Language and Cultural Issues

The language barrier can prove to be an issue for foreigners working in Japan. It is not uncommon to meet expatriates who have lived in Japan for years but cannot even order food at a restaurant. The US Department of Defense classifies Japanese (along with Korean, Chinese and Arabic) as a level four language requiring 63 weeks of intensive study for a “limited working proficiency”, compared to 43 weeks for level three languages like Vietnamese, Thai, or Russian.

Both Japanese and foreign developers have to adapt to the language barrier according to Tavares. “I think they quickly realized my Japanese was not so good. Still, my programming skills were very good so I was quickly assigned many things others couldn’t do. There was one guy on my team that spoke English and he helped me but I also asked him not to speak any English if at all possible so I could learn (Japanese) better. Lots of communication was done by pictures.”

Cuthbert too faced a barrier when he first started. When asked how the team adapted in his case he said, “They learned English!… Much of Miyamoto's English was learned from the StarFox team. But towards the end of StarFox my progress with Japanese started moving along faster than their progress with English and Starfox 2's communication was entirely in Japanese.”

One of the hardest things for anybody learning Japanese as a second language to learn is Keigo, a series of humble and honorific verb conjugations and vocabulary. It is used primarily in the workplace. One uses humble forms towards themselves and honorific forms towards superiors, clients and customers. In Cuthbert’s case, “I learned regular, spoken Japanese first, and then started peppering it with keigo or formal Japanese as I went along. Because everyone speaks regular Japanese it is much easier to learn than keigo which is stiff and unnatural at times.”

Nintendo's Super Nintendo classic Star Fox.

However, Japanese do not tend to expect foreigners to speak keigo even when it is appropriate. In fact, many foreigners have complained that most Japanese believe that foreigners cannot speak the language at all. To make matters worse it is not unheard of for managers to exploit this weakness in their foreign labor. Barnett says, “At first, when my Japanese was terrible, it was an easy excuse for my bosses to keep dangling over my head even when it wasn't applicable. Anything I asked for, was asked to do or had problems with was always met with the ‘...but your Japanese ability...’ excuse. It took one instance of putting my foot down and threatening to resign for those excuses to end.”

Sometimes Japanese can feel uncomfortable speaking anything but English to foreigners. This is unfortunate because it stunts the growth of one’s Japanese abilities. According to Cuthbert, “They would try to speak English but you just have to have confidence in yourself and not give up or you'll fall back into using English and your Japanese stops progressing as fast as it could.”

Differences are not just limited to language. Some companies have entirely different design philosophies. This was apparent to Cuthbert who had not been exposed to Japanese games in the UK because the NES was not a force in European gaming. In fact it was the projected profits from his game, StarFox that allowed Nintendo to start their European branch. “I was amazed by the attention of detail Nintendo put into even the smallest element of the game design. I really enjoyed working with them because of that. I was also very anal when it came to the details. I would spend hours just fiddling with one pixel to get it into the right place aesthetically. So I found some like-minded people when I worked with Nintendo and that endeared me to Japan even more.”

Attitudes towards the press are different as well. This allows developers some degree of freedom to design without PR and marketing breathing down their necks says Barnett, “This is one thing I do like about Japanese development; (PR, press relations, and marketing) come quite late in development. PR, sales and press are informed of the product rather than consulted.”