“To put it simply, cultural differences play a big role.”

Hamamura Hirokazu[1]

The above statement is in my humble opinion false and shines a light on what may explain the poor state of affairs the Japanese gaming industry is in right now. In fact, if there is one thing Japanese publishers should remember from all these articles, it’s that cultural differences are most certainly not the issue. And this, is surprisingly easy to prove.

For those who might not know, there is this idea running around Japanese corporations called the Galapagos syndrome. The theory purports that when Japanese games fail commercially in the West it must be due to the overwhelming cultural differences found in both continents, as well as the geographical distance separating the two. This has been the Japanese excuse to focus on the domestic market for decades. As a result of this culture gap myth, many industry analysts have been advising Japanese publishers and developers to introduce Western elements and a “Western feel” to their games (even if it means losing the soul of the game, becoming completely unrecognizable, and no longer looking, sounding, and playing like a Japanese game).

With so many people from both the Japanese and the Western side of the industry telling us that cultural differences are the reason why games made in Japan are not selling as much as they should overseas, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to think critically about this topic. This idea must be challenged.

Hirokazu’s comment most likely comes from a certain line of thought that has spread over the Western press and media for the past decade. It wants people to believe that Japanese tastes are “too unique” or “too different” from our own, and that thus, can in no way appeal to our Western audiences. This is also a subtle way of telling Japan to forget about exporting. Arguments like these have become so mainstream, that even Japanese firms and Japanese high-ranking videogame industry veterans have fallen for this falsehood.

The very first reason why this is simply not true is because Japanese games have enjoyed global acclaim and fame throughout their history. Virtually every childhood craze of the past 30 years has its beginnings in Japan. If culture was the problem, then Tekken, Street Fighter, Pokémon, Zelda, Dragon Ball, Saint Seiya, Final Fantasy, you name it; would have never attained the international fame they now possess. None of these culturally specific (aggressively Japanese) entertainment products would have sold as many copies as they did outside of Japan. And yet, we know how much of a dent they have made on the fabric of European and North American culture.

So in fact, quite the opposite is true. Gamers all over the world purchase Japanese videogames because (whether they know they are produced in Japan or not) they have that Japanese feel to them, and because gamers know they will find specific qualities and characteristics in them, that they won’t in Western games. Be it a challenge, a compelling story, great orchestral music, impressive art direction, creative and innovative design, fantastic scenery, or the classic gameplay fun and excellence. These are all the features Japanese games have accustomed us to throughout the years.

Think about it. For many of us gamers, Japanese culture does not divide; rather, it unites. Many of us play Japanese videogames precisely because they are Japanese. If people had a problem with cultural differences, then no Japanese game, no manga, no movie, and no anime; would have ever been successful abroad. And yet for all these years, we have seen just how successful Japanese entertainment products can be overseas.

Now, perhaps some very specific and rare titles do pose a problem and will not appeal to a western audience no matter what we do, but this is an issue all products and industries face. But since those titles are not the majority, we will not concern ourselves with them. However, this emphasizes the need to hire people who know which titles can make it overseas and which can’t. Those people who have that je ne sais quoi and who can fairly accurately determine if a game can be successful or not.

Mark MacDonald, Executive Director at Tokyo localization[2] company 8-4, says the industry’s prevailing shift in tone from fantasy worlds to gritty warfare has seen the rest of the world leave Japan behind. “First-person shooters rely on realism, but a lot of Japanese game design comes from an imaginative aesthetic where it’s not just going for straight realism. But that [realism] was kind of what people started to want” (MacDonald 2014).

Did people really start craving realism? Or was realism the only thing offered to them, and thus won by default? Was realism chosen? Was it chosen over something else? And if so, was it because the seventh-generation console allowed realism to gain so much unnecessary traction? All these are valid questions game analysts have yet to touch.

One educated guess is that western developers (regardless of whether or not they were coerced by publishers) forced realism down people’s throats simply because the hardware permitted it. Gamers were not necessarily demanding better graphics and physics at the time. To go as far as to say that this massive shift, from western gamers playing Japanese games to then only playing western games, occurred because there was upheaval from gamers who requested better graphics on the next generation of consoles is simply not true. We had this step-up in graphical capability because it was possible, and developers took advantage of the new hardware. The cultural aspect can be relevant to an extent; however, we must look past the superficial and analyze what is really going on here.

Some people in the industry even went so far as to say that bright and saturated colors alongside cute teenage heroes are considered “gay” in America, and that this is the reason why Japanese games became unpopular in the U.S. These kinds of comments are the cause to the negative image of games made by Japanese studios and impacted their sales as a result. At Infinity Ventures Summit[3], Hajime Satomi[4] said:

Europeans and North Americans like strong people, so the main character has to be a fully-grown, middle-aged man. On the other hand, in Asia, people like stories about middle or high school students growing up or becoming stronger. As you make games for more dedicated players, I think you have to be aware of those differences. (Hajime 2014)

Once more, we have here a perfect example of hazy comments with no marketing or business analysis to back it up, that permeate Japanese publishing (at sometimes even the highest levels of management). When one talks and listens to gamers, in my case, Europeans and North Americans, they have no opinion on this. They do not prefer middle-aged men as their main character, nor have they shouted for bully-type macho characters being more present in Japanese stories. In fact, they do not prefer anything and have no opinion on this. No survey or any other statistical analysis of any kind has been done on the subject. The only thing western and global consumers want and like has never changed, they want to play fun games. If the game is fun, they will play it.

Western gamers did not suddenly abandon Japanese games because the main heroes looked childish, or because graphics were not up to par with western games. If that were the case, we would have known it sooner. No, they stopped going for Japanese games because of low product awareness and absent PvP online multiplayer features. Attributing this huge switch in mindset to a culture gap is too simplistic.

The post-war generations that basked under the rising sun that was the unrealistic, over-the-top Japanese entertainment and animation of the 1980s and 1990s, had no more reason to enjoy Japanese products than today’s western consumers. Simply, Japanese products were highly visible and everywhere. Almost every western childhood craze of the past 40 years has come from Japan: Transformers, Power Rangers, Tamagotchi, Pokémon. And together these have blasted through boundaries between different media and country borders. Therefore, statements such as, “Westerners do not like Japanese games because the main characters look like kids and have androgynous attributes” or, “The game has overly saturated colors and the whole thing is too culturally different” are unsatisfactory when completing a thorough analysis of the problem. They do not take into account the underlying causes of what created this situation.

One analysis worth looking into was made by Hisakazu Hirabayashi, fellow videogame analyst and consultant, who made an interesting comment when he suggested that “The United States, the principal source of FPS[5] games and the biggest market for them, is a country of guns.” […] “If the United States is a country of guns, Japan might be called a country of swords.” (Hisakazu 2015)

This makes sense when one considers many successful Japanese videogames where the main protagonist, be it male or female, often uses a sword as a weapon. The Devil May Cry franchise is an interesting example because the protagonist, Dante, wields three weapons at all times: two revolvers and a gigantic sword. And during the entire game, the sword is always more powerful than the guns, which could represent how Japanese view the power position between swords and guns. Perhaps the developers of the game wanted to communicate this in a subtle way.

But I digress, while the above might be interesting to research from a purely intellectual and cultural perspective, the adage: Japanese gamers prefer fantasy, strategy, and RPGs, while western gamers prefer violence, shooters, and sports; is perhaps the most laughable and grossest generalization to ever have come around. And basing financial decisions on comments and opinions such as these is certainly not a good idea.

One such mediocre decision was made for a fan-favorite Japanese game. In an interview, Final Fantasy XIII’s staff members told a foreign journalist that they were looking to Call of Duty for inspiration. However, it appeared after the fact that they were referring only to the linear, cutscene-driven design, rather than the immersion of Modern Warfare’s point of view or the addictive, compulsive design of the multiplayer. (Parish 2014)

How is this possible? How can Japanese developers, who have known for years, that extreme linearity is not good level design, how could they end up falling in such a trap? The answer is simple. Money. The lure of increased profits is what made them reconsider their entire model, failing to realize that the issue was never with the way they developed games or their game design techniques, but with the fact that Western games had amazing multiplayer experiences.

In short, Western players (and for that matter, players worldwide) do not have pronounced preferences for anything in particular. The only thing they expect from a game, is for it to be fun. Whatever that may mean to them. The only thing game developers and publishers can do, is to try and figure out what can be considered fun to them.

I will leave you with a counter quote to all the ones we’ve read so far. It comes from a westerner, Halo 4’s creative director Josh Holmes, and there are hundreds of others like this one. It alludes to a Japanese game called Ico, about which he had this to say, “I’ll always be influenced by that game, probably in ways that I don’t even understand, because it’s definitely one of the pinnacle moments in my gaming career.” (Peckham, Time 2012)

[1] Former Weekly Famitsu chief editor, now president of Enterbrain. He is also the director of Kadokawa Group Holdings, Kadokawa Group Publishing, Kadokawa Games and Walker Books.

[2] Language localization is the process of adapting a product’s translation to a specific country or region. It is the second phase of a larger process of product translation and cultural adaptation to account for differences in distinct markets, a process known as internationalization and localization.

[3] The Infinity Ventures Summit is a gathering of Japanese gaming companies where discussion of the future of the industry takes place.

[4] Founder of Sammy Corporation and current CEO and Chairman of Sega Corp.

[5] First-Person Shooter.