Post by leunas on Sept 26, 2006 14:52:19 GMT -5
Japanese game developers are insane - and I mean that with the utmost respect.
Trusty Bell: Chopin’s Dream (which will be called Eternal Sonata in the west) is an RPG about the dying dream of French composer Frédéric Chopin.
Yeah, I can just imagine pitching that concept to our board of directors.
In Japan, it’s perfectly okay for games to be weird, wacky, and just plain fun. I keep bringing up Katamari Damacy, but it’s a great example of the sort of game that just wouldn’t (and probably couldn’t) get made in Europe or the U.S., at least not by a big publisher. Independent developers do push the boundaries, but rarely (if ever) do these smaller games reach a bigger audience. In Japan, however, big publishers support potentially niche titles, bringing weird & wacky to an eager - and hungry - audience. In Japan, players are still willing to take a risk with something new and different. In the West, we’re stuck with a top ten list that never changes.
It’s easy to blame this lack of imagination on publishers, but the fact is that the audience on our half of Mother Earth is more conservative. Sequels, franchises, sports games, racing games, realistic shooters - these are the things that make the charts in the West. Very few original games break out and become hits, and whey they do - which is depressingly rare - more often than not they’re Japanese.
So thank God for insane Japanese game developers. Without them, the world would be a poorer place, our industry would be a lot less exciting, and, most importantly, dead European composers wouldn’t have their dreams turned into video games.
ragnartornquist.com/?p=209
Trusty Bell: Chopin’s Dream (which will be called Eternal Sonata in the west) is an RPG about the dying dream of French composer Frédéric Chopin.
Yeah, I can just imagine pitching that concept to our board of directors.
In Japan, it’s perfectly okay for games to be weird, wacky, and just plain fun. I keep bringing up Katamari Damacy, but it’s a great example of the sort of game that just wouldn’t (and probably couldn’t) get made in Europe or the U.S., at least not by a big publisher. Independent developers do push the boundaries, but rarely (if ever) do these smaller games reach a bigger audience. In Japan, however, big publishers support potentially niche titles, bringing weird & wacky to an eager - and hungry - audience. In Japan, players are still willing to take a risk with something new and different. In the West, we’re stuck with a top ten list that never changes.
It’s easy to blame this lack of imagination on publishers, but the fact is that the audience on our half of Mother Earth is more conservative. Sequels, franchises, sports games, racing games, realistic shooters - these are the things that make the charts in the West. Very few original games break out and become hits, and whey they do - which is depressingly rare - more often than not they’re Japanese.
So thank God for insane Japanese game developers. Without them, the world would be a poorer place, our industry would be a lot less exciting, and, most importantly, dead European composers wouldn’t have their dreams turned into video games.
ragnartornquist.com/?p=209