enough to recoup development cost and even make profit. But now, in the current economic climate, game
development cost a lot more (in fact MUCH MUCH MORE!) and is an
investment that few companies can withstand, so far only Konami, S-E,
Capcom, Nintendo, Tecmo and few others can afford.
I think most of us remember the golden days of gaming:
Visiting the stores in order to buy a special game, not knowing if it was good or bad at all, then opening and getting marveled by it, then weeks passed and you was still in love with that game because, well simply, you could not afford another game or there were no more new releases you could buy (The store I frequented only had between 10 and 20 titles at any time). Those days I took any release like a blessing, hell sometimes I had to wait half a year for only one or two releases. Basically, back then, you bought anything you could get and this helped the development cost of your next game.
Now, the world of gaming it´s a complete different beast altogether. THERE ARE TOO MANY GAMES!, just the last year I bought… OMG… I can´t believe I bought so many, so let´s just say that it is a high number and get over it, the market was saturated with great games, most of them from western companies, in a ration of 1 japanese release for every 5 western game. Thanks god I have a good job and was able to afford Catherine and WKCII, this coupled with U3, R3, B3, Skrym, LoZ (I know is Japanese but is in an entire category all together) almost maded me a broke sad panda this christmast.
Anyway getting back to the point of the article, there are simply too much games to choose from and most of them from western companies, if I had a tight a budget I would have bought only one or two games and mostly those I have experienced before. What does this means to the average gamer? Call of duty but of course!!!.. just kidding… but I think I illustrate the point of brand awareness something the japanese industry lacks at the moment. Games like RE5 and MGS4 comes from beloved franchises but it took more than 4 years of development time for each one of them, and so far the sequels for both of them have taken almost that amount of development time (RE6 and RISING), meanwhile we have a Call of duty, an assasins creed, a halo, an uncharted, mass effect and many other coming each every year, if not every year. This eats away into every Japanese game released overseas because they are too unique and simply don´t have the brand awareness of the heavy hitters.
Getting back to the point of this article, I think Keiji have seen this difference and wants to do something about it (sales don´t lie), if Japanese development does not start to adopt the western thinking then they would soon be out of business in the competitive global market, unless you´re Nintendo of course. Because frankly, given the choice to buy and play the entire saga of Mass Effect (which have continuity) or to buy and play The Last Remnant, Star Ocean 4 and XIII-2 seems a no-brainer for me (I choose those games since they appeared near the same time as mass effect 1,2 and 3).
Anyway, I don´t think the japanese industry is so doomed… some seem to have taken heed and changed their ways. If I´m right, we should see XIII-3 announced later this year and you can always count on capcom to make the ultimate capcom x tekken, then Rising and RE6.
Wow… I just kept writing… damn!
I think we are actually mostly in agreement – in terms of the global market, Japanese developers are lagging behind the west (that said, I personally disagree with you on which games to buy – my collection is about 10:1 in favour of Japanese games ;)).
My point has always been that Japanese developers need to focus on the Japanese market, especially when the economy is tight. There, it's the exact opposite, for every one western game that hits the top 10 charts, there are fifteen Japanese games that push it out a week later. Skyrim and Call of Duty both sold relatively modestly there, and on the other hand, Warriors games that never even get released in the west hit the charts at #1.
Love Plus, a game I just reviewed over at Otaku Gaming, would sell ten copies if it was released in America, but it's a massive franchise in Japan.
Japan is still the second biggest games market. Until the western games start to chart better over there, or until the Japanese market stops being lucrative, I think it is very premature to suggest the Japanese developers need to rethink their approach to making games.