/jp/ - Otaku Culture

[Anonymous No.]

Can /jp/ explain something to me? Why are western made first person shooters, rpgs, and games like Warhammer 40,000 explosively popular everywhere EXCEPT Japan?

Why is Japan the oddball here? Do the Japs just have a massive superiority complex about their own stuff, are these game too western, or what?

[Vocaloid KAITO !o2N9ch5n72 No.]

Yeah FPS are not too popular in Japan.

Though, amusingly, one of my favorite artists is a 360 and Halo fan.

[Anonymous No.]

>>28507 PCs aren't that common,

[Anonymous No.]

Worry not, Master Cirno will save the day!

[Anonymous No.]

Because japan is faggot

[ScottishWeeaboo !!WCV2lLF+/pu No.]

different strokes for different folks - its just the way it is - it would be boring if everyone liked the same stuff.

[Anonymous No.]

I think Halo is a pretty cool guy eh, kills aliens and doenst afraid of anything

[moonlander !luv/Rukiak No.]

Hell if I can explain it. It's not a matter of them thinking "we hate non-japanese games", it's just.. the whole mindset is different. That kind of stuff just doesn't appeal to them, the same way their hordes of endless GRINDAN GAMES don't appeal to most anyone else.

[Anonymous No.]

stupid games are stupid.

[Anonymous No.]

only amrikka leik big exploding boom

[Anonymous No.]

not kawaii enough

[Anonymous No.]

The old statement used to be that the Japanese don't like FPS because they tend to suffer motion sickness more frequently than Western gamers. I don't really know if it's true, though.

[Anonymous No.]

>>28458
You mean all of Korea's GRINDAN GAEMS

[Anonymous No.]

>>28440
it's the land of the loli games. why would they want to play a game brute game like warhammer.

[Anonymous No.]

they have a whole different gaming legacy, whereas "Western" games/rpgs have an American-dominated legacy. it's simply a matter of being used to one over the other. in the same way, most American/Western gamers won't play Japanese-style games.

also, PCs aren't that common, and PC gaming even less so, so that cuts out part of the potential audience.

[Anonymous No.]

>>28478

But they do well everywhere except Japan.

[Anonymous No.]

Actually, I heard an interview with a Japanese game developer and he said that it was a couple of things. First, the violence in American media is just too senseless. In Japanese media across the board, anime, manga, video games what have you, you will have these two sides who are bitter enemies and over the course of the battle they will reach an understanding about why the other is fighting. Western media tends to gloss over this issue the badguys fight because the prophet said so, becuase WE'ZE IS ORKS etc.

Also, western video games are too hard. This might sound counterintuitive coming from the land of "bullet hell" shooters, but American games crank up difficulty to a level that frustrates the Japanese gamer.

[Anonymous No.]

>>28482
I personally suffer 3D motion sickness when I'm stuck in FPS games. I think Japanese people are starting to open up to FPS though. You can see some FPS games like call of duty 4 and bioshock gameplay movie making up to the rankings page in niconicodouga

[Anonymous No.]

>>28517
>Also, western video games are too hard. This might sound counterintuitive coming from the land of "bullet hell" shooters, but American games crank up difficulty to a level that frustrates the Japanese gamer.

You lost me. Seriously.

[Anonymous No.]

It's because they, unlike most young people on the planet, can not read English.
Amazing, huh?

[Anonymous No.]

>>28526

It's true, when Japanese games a localized to America. One of the first things they do is alter the game to MAKE IT HARDER. In the first Resident Evil, the developers reduced the number of typewriter ribbons and items in the game. To make it harder.

[Anonymous No.]

>>28526
Hmm Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden ring a bell?

[Anonymous No.]

I see a lot of people standing around watching the BioShock trailer in Akiba. I want to tell them YOU SHOULD HAVE PLAYED SYSTEM SHOCK 2 but I don't think they'd understand.

Also, I'm not sure including a scene in the trailer where the guy pulls a little sister out of the wall and then slams his wrench in his hand threateningly at her appeals to the japanese market. Japan liek cute rapeable loli, not dirty murder victim loli.

[Anonymous No.]

>>28535
Point taken. Fucking Ninja Gaiden.

[Anonymous No.]

>>28541
duuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhr

do the words final fantasy "2" mean anything to you

[Anonymous No.]

>>28507 also, PCs aren't that common

What? They all use Macs, then?

[Anonymous No.]

>>28507
Actually PC "gaming" is the most common form of gaming in Japan, but their PCs are the lowest powered "videogame console" they own.

From Wikipedia:
>Visual novels and ADVs are especially prevalent in Japan, where they make up nearly 70% of PC games released.

[Vocaloid KAITO !o2N9ch5n72 No.]

>>28557

I think he means PC gaming.

[Anonymous No.]

Actually, whenever I come across an otaku blog, I can usually find them talking about Halo at one point or another. It's just not mainstream.

[Anonymous No.]

>>28586
PCs are a niche market for gaming in Japan. Yes, there are plenty of people with PCs, but there are way, way more console gamers percentage-wise than in the US.

[Anonymous No.]

It's funny, FPS games are not popular in Japan. However, Gears of War was a HUGE success retailers couln't keep it on the shelves.

[Anonymous No.]

>>28615
You misunderstand, it's a PS3 game, Japanese computers can't even run modern computer FPSs, it's no surprise that they'd want to try one out.

[Anonymous No.]

>>28536

Oh Looking Glass, we lost something great when we lost you.

[Anonymous No.]

>>28746 Japanese computers can't even run modern computer FPSs
LOL
Have you seen the requirements of Time Leap?

[Anonymous No.]

Here's what i think:

Japan's history is a violent a bloody one, what with all the feudal lords and all the swords and samurai shit. Japan's literature is all about swords and samurai shit. The very culture of japan springs from a romantic era.

American history is much shorter, but still filled with violence.
However, this violence does not involve swords and combat and diplomacy like japan. American history violence comes from SHOOT THE FUCKING REDCOATS, SHOOT THE FUCKING INDIANS, SHOOT THE FUCKING YANKEES, SHOOT THE FUCKING GERMANS, SHOOT THE FUCKING GERMANS AGAIN, SHOOT THE FUCKING VIETNAMESE, SHOOT THE FUCKING KOREANS, SHOOT THE FUCKING IRAQIS, SHOOT THE FUCKING AFGHANS, SHOOT THE FUCKING IRAQIS AGAIN.

i believe shootan gaems are popular in america because our very culture revolves around guns. Note most of the classic american literature comes from a war or characters that use guns as opposed to anything else.

[Anonymous No.]

http://japanmanship.blogspot.com/2007/10/art-of-character.html
some reasonable and reasonably informed speculations here
(ctrl-f down to 'It seems that Western')

[Anonymous No.]

>>28891
koreans, then vietnamese, forgot guam, mexico, cuba, and a host of insurgent conflicts

[Anonymous No.]

>>28891
It's kind of the same in the whole individual vs group mentality difference. While both countries had violent histories, American history revolved around individuals or small groups staking their claims, the whole 'wild west cowboy' ideal and all that. Sure it's greatly romanticized in media but it's kind of the mentality that got the US to where it is (survival of the fittest, look out for #1, etc).

Meanwhile Japan is all "do what's best for your society, find your role and do the best you can". FPS shooters: running around as an individual clearing a path on your own terms. Japanese grindin' games: repeating a task over and over because it's the role you were handed by society.

[Anonymous No.]

>>28934
So Japanese shooters aren't about flying around as an individual clearing a path on your own terms?

[Anonymous No.]

>>28998
>>Japanese shooters
Like? All I can think of is Earth Defense Force, you can tell what the game is like from the title.

[Anonymous No.]

>>29018
Can she graze through enemy bullets?

[Anonymous No.]

>>28440
I dunno. I noticed games marketed toward Korean players tend to have alot of built-in cheese and exploits.

I remember some game called Gun-something where the American designers built it in so you could skip attack frame animations with a glitch they put there on purpose. Called it K-style gaming.

Why Koreans seem to like blizzard games so much because they are shitty and glitchy and easy to exploit.

[Anonymous No.]

>>28913
>But these are all things worth considering if you’re Hell bent on tailoring your game to Japanese audiences. The best advice is, probably, don’t try. A bad copy is always inferior to a failed original, and I think you’ll find the Japanese market more receptacle to a quirky new high concept than a Western made JRPG or similar dross. If your goal is to make a Japanese game I’m afraid there is little chance of doing any better than the Japanese themselves.

This is pretty good advice. I think one of the things we westerners sometimes fail to realize is the sheer multitude of jrpgs there are. What are some good jrpgs that became well-loved over here? You've got your Chrono Trigger, your various Final Fantasies, maybe a Valkyrie Profile or something.. in Japan, take every RPG you've ever heard of and multiply it by five hundred. There are endless rows upon rows upon rows of RPGs for every single console. Most of them are probably crap, but there are always people to play each and every one. It's a huge sea of RPGs, each with their seemingly cookiecutter-assembled cast of plucky young characters. Hell, even the PSP has roughly a metric billion out for it. PSP's remarkably more popular over here, it's kind of scary...

[Anonymous No.]

>>29026
2d shooters, the bullet hell stuff.