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This Week in Games - If 'JRPG' is a Dirty Word, It's America's Fault

First of all, I would not say the West turned up it's nose at the DS. 3DS maybe, but that was a worldwide issue. Second, I would say handhelds and handhelds alone hard carrying Japanese companies through that generation was a clear example of the issue. Especially considering this was industry-wide

「日本は外国のゲームに寛容であったことがない」と、東京の大手ゲーム・パブリッシャーで働くグウェン・キャンベルは話す。同氏は、他の外国人たちと、ゲームに関するポッドキャストのホストも務めている。「『洋ゲー』という用語は、伝統的に侮辱の言葉で、『質が低い』ことを意味している」

Rough translation: "Japan has never been tolerant of foreign games," says Gwen Campbell, who works for a major game publisher in Tokyo. He also hosts a podcast about gaming with other foreigners. "The term 'Western game' is traditionally an insult and means 'low quality.'"

As Japanese gamers lost interest in console games, production dipped. At the same time, market forces prompted western PC heavy hitting developers to change their focus to consoles. Suddenly the console market was dominated by the west, and Japanese audiences have never liked western games. There's an old Japanese gaming proverb, yo-ge kuso-ge: literally, "western games are shit."

Gaming Xenophobia

The state of affairs slowly changed, but Japanese perceptions of western games hasn't. While there's a small group of hardcore gamers who import the latest titles from America, and designers like Suda 51 have acted as champions of foreign games, there are still many gamers and members of the industry who still cling to their old beliefs. One designer at a high-profile JRPG maker told us of the time he brought Bioshock into the office. While the younger members of the company were impressed, a high-ranking and well known producer played the game for thirty seconds, declared, "This game feels cheap," dropped the controller on the desk and walk away without another word.

Quote:

One designer at a high-profile JRPG maker told us of the time he brought Bioshock into the office. While the younger members of the company were impressed, a high-ranking and well known producer played the game for thirty seconds, declared, "This game feels cheap," dropped the controller on the desk and walk away without another word.

enurtsol wrote:

Quote: One designer at a high-profile JRPG maker told us of the time he brought Bioshock into the office. While the younger members of the company were impressed, a high-ranking and well known producer played the game for thirty seconds, declared, "This game feels cheap," dropped the controller on the desk and walk away without another word.

I mean... So? I live in the west and I hate the "triple A gaming" genre too, though it's more like AAA games are "too expensive" rather than "too cheap". They are the James Cameron's Avatar of games. Ugly colour pallettes, obsession with frame rates and photorealism, no understand of basic principals of animation like "visual appeal". If I'm going to play a game, I want something with a visually appealing, nostalgic or charmingly minimalist art style. I'd rather play club penguin than the doom reboot.

I would also like to take this time to state that in my experience, the one single word in gaming literacy that from day one was absolutely 200% derogatory in every sense.... was mobile.

It honestly makes a lot of Adam Sessler's later statements really suspect, and sort of explains why so many game players...don't like game journalists.

This can assuredly be a situation where both are accurate. Japanese developers had issues focusing on consoles in the 360/PS3 generation which weren't fully righted until the PS4/One generation, and X-Play was full of racist, xenophobic, passive-aggressive garbage like when they reviewed an Eyeshield 21 game (that they didn't know how to play so they said it sucked, it's really just an arcade footballer in the vein of Tecmo Bowl)

obsession with frame rates

I'd rather play club penguin than the doom reboot.

enurtsol wrote:

Quote: One designer at a high-profile JRPG maker told us of the time he brought Bioshock into the office. While the younger members of the company were impressed, a high-ranking and well known producer played the game for thirty seconds, declared, "This game feels cheap," dropped the controller on the desk and walk away without another word.

I mean... So? I live in the west and I hate the "triple A gaming" genre too, though it's more like AAA games are "too expensive" rather than "too cheap". They are the James Cameron's Avatar of games. Ugly colour pallettes, obsession with frame rates and photorealism, no understand of basic principals of animation like "visual appeal". If I'm going to play a game, I want something with a visually appealing, nostalgic or charmingly minimalist art style. I'd rather play club penguin than the doom reboot.

Now, turn that around, and what people say about JRPGs.

So there's no difference when Westerners use JRPG as a derogatory term, and when Japanese had been using yo-ge as a derogatory term.

That's my point - Japan had been using a derogatory term for Western games for a long time, even before JRPG became a derogatory term. So complaining about that now is hypocritical.

enurtsol wrote:

Now, turn that around, and what people say about JRPGs. So there's no difference when Westerners use JRPG as a derogatory term, and when Japanese had been using yo-ge as a derogatory term. That's my point - Japan had been using a derogatory term for Western games for a long time, even before JRPG became a derogatory term. So complaining about that now is hypocritical.

And here I was thinking this east-west beef was squashed decades ago

Now, turn that around, and what people say about JRPGs.

So there's no difference when Westerners use JRPG as a derogatory term, and when Japanese had been using yo-ge as a derogatory term.

That's my point - Japan had been using a derogatory term for Western games for a long time, even before JRPG became a derogatory term. So complaining about that now is hypocritical.

enurtsol wrote:

Now, turn that around, and what people say about JRPGs. So there's no difference when Westerners use JRPG as a derogatory term, and when Japanese had been using yo-ge as a derogatory term. That's my point - Japan had been using a derogatory term for Western games for a long time, even before JRPG became a derogatory term. So complaining about that now is hypocritical.

Maybe consider there's a difference between being critical of the flaws of the AAA gaming industry made by mostly privileged white devs versus American journalists dismissing RPG games solely because of the country they're from, particularly where most people in said country are BIPOC.

It's especially weird for people to be banking on Bioshock because we have the benefit of hindsight and Bioshock hasn't aged well. So the article feels less like "Japanese devs discriminate against American games!" and more like "Look at these weird, backwards Japanese devs who don't like our awesome games!"

Wait, who are these mostly privileged white devs being critical of the flaws of the AAA gaming industry? Where's that coming from?

I thought we're discussing Japanese (gamers, devs, etc.) dismissing yo-ge (Western games) solely because of the region they're from vs. American journalists dismissing RPG games solely because of the country they're from?

enurtsol wrote:

Wait, who are these mostly privileged white devs being critical of the flaws of the AAA gaming industry? Where's that coming from? I thought we're discussing Japanese (gamers, devs, etc.) dismissing yo-ge (Western games) solely because of the region they're from vs. American journalists dismissing RPG games solely because of the country they're from?

You're completely missing my point so I'll put it in blunter terms. American journalists dismissed JRPGs because they're racist hacks making broad stereotyped generalizations about Japanese people and the power dynamic is entirely different than AAA games.

Maybe consider there's a difference between being critical of the flaws of the AAA gaming industry made by mostly privileged white devs versus American journalists dismissing RPG games solely because of the country they're from, particularly where most people in said country are BIPOC.