What is going on in japanese gaming?

oliverclaude said:

I heard that in China... Japanese get a pretty bad rap just for being Japanese, but that's a thread for another day.

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You want to make that thread and ask me anything you want, go for it.

SteveNK said:

How have they managed to sell that shit to such a knowledgeable gaming scene?

Barely games, barely playable.

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You forget (or maybe you didn't know) how popular mobile phones were in SEA/Japan for a very long time. It could even go back to the phone card boom of the late 90s. Think about Japan for a moment. You know how trains are still popular in their media, with video games and cartoons and toys of trains, where here in the US (not sure about UK) trains are an afterthought. Trains are popular in Japan because that is still the number one form of transportation over there. Look at some Norton graphs:
https://www.japan-guide.com/topic/0011.html

Is it some coincidence that Japan has a huge mobile phone industry as well as a large percentage of their workforce and school commuters sit on trains for at least an hour a day? I doubt it. And once you start talking about a device that everyone has (not everyone has a console) then I would guess the same demographic as people playing mobile games in the US, it isn't just gamers. What is the percentage of gamers vs casuals playing mobile games in Japan? Who knows, but we know it makes a butt-ton of money and big ticket (corporate/sponsored) mobile games come out constantly over there.

LoneSage said:

You want to make that thread and ask me anything you want, go for it.

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Straightforward questions could violate this intimate balance of your usual replies. The kind where blind hopelessness meets blind hopefulness. C'mon, Sage... I'm not that rude.

Taiso said:

Online gaming became a big deal.

The market moved towards FPS and then streaming FPS.

A lot of smart people learned how to make money from playing video games while others watched.

The industry learned how to benefit from all this free advertising.

The hobby went normie.

Not 'Nintendo family-corporate' normie, but 'dudebro' normie.

The Japanese industry has always had a vastly more nuanced and thematic approach to game design. One that dudebro normies don't really respect or appreciate. To them, the subtle context of a quest in Yakuza or Persona is completely lost on them because they can't kill the NPCs mid sentence.

Some single player games that were marketed extremely well found purchase. The Witcher 3 and especially Skyrim.

Gaming culture has evolved into metatextual comedy. japanese games can't get much love except from the niche audience.

I still love Japanese games, though.

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This is weaboo nonsense.

probably has something to do with churning out the same style JRPG's for like 30 years now, and using the exact same art style for 98% of games.

I'm so bored of JRPG's. Very rarely does one catch my attention.

Let's also not forget cell phone games. Most kids these days would rather play a pay to win pile of garbage than anything with tight controls that require skill, or character development.

You've seen FFXV right? what the hell is going on in that franchise to produce that shit. I haven't played a FF since X and I've never finished any of them but christ that game looks like complete shit.

Japanese homes are typically still on a one console per household trend. They care about console retention when they buy. It is why the PS2 lasted so long out there even during the PS3/360/Wii generation. Same for the DS/3DS market on handhelds.

They aren't super crazy into the "latest tech console" like the US.

mr_b said:

Have you seen their pachinko obsession? The mobile craze makes all the sense to me. Flashy crazy lights and sounds no substance just like pachinko.

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Pachinko is truly the one way to bypass gambling laws, why its always been popular for all ages. That and crane / UFO catchers.

lachlan said:

You've seen FFXV right? what the hell is going on in that franchise to produce that shit. I haven't played a FF since X and I've never finished any of them but christ that game looks like complete shit.

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While I agree, it was still highly successful even with its garbage hacked up story. Square Enix, regardless of old Square Soft fanboys obsessed with the old RPGs, has successfully adapted to survive. Taito division regardless of Arcade downsizing has profited. Both MMO teams, regardless of the failure in the original FF14, have carried the company through its horrible "Crystal Tools Era". Plus it has a strong mobile division and high demand sales on physical products and toys. There is simply no denying this from a profit and adaption to modern gaming.