/jp/ - Otaku Culture

[Anonymous No.]

/jp/, you guys are ruining japan video game
Why Japanese Games are Breaking Up With the West
>Moe describes the emotions that otaku feel upon seeing, thinking of, or interacting with a certain kind of character. Depending on the person, this character may or may not fit the little girl image that western game critics have come to associate with the word.

>So what exactly does this mean for games? It actually depends on which ones you're talking about -- for the biggest titles it means nothing, but it means everything to smaller publishers and developers. The business model for small games in Japan can only be sustained by catering to a small yet rabid fan base that's willing to pay a premium for content. AAA titles normally sell for between the equivalent of $40-$60, while smaller niche titles are usually priced at $80-plus. Small developers make their money by selling less at a higher profit margin, while major publishers sell more for less. If you publish small games in Japan you have to give your fans what you want, and since your fans are otaku who revel in moe, you'll give them games filled with the characters that elicit that response -- which are usually young, childlike girls. Between August and December of this year there are a total of 35 games set for release in Japan which follow this exact model. There are more games like this than there are FPSs in the west. By catering to their fan base, smaller publishers have alienated many western fans.

(1/2)

[Anonymous No.]

>Moe's effect on AAA games has not been as direct. If you want to make a massive hit, you can't sell it only to the small crowd who wants to ogle 2D characters, as Galbraith points out. "What moe game has as many players as Monster Hunter? What franchise has been as successful as Pokémon? What moe characters have had the cultural impact of those of Sailor Moon or Dragon Ball? The point is that they are not the majority of the audience, and the most popular and bestselling works in Japan are not those targeting moe fans."

>It's not that Japanese games are bad and western games are good or vice versa, the problem facing fans of Japanese games outside of the country is that the tastes of Japanese gamers are diverging from the rest of the world, thus limiting the commercial appeal of even the biggest titles in Japan. The specialized habits of Japanese adult gamers have left the console space in the country to otaku and their moe. Meanwhile, the Japanese consumers are perfectly content with this state of affairs, because as far as many are concerned they're not missing out on anything. The gamers have changed more than the games, and while that leaves a lot of old-school fans in Europe and the Americas out in cold the vast majority of consumers around the world seem to feel just fine about the current state of affairs.

http://blog.esuteru.com/archives/6032300.html
http://www.1up.com/features/japanese-games-breaking-west

[Moe !TRONurrVj. No.]

>tfw no one wants to TL loli games

[Anonymous No.]

Why is Japanese capitalism so backassward?

[Anonymous No.]

While sad, it is beyond the control of us grognards. It's like being concerned that the sun is too bright, or that no-one will ever be cuter than Chiyo. Legitimate concerns to be sure, but not anything we can do about it.

[Anonymous No.]

You may be thinking, "But the problem is so big! What can I do?"

You can do plenty.

You can pick up the phone and save one loli.

[Anonymous No.]

[Anonymous No.]

Don't blame me for the rise of moe. I personally fucking hate how it has come to contaminate and dominate practically all forms of anime, manga and VNs.

[Anonymous No.]

The biggest issue isn't moe, is the kind of moe creators are catering to and the way they're doing it.

There's absolutely nothing standing in the way of making interesting, smart characters, that are ALSO moe, and putting them in a good game - but that's harder than just regurgitating the same tired recipe over and over again with minor changes.

It's harder to make a good story with good characters and interesting gameplay that it is to just throw some makeshift vessel for cheap moe together, so the devs end up blaming their inability and lack of initiative on having to cater to otaku.

It's a false dichotomy if I ever saw one.

[Anonymous No.]

[Anonymous No.]

Waiting for the true dawn of erokawaii

[Anonymous No.]

How is this a bad thing?

[Anonymous No.]

>>8753548
Some people just don't like cute girls doing cute things.
Don't ask, I don't get it either. But it's their taste, so we really shouldn't judge.

[Anonymous No.]

>>8753548
>>8753564
There is nothing wrong with cute girls doing cute things. The problem is that it has grown so dominant and pervasive that practically everything you find is cute girls doing cute things and little else is left.

[Anonymous No.]

Male westerners only want to play as Buff Meatslab while female westerners always whine about sexism in regards to female heroines, more news at 11.

[Youmu Konpaku !MyonHUTINA No.]

>>8753572
What are you even talking about? I can't think of more than three video games that have come out recently that are cute girls doing cute things.

[Anonymous No.]

>>8753572
Any just why do you think that is?
It's because that's what people want. All those games wouldn't be produced if people didn't buy them. So saying that it's a ``problem'' in general is outright wrong.
Maybe it's a problem for a minority of the people who like Japanese games, but for most of us it's just what we want.

[Anonymous No.]

>>8753572
There's nothing wrong with "cute" girls doing things.

There's absolutely no need, however, to confine them to doing cute things(and that's not actually what this article is about), and most certainly there's absolutely no fucking need to limit the "cute" to a set of cliches and stereotypes that got old years ago at the cost of actual character depth and confining all the female characters to being basically masturbation(in as wide sense of the word as possible) fodder.

[Anonymous No.]

>/jp/, you guys are ruining japan video game
This isn't the conclusion the quoted text comes to at all, retard. Fuck. Off.

[Anonymous No.]

But the vita sucks dick right now because it so fucking westernized. most Western games are a big waste of time to begin with.

[Anonymous No.]

Isn't Japan producing much more Anime today than in the 90s?
That would explain why you think many of the shows suck.
It's not like everything produced after the year 2000 is bad, you just can't see the good things under the huge pile of crap.

[Anonymous No.]

good, i hope the Japanese start to just not give no fucks about westernizing shit.

[Anonymous No.]

>>8753603

90% of everything is and has always been crap.

[Anonymous No.]

So basically more incorrect use of the word "moe" and "bawwwww, why isn't this like my Western murder simulators!?"

[Anonymous No.]

>>8753603
It's not even the amount produced, it's two things - first is that simply bad things from the past aren't remembered(and for the big part, they weren't even brought to the west in the first place), and the second is that people compare all the good things from the collective "past" spanning decades, to maybe the last couple season's worth of modern stuff.

TV anime is steadily getting better, the only thing worth lamenting is losing the OVA market before it matured and produced more than a couple actually good shows.

[Anonymous No.]

By the way, is there a list somewhere that compiles just the sales of Japanese-developed games in Japan?

[Anonymous No.]

I dont understand what is the problem.
Japanese made Monster Hunter and it is fucking good.
Even the character design is good and the doujin artist sure made great fap material out of it.
For example, Dark Souls is a good game but it sure could have been better if the female character design isnt vomit inducing.

[Anonymous No.]

Why does the West think everything must revolve around them? Oh no someone doesn't care about us I demand attention.

[Anonymous No.]

>>8753630
>Dark Souls is a good game but it sure could have been better if the female character design isnt vomit inducing.
the fuck are you talking about?
all the chicks in dark souls are hot as hell

[Anonymous No.]

Is moe reall bad thing? Atelier games are pretty damn moe, but also really solid RPGs.

I'm more bothered by plain bad stories, like in Tales of Graces. If combat wasn't that fun, it would enough to ruin game for me.

[witch 2 !!AFElzTcxyLp No.]

i like what i like, it's not wrong to like it just because you don't...
it's the fault of the suits that there is less variety and creators have less freedom. it's not my fault for enjoying fun things
because the things i enjoy are doing better than yours, i should stop liking them? your reasoning doesn't make any sense, friend...
you think this is some sort of videogame democracy? capitalism is playing tricks with your mind, please understand this

[Anonymous No.]

>>8753700
Playing a moe game leaves the opportunity to be made fun of.

Stupid as fuck but people care

[Anonymous No.]

>What moe characters have had the cultural impact of those of Sailor Moon

Is this some kind of typo, or this sentence actually as stupid as I think it is?

[Anonymous No.]

>>8753912
>or this sentence actually as stupid as I think it is?
yes

[Anonymous No.]

>>8753920
You should add "that"

[Anonymous No.]

ITT faggots

Go fuck off to your Cowadoody.

[Anonymous No.]

Love Plus sold only 200k copies in japan, but Nintendog sold 2 million copies in japan and 20 million worldwild

[Dexwyde !mbHjxjfHlA No.]

but 90% of the best games are still coming from japan.

unless you like cinematic experience moviegames. then the west is king.

[Anonymous No.]

>>8753922
"that yes"?

[Anonymous No.]

>blame moe
That's not helping

[Anonymous No.]

This is actually very good.

If everyone made the same shit, it would be boring. I'm glad Japan at least caters to a different audience (and it's also nice to have enough in common with that audience), even if the profit margins are smaller than if they were to cater to westerners.

[ZUN !barYV1VtIA No.]

>>8756089
Nintendog is just as moe as Love Plus too. Gaijin just don't get what it means.

They only see it as a synonym for "cute" or "lolis" or whatever, but that's wrong. Too bad the article does the same thing. 1up is completely out of their league here.

Which is a shame, because you got equally uninformed people in the comments going "wow what a well-researched article!" too.

[Anonymous No.]

>>8756107
>cinematic experience moviegames.

yeah, metal gear shit and final fantshit

[Anonymous No.]

>>8756140
Excuse me, what? What games do you play?

[Anonymous No.]

>>8756164
Non-shit ones

Enjoy your shitshit, fagfag

[Anonymous No.]

Good, the less influnce western games have on anything, the better. I still want there to be new good games to play in future.

[Anonymous No.]

>>8753504
>You can pick up the phone and save one loli.
Brilliant. Someone should make a reaction image out of this.

[Anonymous No.]

>>8756172
>>>/b/

[Anonymous No.]

>>8756141
congrats on the marriage

[Anonymous No.]

>>8753530
Bacchus truly is a bro and a man-robot-thing of good taste.
Meanwhile, Edge isn't having any of that shit by the look on his face. God, Edge why are you such a faggot?

[Sakura !RAILgUnr8s No.]

>>8753476
This is the dumbest thing I've read today.
First off, most new console games in Japan are priced around $80+.

>Small developers make their money by selling less at a higher profit margin
This is silly. If we were talking about eroge, then sure, they are sold at a higher price. Let's take a look at some actual examples shall we? Senran Kagura is a game made for niche otaku market. It has a retail price of 5,980 yen. Kingdom Hearts 3D is a popular, all ages game, that will probably sell numerous times the copies of Senran Kagura. Its retail price is 6,090 yen. (all prices including taxes). There are plenty of other cases like this.

>filled with the characters that elicit that response -- which are usually young, childlike girls.
Baloney.

>Between August and December of this year there are a total of 35 games set for release in Japan which follow this exact model.
I would like to see this list of games and actually see how successful they were.

>By catering to their fan base, smaller publishers have alienated many western fans.
What western fans? What is he even talking about? Any sources to back these claims?

>What moe game has as many players as Monster Hunter?
How many PSP games in general have as many players as Monster Hunter? How is that even relevant?

>tastes of Japanese gamers are diverging from the rest of the world
>specialized habits of Japanese adult gamers have left the console space in the country to otaku and their moe
I thought they were just a small minority market in Japan though?

[Anonymous No.]

>>8753536
>erokawaii

Possibly the only world more meaningless than moe.

[Anonymous No.]

>>8756176
Western games are superior cry more

[Anonymous No.]

>>8756233
This is a very stupid remark. You can only judge "superiority" when you have a standard to judge them by. Such standards tend to be subjective - or individual specific, which is a complex issue in itself. A more objective standard is possible to attain when you're trying to judge something by some fanbase's ideal, but then something is only "superior" or "inferior" when judged in according to that standard. The thing is, most people here probably don't subscribe to your standards, so any comparison labels like this are absolutely useless and they don't serve any purpose than to make you feel better without conveying anything more than your own emotion/opinion on some subject.

Or I should have just said: Back to >>>/v/

[Anonymous No.]

>>8753476
What kind of retard wrote this?
What western fans? Impact in the western world, why should they give a shit about that?

They don't want your shitty grimdark muscle man FPS over there, give it a rest.

[Anonymous No.]

JRPGs have always sucked, moe characters or not.
Japanese shooters are almost always fun, whether you're piloting a spaceship or a cute girl.

I don't understand how things like character design can alienate one from a game. Surely it's about how fun the mechanics are, no?

[Anonymous No.]

The more Japanese culture, the better. I don't see the problem.

[Anonymous No.]

This is the stupidest shit I've read all week.

And I read it like a month ago too. It was the stupidest shit that week too.

[Anonymous No.]

More moe would make western games better. Moe makes anything better. At any rate, it's a lot better than brown and bloom.

Moe is LOVE. Moe is LIFE. Moe is JUSTICE.

The only people who hate on moe are homosexuals.

[Anonymous No.]

>>8757364
Yeah, this is a pretty stupid shit. A big one. A grat one. Congrats, writer.