Japanese Gamers Getting More Interested In Western Games

[Ariseishirou]

As long as they don't start turning games like Persona and iDOLM@STER into first person shooters, I could care less what's popular and where.
I just want my steady stream of JRPGs to keep coming, I don't want to feel like I wasted all that time learning Japanese just to get Call of Duty: Japanese Warfare.

I have quite a few Japanese friends who are gamers, and when I ask them why they're not all that into CoD and the like, their response is more or less "but I can't fap to that".

Suffice it to say that Call of Duty: Japanese Warfare would be full half-dressed Asian schoolgirls, and since the mere thought of that makes the gorge rise in the back of my - and most of the other FPS players' - throats, I believe this is one of those genres where the twain shall simply never meet.

 

[Ariseishirou]

, I don't want to feel like I wasted all that time learning Japanese just to get Call of Duty: Japanese Warfare.

I dunno, that would probably involve giant mechs so it could be a refreshing turn for the series...

More like 2 hours of shooting noncombatants, women and children, then a cutscene where you get nuked, and then 120 hours of being passive aggressively whiny about it.

You forgot about the quick time event where you bayonet starving POWs, and the countdown mission in which you race against the clock to hand as many grenades as possible to Okinawan civilians, telling them that if they blow themselves up in the middle of some American soldiers they'll finally get to be real Japanese people, before fleeing back to the mainland.

Wherein you get nuked and whine about it for 120 hours, yeah. It's like CoD4's Shock and Awe, only instead of spending the last half of the game hunting down the one that nuked you, you spend it assiduously denying reparations for the tens of thousands of Korean women you kidnapped and raped.

Sounds like fun!

 

[Scrustle]

Hmmm. I would like this to be true but I would say it's a bit of a leap to state that at this point. We will see in the future if this does turn out to be the case.

 

[Something Amyss]

Why is Japanese gamers interest in Western games considered news? What use is that information. Do we care if the French are into Korean games or that British are interested in Spanish games.

Yeah, why DO we care that a major gaming market that has previously been virtually off-limits to the West might now not be?

 

[Something Amyss]

Suffice it to say that Call of Duty: Japanese Warfare would be full half-dressed Asian schoolgirls, and since the mere thought of that makes the gorge rise in the back of my - and most of the other FPS players' - throats, I believe this is one of those genres where the twain shall simply never meet.

Considering the shooter base seems to be 90% fifteen year old boys, I'm not sure they'd really complain about teabagging schoolgirls of questionable age.

 

[Ariseishirou]

Suffice it to say that Call of Duty: Japanese Warfare would be full half-dressed Asian schoolgirls, and since the mere thought of that makes the gorge rise in the back of my - and most of the other FPS players' - throats, I believe this is one of those genres where the twain shall simply never meet.

Considering the shooter base seems to be 90% fifteen year old boys, I'm not sure they'd really complain about teabagging schoolgirls of questionable age.

Eh, I think you'd be surprised. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have an FPS about hot women, but moe nugyuuu wai wai schoogirls with rabbit ears would definitely put me off. I have a shelf full of FPSs from CoD to BFBC to R6:Vegas to Killzone, and there's no fucking way I'd spend money on that. I think you may have underestimated the cultural divide. All pretenses of being a "realistic" military shooter are pissed out the window the moment a sixteen-year-old girl shows up in a bikini, and frankly that's all over the internet if you really want it. You don't have to pay $60 for it. It would kill the military fetishism outright, and that's what really sells these games.

Whereas Japanese men seem to be able to scare up some small remaining suspension of disbelief when a random schoolgirl makes an appearance in every story, no matter how ludicrously inappropriate. I just can't do it, personally. Russians invade the entire world? Sure. Suitcase nuke? Why not. Girl with cat ears? Fuck this, I'm out.

 

[I forgot]

Why is Japanese gamers interest in Western games considered news? What use is that information. Do we care if the French are into Korean games or that British are interested in Spanish games.

Yeah, why DO we care that a major gaming market that has previously been virtually off-limits to the West might now not be?

To a businessman, that would matter. It's not even that which bothers me but the manner in which Sony's idiotic president came to that conclusion. OMG, Uncharted has a lot of pre-orders; Japanese gamer's tastes are changing.

 

[I forgot]

Suffice it to say that Call of Duty: Japanese Warfare would be full half-dressed Asian schoolgirls, and since the mere thought of that makes the gorge rise in the back of my - and most of the other FPS players' - throats, I believe this is one of those genres where the twain shall simply never meet.

Considering the shooter base seems to be 90% fifteen year old boys, I'm not sure they'd really complain about teabagging schoolgirls of questionable age.

Eh, I think you'd be surprised. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have an FPS about hot women, but moe nugyuuu wai wai schoogirls with rabbit ears would definitely put me off. I have a shelf full of FPSs from CoD to BFBC to R6:Vegas to Killzone, and there's no fucking way I'd spend money on that. I think you may have underestimated the cultural divide. All pretenses of being a "realistic" military shooter are pissed out the window the moment a sixteen-year-old girl shows up in a bikini, and frankly that's all over the internet if you really want it. You don't have to pay $60 for it. It would kill the military fetishism outright, and that's what really sells these games.

Whereas Japanese men seem to be able to scare up some small remaining suspension of disbelief when a random schoolgirl makes an appearance in every story, no matter how ludicrously inappropriate. I just can't do it, personally. Russians invade the entire world? Sure. Suitcase nuke? Why not. Girl with cat ears? Fuck this, I'm out.

I don't think that's a matter of culture but what you're exposed to. To kids who grew up watching stuff like Ninja Turltes, Gargoyles, Thundercats, Nickelodeon or Toonami, that wouldn't bother them.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Suffice it to say that Call of Duty: Japanese Warfare would be full half-dressed Asian schoolgirls, and since the mere thought of that makes the gorge rise in the back of my - and most of the other FPS players' - throats, I believe this is one of those genres where the twain shall simply never meet.

Considering the shooter base seems to be 90% fifteen year old boys, I'm not sure they'd really complain about teabagging schoolgirls of questionable age.

Eh, I think you'd be surprised. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have an FPS about hot women, but moe nugyuuu wai wai schoogirls with rabbit ears would definitely put me off. I have a shelf full of FPSs from CoD to BFBC to R6:Vegas to Killzone, and there's no fucking way I'd spend money on that. I think you may have underestimated the cultural divide. All pretenses of being a "realistic" military shooter are pissed out the window the moment a sixteen-year-old girl shows up in a bikini, and frankly that's all over the internet if you really want it. You don't have to pay $60 for it. It would kill the military fetishism outright, and that's what really sells these games.

Whereas Japanese men seem to be able to scare up some small remaining suspension of disbelief when a random schoolgirl makes an appearance in every story, no matter how ludicrously inappropriate. I just can't do it, personally. Russians invade the entire world? Sure. Suitcase nuke? Why not. Girl with cat ears? Fuck this, I'm out.

You do realize that now I am going to have to write a story that is basically "CoD, but with Japanese school girls" now. I hope that you understand what you have done and will from now on remember that there are crazy people on these forums who don't need drugs to come up with some pretty crazy shit, they just need other posters to complain about ideas they think are crazy.

P.S.- This is my way of thanking you for a hilarious idea. Thank you.

 

[LilithSlave]

Ack, as long as first person shooters don't become even more popular than they already are.

As much as it gets me flamed on the internet, I feel much like the typical Japanese person about a lot of video games. I like Japanese games and I like Japanese styles of gameplay, and most of all I like Japanese styles of aesthetics. I don't like playing as big hulking dudes.

I'd much rather play as a girl, and I'd much rather play as a cute one than a sexy one. Like others have stated here, both the East and West sexualize women in games. But to me it seems like women in Western games are more often portrayed as sexy while the girls are more often portrayed as cute. I've also noticed that when I say that around here someone pops out to say "those Japanese sexualize women more" and if I disagree someone will pop out to say I'm stereotyping instead of both of us or the other person. Double standards much? Maybe I wouldn't be so used to "stereotyping" western games if I wasn't always in conversations that stereotype Japanese games negatively.

Anyway, I miss the days when people were still enthusiastic about Japanese games. I think largely this is because Japanese developers care less about graphics than Western ones. And they've dropped behind the graphics in comparison to the West. Which apparently, people seem to somehow care about. While I don't condone being against a game just because of where it comes from, I definitely share a little bit of their bias. On the positive, maybe this will lead to a merging of worlds a little bit. On the negative, it might just end in the suppression of Japanese tropes and tendencies in video games.

There's already been a tendency to edit out Asian aesthetics in cover art when brings games over to the West, now with Japanese sales going down and Western sales going up, I fear that change will be one sided, and Japanese styles of gameplay, story, aesthetics, music, and so forth, will start to phase out. I really don't want to see that happen.

 

[Zenn3k]

Can you blame them?

Compare Skyrim to FF13. Nuff Said.

 

[Something Amyss]

To a businessman, that would matter.

And only to a businessman. ever.

I get the "larger point" you're trying to make, which I still think is inane. You don't get to trends without a starting point, and this sort of shift really IS worth a look. Of course, this is a deviation from your previous "why should they care?" argument, which was the REALLY funny one, but I'll let you drop that like you didn't say it if you really want. The fact is, when you're looking at an incredibly xenophobic culture who is a large trendsetter in terms of gaming, something like this actually is kinda "OMG."

Actually, that conveniently addresses both your original point and your revised one.

 

[I forgot]

To a businessman, that would matter.

And only to a businessman. ever.

I get the "larger point" you're trying to make, which I still think is inane. You don't get to trends without a starting point, and this sort of shift really IS worth a look. Of course, this is a deviation from your previous "why should they care?" argument, which was the REALLY funny one, but I'll let you drop that like you didn't say it if you really want. The fact is, when you're looking at an incredibly xenophobic culture who is a large trendsetter in terms of gaming, something like this actually is kinda "OMG."

Actually, that conveniently addresses both your original point and your revised one.

If you say it only matters to a businessman then how was that argument the "REALLY funny one" (I'm not trying to be smart, I'm using your exact words). Also, please lose the tone. Saying shit like "I'll let you drop that like you didn't say it if you really want" just makes you look bad and ruins discussion.
Could you also clarify what my "larger point" is and why it's inane.

"The fact is, when you're looking at an incredibly xenophobic culture who is a large trendsetter in terms of gaming, something like this actually is kinda "OMG.""
This is neither a fact nor do I agree with it's premise or conclusion. Like I said in my first post, the more interesting question to me is why don't they buy more western games. I already made my assumption but I acknowledge that it is only an assumption.