EstrogenicMuscle said:
It is almost as if some people in the Western game industry like Yahtzee have done so much shaming to the jRPG genre than many Japanese companies don't want to localize them because it is a "loss of face" for them that the games even exist.
As if they want to sweep the genre quietly under the rug.
It is the only explanation I can form for this ridiculous behavior.
I won't pretend to understand their aversion; honestly, I only have guesses.
Which becomes even more baffling when one considers that a decade ago, the Japanese publishers practically OWNED the mainstream gaming market.
While I've seen a lot of overt dismissal of jrpgs on the net in recent years, I am unsure if this is a sign of mass-rejection or loud minority dissent. Could be either, at different times.
Maybe when western games exploded in popularity, they showed up more traditional Japanese games and shaped the new gamers entering the market (and from 2006 - 2010, we saw a huge surge in the overall size of the gaming market). Eastern culture (especially Japanese) was something of a fad in the late 90s and early 2000s, which may have been driving demand. Now, it's...not.
But even amidst all that, I don't understand why Japan just sort of started retreating back into their own market starting around 2008 (my very rough estimate). Most of these games, while niche, are just waiting on localization which didn't stop publishing efforts in the previous generation.
Outside of inflation, why would localization costs rise to the point where it becomes unsustainable in such a short time?
It can't cost that much to translate: freaking FANS are translating these games for free.
With the advent of digital download, the cost of distribution is lower than ever (no used market, no threat of overproduction since demand will self-regulate distribution). I imagine Fire Emblem: Awakening surprised Nintendo earlier this year with its sales.
They announced that in the last Nintendo direct.
