Maybe the problem is that you're yelling at them. ;)

Yasuhire : epic reply is epic!

I do still believe Singelplayer is a valid option, the original Bioshock proved this a while back in a time when almost everyone seemed to believe mutliplayer was the key.

but yes Vanquish not having multiplayer was a shame, I would have loved to play that game in multiplayer especially seeing how fast paced and actionpacked it was I think I would have really liked it, and in that game it did really feel like a loss.

@Yasu - Yes, that could be it, but then again they simply don't like listening to new ideas ;P

Good interview but fundamentally disagree with the advice ... it is assuming the Japanese market wants (Western-style multiplayer) which they have shown repeatedly they do not. And Japanese developers trying tot "be more Western to appeal to the West" will never, ever work ... they will just not appeal to anyone if they go that route.

Yes, but only if it's really necessary and if so, do it differently.

@ Kevin
After reading everything he said in context I don't have that impression. If you take that bit you quoted and tweak it to read "I'm not saying tack DEATHMATCH onto every game" I think it gets a lot closer to what he's trying to convey. And if that is indeed what he meant then I agree with him completely.

I agree with you--I think the west needs to take a look at the Japanese developers to get inspired by their different takes on multiplayer

Japnese devs are some of the best devs around when it comes to gameplay.

Agree with Taure, all the games Cliffy Mentions gameplay is not the issue, and i think he states that pretty clearly...

@Taure Anthony outside of Nintendo's most japanese games just aren't as fun as western games. I see lots of pretty girls and/or odd ball stories but not a lot of solid gameplay. Every now and then I do see a solid gameplay experience from them but not nearly as often as from our western colleges.

I read comments like this so often and I wonder if you have played any good japanese game in the last 5 years. Yes, there is MGS4, and FF13, but there is also Dark Souls, Vanquish, Bayonetta, Monster hunter, Xenoblade, Catherine, Shadows of the Damned, Nintendo Games in general, Nier, Muramasa, Disgaea 4, Valkyria Chronicles, The world ends with you, etc etc...

all this second group of games doesn't focus at all on cutscenes or try to be CG-movies, sure, some of them have intricate narratives, but they are known for having really interesting gameplay mechanics, probably more interesting than most games by established western developers. The old and repeated CG-movie criticism seems to be stuck on some, but it is probably more valid for Quantic dream than any current gen japanese game.
They are also extremely polished and thoughtfully designed, which is often more than I can say of western games.

Seems to me that Cliff would have them do Gears of war, and as fun as that is, it doesn't work everywhere. I dont think it would have worked well with any of the games he mentions without some significant modification. I personally feel that shadows of the damned and Vanquish are really great games, but they have more important issues to address before than the lack of multiplayer...

For example, the inclusion of co-op in RE5, was fun when played with a friend, but overall it was not a step in the right direction for the series. In games like Mass effect or deadspace) it seems completely unnecesary and it doesn't add at all to my enjoyment of the games. I have not once felt the urge to play dead space 2 multiplayer.

There are cases like Portal 2, where multiplayer brings out something new and cool to the table, but it always seems to me that many developers are asking wrong questions: instead of asking, how can I make this game the best game it can be.. they are focusing on: how can I make you need to play it more!

Better games is the goal.

It's difficult to prove, but Shadows of the Damned would likely have sold more and lasted longer if it were planned from the beginning to include multiplayer. Like it or not, single player-only experiences are an increasingly tough sell in genres that rely on shooting.

Brandon,

"Lasted longer" is basically tautologous if you add any game modes, and not intrinsically good. "Sold more" isn't a good metric to judge success even if you're only looking at the money.

Cliff specifically called it out for lacking story mode co-op, which would've destroyed the game. Sure, if you planned early enough in development you could make it work, but you'd get a game totally unlike SotD actually was.

Kid Icarus multiplayer is great -- I haven't seen much discussion of it. It's a very clever synthesis of what the team already knew (Smash Bros.) with Western deathmatch/TDM style play.

Agreed. Kid Icarus has some of the most innovative multiplayer in years. The way it is tied in with the single player is great also like it's one continuous game. I'll admit some of the weapon styles are unbalanced in the hands of the ai but that's just a minor nit pick.

No more heroes, Muramasa, Rise of Nightmares, Mario Galaxy 2, Folklore, Siren, Child of Eden, Lost Planet. I've just presented you with 8 examples of single player, current generation games that are both AAA and innovative. The truth is though, you'd be hard pressed to find even 8 innovative American AAA games with good single player campaigns. You'd have to go to Europe to find those. Or maybe you could enlighten me?

AAA refers to the platform and harnessing the strengths of the platform. Suda didn't have half the budget of Halo when he made No More Heroes, but its still AAA anyway. MAybe Dragos hasn't played enough games, or maybe i'm wrong and there are 8 very innovative AAA single player games that were made by American studios this generation. I doubt it though, because the West hasn't got its roots in gameplay in the same way as Japan. Dragos is referring to the derivative games that Namco and Capcom have been pushing out for generations like Soul Calibur and Street Fighter X Tekken, but he is ignoring the plethora of quality games that have been made in that region this generation.

"There's tremendously more innovation in gaming coming from western indies rather than from Japanese studios, and many of those indies are inspired by Asian culture. "

And there's tremendously more innovation coming from Japanese indies than from Japanese studios, and more from Japanese indies than western studios, and more from western indies than western studios. So this observation tells us basically nothing except the game industry everywhere pretty much sucks lately!

Dario, you make a point there, and I agree that there's innovation on the handheld side where the DS actually added some mechanics that are unique. I wouldn't list Child of Eden there though, since it's just a prettier Rez.
On the console side, and I won't go into the PC market (because japan is virtually non-existant there) there are very few titles that pushed genres forward, especially lower when compared to what happened in the 90s.

In the western market we did have innoation in big franchises such as the multiplayer environment in the halo series, the pseudo-rpg shift in CoD4, the modern MMO formula of WoW, the cover system refinement of GoW, as well as smaller indie titles like Braid, Ecochrome, Fez. But the biggest thing of the last decade are the improvements to the UI and control schemes (on the software side) all across the board.

I'm not saying the Asian developers are inferior, Just saying that they got complacent compared to what they were in the 90s, and it shows. Sure there are a myriad perfectly good reasons for that, but it doesn't make the fact less true.

@Dragos,

Echochrome's prototype was from a Japanese indie developer and developed into a full game by SCE Japan Studio. (The same studio also made Loco Roco and Patapon.)

Maybe if you didn't get the origin of the games you think have new ideas totally incorrect, you'd see more evidence of new ideas from Japan.