Hideo Kojima Complains About Japanese Game Development Again

[Mulboyne]

[floatl][/floatl]The Escapist: Kojima - "Maybe I Should Quit Being Japanese"
Metal Gear Solid mastermind Hideo Kojima is addicted to everyone's favorite co-op zombie shooter, Left 4 Dead, which makes him all the more bitter about the state of game development in his home country. Speaking to Famitsu, Kojima expressed his envy of the Western side of the games industry. "The US and European marketplace are far better balanced," he said. "There are games everyone can play...but there's also a deep base of core titles made with movie-industry people that explore the depths of hi-def. I'm addicted to Left 4 Dead right now, but people say to me that that game would never work in Japan." You'd think that a guy could just enjoy the game, but the idea that something like Left 4 Dead could never come out of Japan just seems to make Kojima more than a little peeved about the state of Japanese game development. "Maybe I should quit being Japanese," he said. "And speaking of which, there were hardly any Japanese games nominated in Spike TV's Video Game Awards this year. It's sad to see that Japan's games failed to even register in America last year"...more...

More Kojima on FG here.. Also, Japanmanship has a good series of seven posts which look at the problems of the Japanese video game developers from an insider's perspective. First entry here, last one here.

[Kuang_Grade]

While Kojima seems to enjoy moping about the industry more than other creators, its worth pointing out that left 4 dead was done by Valve, and they are pretty much from another another planet as developers are concerned...while clearly one can say they have fair number of similarities with other US developers (they are in the US, the likely speak mostly english in the office, they tend to make things with a first person point of view, usually with guns as well as multiplayer in mind as well) I don't think one can not say that most US developers have alot of similaralites with Valve (different management strucutures, sufficent security to not have to worry excessively about expectations on the timely return on investments, any attempt to predict an actual ship date beyond some vague multi-year time frame.) Typically, their PR is something along the lines of 'we are working on something, we'll let you know more about it sometime next year....maybe......and oh, by the way, the PS3 sucks balls to develop for'

And I wouldn't hold up the Spike awards up as any hallmark of quality worth worring about....The ratings on this year's show were way, way down and I suspect there is far more voting integrity in Russian elections than in the spike awards.

[Midwinter]

While Kojima seems to enjoy moping about the industry more than other creators, its worth pointing out that left 4 dead was done by Valve, and they are pretty much from another another planet as developers are concerned...while clearly one can say they have fair number of similarities with other US developers (they are in the US, the likely speak mostly english in the office, they tend to make things with a first person point of view, usually with guns as well as multiplayer in mind as well) I don't think one can not say that most US developers have alot of similaralites with Valve (different management strucutures, sufficent security to not have to worry excessively about expectations on the timely return on investments, any attempt to predict an actual ship date beyond some vague multi-year time frame.) Typically, their PR is something along the lines of 'we are working on something, we'll let you know more about it sometime next year....maybe......and oh, by the way, the PS3 sucks balls to develop for'

And I wouldn't hold up the Spike awards up as any hallmark of quality worth worring about....The ratings on this year's show were way, way down and I suspect there is far more voting integrity in Russian elections than in the spike awards.

So how many Japanese games did you honestly play last year? I could count everyting I played on two hands, the majority of which were sequels to stuff already a few years old. Japanese game development has fallen behind the curve - that is cold hard fact. In its defence however, it seems that the focus has shifted away from the hardcore experience to more casual entertainment ala the DS and the Wii. Now whether this is because they can't keep up with the West, can't afford rising development costs, or have continued problems retrieving their heads from the collective arses is anyone's guess.

Here's another Japanese person that loves Western games. This one's considerably better looking than Hideo Kojima as well

http://kotaku.com/5131652/this-japanese-adult-video-game-actress-knows-her-western-games

[ac!d_burn]

I wish we could have real JRPGs with turn-based combat back - and something on par with Chrono Trigger or FFVII. Thanks to Fate Unlimited Codes, Melty Blood, and Street Fighter IV I'm mercifully good on the 2D vs fighting, though.

[Kuang_Grade]

Well, I'm in the same 'count the number of J developed games I've bought in the last year on two hands boat as well", although I'll admit that I haven't actually gotten around to playing some of them like Persona 4 or Yakuza 2 as of yet (fallout 3 has been the greatest time sink I've ever encountered...I've played through it twice so far at the total investment of 180 hours). But that said, its not like Capcom hasn't had some success 360 with Dead Rising or Lost Planet, nor did the US developed Silent Hill homecoming break the bank when compared to previous J developed Silent Hill games. And who would have predicted that Ikugra would find any buyers on Xbox live or that old classics like 1942, bomberman and Megaman would be the top 20 xbox live arcades sales in for 2008. Now I'm not saying its all sunshine and rainbows, and given that now the J market is now the smallest segment in each of the major hardware platforms sales (PS3, 360, Wii, DS, PSP), it shouldn't be shocking that other developers in both US and EU are now taking a bigger piece of the pie when compared to previous generations when the J domestic market was more significant....and given the costs of development outside of DS and wii games, I don't think there will be tons of J developed blockbusters on the PS3 or 360....but there will be SOME, even if they are squeals or long running series (which isn't that uncommon for the industry as whole...new IPs are pretty far and few in between in the west nowadays as well).

Anyway, my personal feeling is that the nationality aspect of gaming is starting to fade significantly in the face of growing nicheing of the marketplace. No more heroes on the wii did better in the west than it did in Japan but I don't think that game would have ever gotten out the door in the west. Hell, Okami, a stylistic game based on Japanese myths did far better in the west where the audience was completely oblivious to the underlying back story than it did in Japan where people may have been aware of the symbolism in the game.

Basically, I think the J game market for the west will become more quirky/niche and less blockbuster based, but thanks to the advent of digital distribution on xbox live, wiiware, and the PSN, J developers can actually think about this because the need to get past the gatekeepers at best buy or wal-mart is becoming far less important than it has in the past. Personally, I think something as J crazed as Idolm@ster could sell successfully on XBLA if it was stripped down a bit to a good price point (say $10) with additional charges for more singers, stages, ect. As it is, in the US, Namco is already offering Idolm@ster themed paint jobs for various fighter aircraft in the game Ace Combat 6 via purchased downloads. I doubt they are banking huge sums in the US, but its an example of something they developed for the J market that was ported over to the US market at likely no additional development or distribution costs for Namco
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While this is a specialized case, and other games/products would require some sort of localization/translation effort, those costs are not necessarily insurmountable if the incremental distribution expenses are minimal.