Keiji Inafune, Capcom's outspoken Global Head of Production, has again turned on the Japanese games industry claiming that Japan is "at least five years behind" its Western counterparts.
“I look around Tokyo Games Show, and everyone’s making awful games,” said the 45-year-old designer of Mega Man and Dead Rising.
“Capcom is barely keeping up,” he said, speaking to the New York Times in an interview at the show, which ended on Sunday. “I want to study how Westerners live, and make games that appeal to them.”
Inafune's comments echoed those he made at the previous year's Tokyo Game Show, when he declared: "Japan is finished."
The controversial designer encouraged Japanese developers to take globally-minded development more seriously, arguing that appealing to a Western audience requires more thought than just “turning eyes blue and changing the hair color.”
Capcom continues to partner extensively with Western developers, having recently announced its acquisition of Burnaby, British Columbia-based developer, Blue Castle and that development of the next installment of the Devil May Cry series is being handled by British developer, Ninja Theory.
Yes, but I really salute this man : He admits a flaw, but instead of rejecting the failure at the culture difference (just like any average human would do), he gives respect and decides to dig deeper into it.
Japan should try to up its own game instead of copying the western triple-a model, or we are going to reach a point of no return on the idiocy of the mainstream titles.
Dead Rising is one of my favorite games of all time, so this man must know what he's talking about, but Japan's not done yet by a long shot I think. Also, Westerners like a bit of "Japan sauce" on their games.
Inafune-san has balls and I like that. I admit that I don't like Japanese games. It is not the art or the audio...which is usually amazing. It is the inane and insular design of these 'great' game directors.
Even games like Dead Rising and Resident Evil 5, which I really wanted to love, had atrocious design failings. I really wondered to that end, are Japanese games even focus/playtested? It seems to me they are not...
As an aside, I worked with a Major publisher ten years ago and I was sent to Japan to their newly opened office to meet with my Sr. Producer Japanese counterpart...I was accompanied by our translator.
During our meeting my counterpart was visually and conversationally aloof, like he was doing me a favor. Toward the end of our meeting I brought up our Publisher's terrific usability and testing lab. I stressed that we wanted to help him playtest his game. He told me there was no need, but I insisted saying that it is always good for the end user to playtest your game at First Playable and Alpha. He again dismissed me and seemed annoyed. So the meeting ended without much really happening. After the meeting my translator told me that he was really upset and I asked her why/how since there was no argument. She said that I should not have pressed offering help to him. I was shocked to say the least.
In the end, both his games sucked and did horribly in the West for sales and he was fired a few months later. Since that episode, I have often wonder how many other Japanese producers/game directors shared his view to the determinant of their game sales in the West.
Very interesting post Lo, I enjoyed it immensely. I love hearing about first hand experiences and the cultural differences in the east. This topic seems to come up often as different cultural norms shape business relationships, yet have difficulty breaking down. From what I can gather, it's a very "old school" attitude of "we've been doing it like this for the last 20 years, so why change?" Hierarchy is important of coarse too, but the impulse to not speak out is typical in a collective culture. Inafune-San is very outspoken, but this has caused a shift in company culture and I think it is what is keeping Capcom competitive.
I too have turned my back on Japanese games this generation with the exception of Capcom. I think they are making very solid games and are light years ahead of the Japanese curve. Not perfect, but I own quite a few Capcom games for the 360. The average Japanese game just seems so bland, and I was simply heart broken by FF13. I think Western success is making the industry completely re-evaluate, even if it takes time.
Last time I checked the most successful stationary console (Wii) and the most successful handheld (NDS) of this generation came from japan, the 10 most successful games on these platforms came from a japanese publisher.
The 10 most successful games on the DS sold about 146 million units and the 10 most successful games on the Wii sold about 213 million units. All of this titles were designed by japanese developers.
For comparsion, on the 360 the 10 most successful games are from western developers only and they sum up to about 47 million units.
So I think it is a safe bet to say, that japanese game design isn't dead, even if Capcom failed to publish at least one decent game since RE4.
It always amazes me, how people ignore Nintendo as the most successful software and hardware developer.
"Take away Nintendo, and you get the same picture. "
Nintendo sells more then any other publisher worldwide, it is like to say take away Ubisoft, EA and Activision/Blizzard to get a picture of the western market.
"Take away Nintendo, and you get the same picture. "
Nintendo sells more then any other publisher worldwide, it is like to say take away Ubisoft, EA and Activision/Blizzard to get a picture of the western market.
Can you qoute the statement? It seems, the issue isn't up any more and I don't find the article in the archives. I still highly doubt the statement, amongst the Top 20 best selling games on the Wii, 360 and PS3, there are 1 game by EA (Rockband on the 360).
When he says the Japanese game industry is 5+ years behind, he's not just talking about game design and quality.
US and Korean game developers have dumped a huge amount of time and caffeine in to maintaining current generation gaming platforms complete with art and development pipelines that enable the dynamic and visually rich game design that EFG/K gamers demand.
Their welcome to come and play in our sandboxes, but they really are 5+ years away from innovating again.
The idea of Japanese games striving to become more 'western', frankly, makes me sick to my stomach. I see visions of game stores with only FPS, Hack/Slash, and GTA style games. If this is our road, the path is indeed very, very bleak.
I agree with this to a degree, If the japanese game industry become more like the western one, wouldn't that take a limb off innovation for the industry?
Ironically enough, what he said about creating cross cultural characters has been known for nearly half a decade now. Check out Katherine Isbister's book on character design if you're interested.
Funny you mention that Phil, I was just picturing what Red Dead would look like stylized by the Japanese. I understand where you are coming from. I get really nervous when Japanese developers claim they are designing it for "the west." The hack and slash demos I played were terrible. They need to make a game fun, not create what they think white people will like. This should employ some western management structure, but keep their own identity.
I'm fairly sure he wasn't saying that games produced in these categories by the Japanese would be of poorer quality, he was saying that American studios churn out many of these type of games and don't focus on genres that the Japanese usually do.
And there's nothing fun about playing games of the same genre for the rest of our lives.
Japan may be not be as hot a development scene as it has been, but I'm wondering what he thinks is so much better about games from outside the country. At least five years behind...Call of Duty and Mass Effect? Japan must SUCK these days.
I believe that the problem may be related to development costs of modern games. Japan games have always been niche, with a few exceptions, but the big budgets of modern gaming mean you must create blockbusters or die. The traditional niche games from Japanese developers just don't fit this model.
I'm honestly getting more and more tired of all these generic games that just take the same formula and up it a bit. That being said, after playing Metal Gear Solid 4 and turning it off during the last 45 min ending movie without even finishing it (I guess Snake dies or something), I officially came to the conclusion that Japanese games are merely a shadow of what they were. I remember there's was nothing that could touch a Japanese game from pretty much 1991 to 2001, but now it's like the developers get caught up in there own hype of how amazing they are.
I like Inafune and his words, rather than talk about his next game very coy like everyone gives a shit because he's so amazing, he talks about improving the formula and how to evolve. Respect.
I don't think MGS was a great analogy there. That series invented the stealth action genre, and 4 was quite deep in that regard.
I think more original concepts come out of Japan than anything such as Katamari, etc. Note that an original concept doesn't mean it plays well or has a intuitive interface.
The west tends to take a gameplay mechanic and iterate on it. This has been perpetuated with the FPS genre for years and years.
I think franchise hype and taking-for-granted success of sequels is leading to a dark period in the road ahead. Example: Super Mario Galaxy was over-hyped, it's sequel was better yet the hype from players was less and I still haven't even finished playing it. Some people may not agree with my example but the point is that the industries sales figures seem to rely heavily on sequels, and they aren't all getting better after 10 -25 years.....Happy Birthday Mario.
There are too many sequels in the market in East and West, but the difference is, that there were at least SOME original debuts on this handheld and stationary console generation that proved successfully, that came from Japan, when there were almost none from the west. There was Wii Sports and Wii Fit and there was Brain Age and Nintendogs on the DS. Sony had games like Little Big Planet and Safari, which were highly original. All these games had concepts, that were unprecedented and most of these games sold very well.
The West gave us games like Gears of War (new franchise, but old game), Fallout 3 (old franchise, remixed with well known game formula) or COD: MW (reboot of old franchise, old gameplay mechanisms). So, the innovation in this generation came hardwarewise from japan (which is obvious), but also in terms of software.
What about Kameo, Viva Pinata series and Banjoe Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts? Also, Mirror's Edge, Alan Wake, Limbo, Braid, Trials, Heavy Rain, the Uncharted Series, which all are quite uniqe and/or innovative? You are bing awfully dismissive of western game development.
The main difference between these titles and the original games from Japan is, that they all weren't very successful (apart from Braid, which is an independent game, the only place in western developement, were innovation is welcome).
Apart from that, a game like Kameo was everything, but original, it was a new IP, not an original game,
Same goes for the Uncharted Series, which is technical superb, but does nothing new in terms of gameplay. Those games have the tendency to vanish from players minds, as technological evolution goes on. This is the reason, nobody today talks about "Rise of the Robots", the "Thunderhawk" series or "Defender of the Crown".
"Viva Pinata" was a game, that tried very hard to be a Nintendo title, but in the end, it lacked all, that made the games that Rare developed for Big N enjoyable.
Mirror's Edge was great and I agree, it was original in it's own way, but again, it is considered as a failure by it's publisher, cause it wasn't successful. Heavy Rain is pretty much a more polished Fahrenheit, nothing very original. Alan Wake seems pretty interesting (even if original and innovative isn't coming to my mind, when I think of it), but again, it flopped horribly and so it is something MS won't try again.
I concur with Lo Pan - the main problem isn't cool ideas or concepts - it's the Japanese development culture, with it's strong focus on hierarchy and desire to keep your head down, and crazy emphasis on senior individuals taking responsibility for every part of the game design, rather than delegating that responsibility to those with specific talent.
This only works on small, manageable projects, or if you have an insanely talented director. For everyone else, it's a recipe for failure.
Note that you do get some games developed like this in the west, but on the whole the more successful studios have moved toward a more distributed, co-operative method of production and design. (I'm not advocating design by committee - I still think you need a strong creative director or lead, but they should be humble enough to listen to their staff and share responsibility for the project).
This is really clever and honorable.
It's true though, at TGS this year I tried out many of the games and most of them we're of very low quality.
Even games like Dead Rising and Resident Evil 5, which I really wanted to love, had atrocious design failings. I really wondered to that end, are Japanese games even focus/playtested? It seems to me they are not...
As an aside, I worked with a Major publisher ten years ago and I was sent to Japan to their newly opened office to meet with my Sr. Producer Japanese counterpart...I was accompanied by our translator.
During our meeting my counterpart was visually and conversationally aloof, like he was doing me a favor. Toward the end of our meeting I brought up our Publisher's terrific usability and testing lab. I stressed that we wanted to help him playtest his game. He told me there was no need, but I insisted saying that it is always good for the end user to playtest your game at First Playable and Alpha. He again dismissed me and seemed annoyed. So the meeting ended without much really happening. After the meeting my translator told me that he was really upset and I asked her why/how since there was no argument. She said that I should not have pressed offering help to him. I was shocked to say the least.
In the end, both his games sucked and did horribly in the West for sales and he was fired a few months later. Since that episode, I have often wonder how many other Japanese producers/game directors shared his view to the determinant of their game sales in the West.
I too have turned my back on Japanese games this generation with the exception of Capcom. I think they are making very solid games and are light years ahead of the Japanese curve. Not perfect, but I own quite a few Capcom games for the 360. The average Japanese game just seems so bland, and I was simply heart broken by FF13. I think Western success is making the industry completely re-evaluate, even if it takes time.
The 10 most successful games on the DS sold about 146 million units and the 10 most successful games on the Wii sold about 213 million units. All of this titles were designed by japanese developers.
For comparsion, on the 360 the 10 most successful games are from western developers only and they sum up to about 47 million units.
So I think it is a safe bet to say, that japanese game design isn't dead, even if Capcom failed to publish at least one decent game since RE4.
It always amazes me, how people ignore Nintendo as the most successful software and hardware developer.
Nintendo sells more then any other publisher worldwide, it is like to say take away Ubisoft, EA and Activision/Blizzard to get a picture of the western market.
Nintendo sells more then any other publisher worldwide, it is like to say take away Ubisoft, EA and Activision/Blizzard to get a picture of the western market.
"Negative Ghost Rider. EA accounts for roughly 60% of publisher sales on all three consoles. "
I highly doubt the 60%, do you have any numbers to back this up?
Online at Game Informer, look up Medal Of Honor: John Riccilo (think I'm spelling that correctly).
I'll admit I could be wrong because it is coming from the company head.
US and Korean game developers have dumped a huge amount of time and caffeine in to maintaining current generation gaming platforms complete with art and development pipelines that enable the dynamic and visually rich game design that EFG/K gamers demand.
Their welcome to come and play in our sandboxes, but they really are 5+ years away from innovating again.
Ironically enough, what he said about creating cross cultural characters has been known for nearly half a decade now. Check out Katherine Isbister's book on character design if you're interested.
And there's nothing fun about playing games of the same genre for the rest of our lives.
I like Inafune and his words, rather than talk about his next game very coy like everyone gives a shit because he's so amazing, he talks about improving the formula and how to evolve. Respect.
I think more original concepts come out of Japan than anything such as Katamari, etc. Note that an original concept doesn't mean it plays well or has a intuitive interface.
The west tends to take a gameplay mechanic and iterate on it. This has been perpetuated with the FPS genre for years and years.
The West gave us games like Gears of War (new franchise, but old game), Fallout 3 (old franchise, remixed with well known game formula) or COD: MW (reboot of old franchise, old gameplay mechanisms). So, the innovation in this generation came hardwarewise from japan (which is obvious), but also in terms of software.
Apart from that, a game like Kameo was everything, but original, it was a new IP, not an original game,
Same goes for the Uncharted Series, which is technical superb, but does nothing new in terms of gameplay. Those games have the tendency to vanish from players minds, as technological evolution goes on. This is the reason, nobody today talks about "Rise of the Robots", the "Thunderhawk" series or "Defender of the Crown".
"Viva Pinata" was a game, that tried very hard to be a Nintendo title, but in the end, it lacked all, that made the games that Rare developed for Big N enjoyable.
Mirror's Edge was great and I agree, it was original in it's own way, but again, it is considered as a failure by it's publisher, cause it wasn't successful. Heavy Rain is pretty much a more polished Fahrenheit, nothing very original. Alan Wake seems pretty interesting (even if original and innovative isn't coming to my mind, when I think of it), but again, it flopped horribly and so it is something MS won't try again.
This only works on small, manageable projects, or if you have an insanely talented director. For everyone else, it's a recipe for failure.
Note that you do get some games developed like this in the west, but on the whole the more successful studios have moved toward a more distributed, co-operative method of production and design. (I'm not advocating design by committee - I still think you need a strong creative director or lead, but they should be humble enough to listen to their staff and share responsibility for the project).