For my non-Japanese readers, many of you will be surprised to learn that marketing is very much a foreign and relatively unknown concept and discipline in Japan. Why? Simply because for many years and still today to some extent, there were no universities teaching the subject and even fewer offering the degree. The whole concept has its origins in the US and is relatively new compared to other fields in business.
Another reason is because of “Monozukuri”. The word translates roughly to “the process of making things”. It is a famous and important Japanese concept that few foreign managers working for Japanese subsidiaries in the West know or grasp. But understanding it is crucial if we are to find out why Japanese games are not selling as much as they used to.
Engineers are the main actors in monozukuri because they are the ones who make things (products), and therefore create value, not only for the company but also for the end consumer and society at large. In Japan, engineers are easily regarded as the samurais of modern times and are held in the highest regard because they help the country and society as a whole with what they invent and build. Considered the epitome of excellence, they are well respected both professionally and socially.
Producing excellent products with the ability to constantly improve production systems and processes is the quintessence of Japanese management and corporate culture. The drivers of any Japanese firm are therefore the product engineers.
Across the ocean however, engineers are not treated with the same respect, and take a secondary position to marketing and salespeople. Why is that? Well, simply because, as the founder of the modern corporation Peter Drucker[1] tells us, “The purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two and only these two basic functions: marketing and innovation. These produce results, all the rest are costs.”
Perhaps the most crucial sentence in this website, also perfectly summarizes the Japanese problem. Long considered to be a questionable discipline, with the sole purpose of wasting money, with dubious and untraceable results, marketing has only now finally taken the place it deserves among business practices.
The dilemma lies in that the Japanese vision and Drucker’s vision are at polar opposites. The Japanese believe that a great product is enough to guarantee commercial success. And while that may be true under rare economic and market conditions; in the current configuration this industry is in, it is not the case. While Westerners on the contrary believe marketing to be the main driver of sales.
While Japanese games may be considered the best in the world, it is of no use, if nobody is aware they exist. Without aggressive and constant promotion through every means available, they will find themselves lagging behind products that would have otherwise be considered inferior, if it were not for the strong marketing support they had going for them. A product’s inherent quality is never an excuse to forego promotional and marketing efforts.
Japanese developers and publishers alike have put too much faith in the good judgment of the average consumer. They have wrongly believed their games to be so well-crafted, that players worldwide (being the smart, tasteful and sophisticated people that they are) will inevitably notice this and rush to purchase Japanese games over the competition. In this chapter we will see how and why marketing unfortunately always prevails over a superior quality product.
[1] Peter Ferdinand Drucker, father of management, was an Austrian-born American management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business corporation. He and Masatoshi Ito created the Graduate School of Management.