The decline of Japanese games and culture: Need help with a term paper!

[Yvl9921]

I'm a Game Design major and I feel like half the stuff I learned at college I could have learned for free watching Extra Credits. They're about as well informed in the field as you can get. Yes, they do make factual mistakes, but their general theories and points are always spot on.

OT: Also you really chose a bad topic for your paper. You are just speculating here. Check out Catherine, Zettai Hero Project, the Disgaea series, Persona games, the Tales of games, the Ys series. There are so many games coming out of Japan that no one even notices people say it's dead because of some of Square Enix's and Capcom's games. Atlus and NIS America have plenty of good games out (and some bad ones don't get me wrong) and XSEED brings over plenty of great games as well like the Ys series previously mentioned and The Legend of Heroes game. Speaking of XSEED they also brought over Half-Minute Hero one of my favorite RPGs out right now. Yes Keiji Inaune has talked about the Japanese industry before and has had a lot of bad things to say but it sounded like he was speaking about Capcom alone who have proven themselves to be colossal idiots recently. Honestly the people who say Japanese games are bad just don't even bother looking around.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe that any of the games you mentioned sold more than 1 million (which is an arbitrary and convenient number I'm using to make a point). Catherine was somewhere just shy of half that, iirc. I'm a huge fan of Persona but I don't recall hearing that did any better. Dark Souls and FF13 are the only ones in recent memory that exceeded 1 million sales (again, I could be wrong, as I'm still lacking in factual sources.) Meanwhile you've got 10 million people who've played Skyrim, 10 million still playing World of Warcraft, and at least 2 million people with each Bioware release (usually much more.)

Just to re-emphasize something here: I'm looking for facts, data, interview excerpts, seminars, and the like. Is Disgaea 4 a good game? Most people who played it will say yes. But in reality, that doesn't mean a thing when you're talking about where the industry is at and where it's heading, because it wasn't commercially successful enough to send waves through the industry.

 

[Yvl9921]

I've seen the Extra Credits episodes, and am trying my damnedest to pass them off as "scholarly sources." Though that does give me an idea of one approach I can take to this, either way (focusing on RPGs instead of games in general).

It's a long shot and I don't know when your paper is due, but if you e-mail one of them, they might reply. They're pretty good at answering e-mails and helping people like you.
if not, and now that I think about it, you MIGHT be able to e-mail one of the editors here at the Escapist. They're journalists and reliable sources and I know for a fact they're pretty good at replying e-mails.

Again, they're both long shots but I'd give it a try anyway.

I have quite a while to do the paper itself, but there are other deadlines to meet. I'd been considering mailing Extra Credits but didn't expect an actual response, however it may just be worth a try to ask them for help finding sources.

As for the Escapist, I'm not entirely sure that much of the staff has much experience with games from the scholarly side of things. They're reporters and entertainers, and usually little more than that (at least since the site re-design).

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[80Maxwell08]

I'm a Game Design major and I feel like half the stuff I learned at college I could have learned for free watching Extra Credits. They're about as well informed in the field as you can get. Yes, they do make factual mistakes, but their general theories and points are always spot on.

OT: Also you really chose a bad topic for your paper. You are just speculating here. Check out Catherine, Zettai Hero Project, the Disgaea series, Persona games, the Tales of games, the Ys series. There are so many games coming out of Japan that no one even notices people say it's dead because of some of Square Enix's and Capcom's games. Atlus and NIS America have plenty of good games out (and some bad ones don't get me wrong) and XSEED brings over plenty of great games as well like the Ys series previously mentioned and The Legend of Heroes game. Speaking of XSEED they also brought over Half-Minute Hero one of my favorite RPGs out right now. Yes Keiji Inaune has talked about the Japanese industry before and has had a lot of bad things to say but it sounded like he was speaking about Capcom alone who have proven themselves to be colossal idiots recently. Honestly the people who say Japanese games are bad just don't even bother looking around.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe that any of the games you mentioned sold more than 1 million (which is an arbitrary and convenient number I'm using to make a point). Catherine was somewhere just shy of half that, iirc. I'm a huge fan of Persona but I don't recall hearing that did any better. Dark Souls and FF13 are the only ones in recent memory that exceeded 1 million sales (again, I could be wrong, as I'm still lacking in factual sources.) Meanwhile you've got 10 million people who've played Skyrim, 10 million still playing World of Warcraft, and at least 2 million people with each Bioware release (usually much more.)

Just to re-emphasize something here: I'm looking for facts, data, interview excerpts, seminars, and the like. Is Disgaea 4 a good game? Most people who played it will say yes. But in reality, that doesn't mean a thing when you're talking about where the industry is at and where it's heading, because it wasn't commercially successful enough to send waves through the industry.

So you say there has been a decline in quality because they haven't sold as well. What? Also you point out a game that had an absurd amount of marketing, a game that has been running for over 7 years and Bioware who have EA's entire marketing team behind them. Sales don't equal quality.

 

[justnotcricket]

So I'm taking a communications class and I needed to do a term paper on the topic of some form of media (10 pages) and I decided to do it on what appears to be the creative bankruptcy of Japan, and what's causing it. I'm focusing specifically on games, and my professor assured me there would be tons of material on this subject, and I've been finding fuck all at my school's library.

Does anyone know any "scholarly" sources that discuss this matter, or some good ideas where I can start? I know this is a huge deal, but I doubt my professor will take kindly to me using Extra Credits or Jimquisition as a real source.

Specifically, I'm trying to figure out why all their media has seemed to plummet in quality (to American eyes) over the last 10 years.

Your thoughts and opinions on the issue at hand are welcome, too.

If you really want to be 'secure' about this, you're going to have to focus on sales figures and statements from actual analysts, which as others have pointed out may be difficut to find in English. Additionally, even if you are looking at sales figures (nice hard numbers) how do you know that, say, a small number of sales represents a 'creatively bankrupt' game? Furthermore, if you're comparing game sales (for a given game) in Japan vs the West, how does that actually tell you anything about the presence or lack of creativity? How are you defining creativity to define a lack of it? If a game sold badly in the West but well in Japan, what does that actually say about the creativity involved? What about the games that never make it to the West? I think your topic might be a bit wooly around the edges - not quite scholarly itself.

I'd agree that if you can prove (somehow) that there is an actual widespread impression in America that Japanese games have declined in creative quality over the last X years (probably only achievable by creating a natonwide online survey yourself and processing all that information), and perhaps gain some data on why people think this is so, then you could begin to usefully consider what causes this may have had. That would make an interesting study of the psychology of media.

The other problem you're dealing with is that If you're looking at a considerable time range (which you would need to do in order to consider a representative sample of data), then you have to take into account (as others have pointed out) the changing access people in the West have to Japanese Games, the rise of western gaming (arguably a late-starter compared with Japan), and to what extent the changing age and culture of the typical gaming demographic has to do with it.

In my experience there's a very vocal population who are wearing some incredubly rose-tinted nostalgia glasses, and won't think anything good has come out of Japan because they fell in love in the SNES era and are stuck there as far as Japanese games are concerned. It's a bit like writing a paper on the PC vs console debate - you can get as many sales data as you like, but ultimately you're wading into a mire of speculation, personal opinion and hearsay.

All of these things are much more interesting from the point of view of consumer/cultural psychology than they are from the hard sales data point of view...if you can lean your paper in that direction within the stated topic, you might find it easier to find scholarly data on consumer psychology, the nostagia effect and so on, and then apply that to the games industry, and Japanese games in the Western opinion of them in particular.

Otherwise, I'm afraid you're in very un-scholarly waters...

Hope this helps!

 

[Tanakh]

So I'm taking a communications class and I needed to do a term paper on the topic of some form of media (10 pages) and I decided to do it on what appears to be the creative bankruptcy of Japan, and what's causing it.

Shouldn't you first prove that there is a creative bankruptcy of Japan? I am not that familiar with social siences; but assuming something and then trying to find it source before even knowing if it's true sounds... chessy.

Now, if they allow you to make an essay only based in your subjective opinion, go ahead mate.

For what is worth, if you are willing to bend the statistics a little bit, it should be easy to prove that the Japanese Developer's share of the videogame market has dropped, and that the percentage of "cultural hits" and "best selling games" in videogames produced by Japan is also lower. That doesnt' mean at all what you are saying, but with some sleight of hand you could talk people into it.

 

[josemlopes]

I think there's no issue at all. Japanese games are ones of quality. They aren't bankrupt for ideas, because the most creative games come from Japan. All of my favorite Wii games and the majority of my gaming library is all Japanese. Madworld is Japanese, Sengoku Basara is Japanese, Viewtiful Joe is Japanese, Jump Ultimate Stars is Japanese to the max, and they all have nothing else like them.
Japan is sure as hell doing a better job at making games than America is. What truly great American games do I have? Black Ops and Modern Warfare 3?... Okay. Debatably House of the Dead Overkill, MAYBE (American devs, Japanese property), maybe the Lego games, Conduit 2, aaaaand that's it. The rest is all Japanese, like Resident Evil, Kingdom Hearts, and licensed shonen fighters (yes, Japan even makes licensed games better than America does.).

If the "best" "american" games that you have are Call of Duty games then you are not the best person to discuss what side is doing better. Its like me saying that I have a shitload of good "western" games (that is the correct term) and then say that since I only have FFXIII Japan doesnt have anything better to offer.

There are a lot of good games on both sides and there are a lot of terrible ones too.

Are you saying there are some western Wii games you can recommend me?

The Wii isnt exactly the console where the west works most, but try:

Rayman Origins
GoldenEye 007
Dead Space Extraction
Red Steel 2
Bully: Scholarship Edition

Rayman is very good, and the others are will be enjoyable if you like the genre. Bully is fun, it's basicly GTA in a school.

 

[krazykidd]

Uh oh , you paper is going to be based soley on opinion . Actually i would argue that Jrpgs are more creative than Wrpgs . Can you name a wrpg nor set in a , medievil setting , or a post -apocalyptic setting, and most them stick to the, human/elf/dwarf set up , with the mage/warrior/theif/archer set up . Where as jrpgs have the most creative and bizzar settings, with bizzar and original plots,both being in past , modern day and future . I will admit that jrpgs suffer hevily from cliches , but wrpgs have cliches of their own .Jrpgs try a lot more new things than wrpgs . They are not in a creative bankruptcy at all .

EDIT: just realised the thread was about japanese games in general and not just jrpgs. I still stand by my statement though

 

[wooty]

The only advice I can give on research is to actually go there, its extreme but its true.

There are a tonne of games over there that will never see the light of day in the west, tonnes of anime that will more than likely never get published in the west and their culture is still as strong and vibrant as ever regardless of what you read on the internet.

The quality and uniqueness of the Japanese isnt declining at all. The willingness of the west to pay money to import or advertise these products is the problem for me.

I saw so many things over there that I would be more than happy to fling money at in order to play or watch, but I know ill never be able to play them here. So its back to waiting for the annual call of duty arguments for me.

 

[AyaReiko]

As for "scholarly sources" you're probably SOL. Especially if you don't know how to read Japanese.

As for info; I can probably dig up a few links. Maybe their info can point you towards areas you want.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/114/1144363p1.html
http://kotaku.com/5810630/japans-video-game-decline-is-humiliating
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-03-19-kojima-japanese-games-behind-in-technology-gameplay-and-world-view

Ignore some of the weeaboos that decided to show up here. The Japanese gaming scene is in rough shape. They used to nearly half of the market a little over a decade ago. Now they struggle to hold onto a tenth of the market, and a fifth of that is Nintendo's alone.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

Find someone who reads Famitsu magazine for a japanese perspective. Shmupssystem11 and I guess other site with heavy japan import fanbases read that sort of thing.

 

[Yvl9921]

As for "scholarly sources" you're probably SOL. Especially if you don't know how to read Japanese.

As for info; I can probably dig up a few links. Maybe their info can point you towards areas you want.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/114/1144363p1.html
http://kotaku.com/5810630/japans-video-game-decline-is-humiliating
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-03-19-kojima-japanese-games-behind-in-technology-gameplay-and-world-view

Ignore some of the weeaboos that decided to show up here. The Japanese gaming scene is in rough shape. They used to nearly half of the market a little over a decade ago. Now they struggle to hold onto a tenth of the market, and a fifth of that is Nintendo's alone.

This is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.

 

[SnakeoilSage]

Three words my friend: Japanese Love Pillows. If you're not only able, but expected to have sex with everything in sight, there isn't a lot of incentive to do much else. It's why their birth-rates have plummeted; the quick fix is cheaper than the long-term investment. Who wants a wife and kids to support when you can clean out a little silicon hole in your bathroom sink? Why go out for steak when the cat's neighbor's in heat?

Less vulgarly, you could look into the mindset of Japanese gamers and developers. They look for the quickest fix, the easiest approach. Yeah, their games can be aesthetically beautiful, but they've never been very deep or complex, no matter what some people insist. Look at the bulk of Final Fantasy titles: small group of rebels fight an evil empire. To add a few extra hours of game-play, throw in the not-so-unexpected twist of someone gaining superpowers and deciding to just wipe everything out. Extra credit if that superpowered bad guy's rationale for hurting and killing everyone is because people hurt and kill each other.

Another detail is the effect the A-Bombings had on their cultural psyche. Two of their cities have gone through the apocalyptic events we Westerners only pretend to know jack shit about, and that has created a very real feeling of nihilism and fatalism in their art. Consider how many games, movies, comics, etc. deal with such themes and apocalyptic events, like Godzilla. The example I gave above of the genocidal bad guy is one of them.

Maybe it's because we're callous, but western audience aren't as responsive to that mentality. For one, we never lived through that kind of event. Think about western cultural tropes - the victories of WWII, the standoffs of the Cold War, the personal horror felt at 9/11. Westerners firmly believe in standing our ground and digging in our heels, to the point that even our political parties are standoffish and stubborn. We have yet to be hit by a knock-out-blow, so to speak, and so we can't know what it's like to get one.

 

[Chemical Alia]

Then why do Japanese games still kick ass?

Ugh, speak for yourself. Japan could completely stop production of games that don't have the word "Mario" in the title and I wouldn't even notice.

On topic, though, I don't know of any specific studies. I read an article some time ago that described the decline of the anime industry in Japan and some reasons for it, maybe there are some parallel issues like catering increasingly to niche markets.

http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/play/decade-anime-682165

 

[kyogen]

So I'm taking a communications class and I needed to do a term paper on the topic of some form of media (10 pages) and I decided to do it on what appears to be the creative bankruptcy of Japan, and what's causing it.
...
Specifically, I'm trying to figure out why all their media has seemed to plummet in quality (to American eyes) over the last 10 years.

You've set yourself up badly by assuming that Japan is truly creatively bankrupt. You said you can't change your topic, but you'll have to be careful about how you word your thesis statement. Localization isn't cheap, either, so Americans have a skewed perspective on what Japan actually produces--a lot of schlock and some real gems, like any other country's media output.

Scholarly sources?
Get on a big journal database like the MLA International Bibliography or Academic Search Complete and run some keyword searches. Here's a list of some major games scholarship journals:

Google sales figures if you want to, but be careful about letting overwrought journalists preach doom and gloom at you.

Books:
Unit Operations or Persuasive Games by Ian Bogost, a PhD in comp lit now working as a professor at Georgia Tech.

Homo Ludens by Dutch historian Johan Huizinga is a great historical/anthropological consideration of what people are doing when they play games. He argues that game-playing is the foundation of human civilization.

Computers as Theatre by Brenda Laurel. It's relevant when you consider how much Japanese games and anime owe to Kabuki and Noh.

Gamer Theory by McKenzie Wark.

*Check out Kat Bailey's work on Japanese rpgs and Japan-centric gaming at Joystiq or some of her archival stuff at 1Up. See also: Active Time Babble and Roleplayer's Realm podcasts.

**There's also The Out-Cast podcast <theoutcastpodcast.blogspot.com> Three expats (two American, one Australian) living in Japan and working with/in the Japanese games industry share some of their perspectives. There are several early episodes (2010) that cover what you're interested in: Episodes 4 and 6 in particular.

 

[Manji187]

Well... the "screw-up" trinity of Squeenix (especially considering FF XIV), Capcom (considering the numerous SF4 and MvC3 editions) and Konami (apparently a relatively recent addition) is a start.

I bet their current business practices are the result of a business climate of financial risk and instability. Maybe economic sources would help?

Did that seaquake/ tsunami/ nuclear reactor incident not have an impact as well?