Capcom: "American developers are more creative"

[davidbrit2]

Even people who love the US (which includes myself) have to admit that those are accurate generalizations about the American people. The Japanese are equally money-grubbing, but at least they still care about being polite, honest, and upholding their honor. Americans will do ANYTHING for money. They'll make a complete disgrace out of themselves just to get it. Hasn't "reality" TV taught you anything? ;P

Clearly you're not familiar with the Japanese counterparts to these television shows. They make our reality programming look positively quaint. I seem to remember one in particular called Drunken Salary Man Challenge, or something like that. And then there's the one with the guy that had to live off of entering mail contests for a year, and at one point had nothing to eat but dog food.

By the way, how does the number of Japanese game development companies compare to the number of similar US companies? Statistically, if they're cranking out more games, then they're going to have more memorable hits among them. The problem with US gaming is that the market is too saturated with franchise and license cash grabs. I'm not sure if the same is true of the Japanese market, but it makes for some very lackluster games. (For reference, see Atari 2600 Pac-Man, E.T., etc.)

[lendelin]

Holy shmoly, this thread went astray with black-and-white pics! Read the original quote again, Inafune talked about the "style of making games" and there is a "more" in there too. This is not a radical statement, rather a thread gone wild with radical interpreatations of a modest statement.

The Americans are as creative as the Japanese and the Europeans, it's not about a qulitative list list of creativity.

Inafune didn't say a thing about deep gameplay either, and he didn't claim Japanese or American or European cultural creative superiority when it comes to games. He talked about "style," nothing more and nothing less.

For all of you who drew these carricature of American games, how do you explain that the Japanese game market is in a serious condition and the American market is not?

Are these Japanese gamers just plain dumb not to recognize the wonderful creative games they get offered?

Is Inafune dumb when he recognizes the necessity of going in new directions because MAYBE, just maybe Japanese publishers offered too much of the same, swamped the market with the same and have to look for new inspirations?

(and please don't escape over elitist clouds by saying THE Japanese developers produce for the "true" gaming mionority while THE American publishers produce for the mass market, which would be just plain dumb.)

It's amazing to me how easily national borders are drawn for a medium like games which have a remarkably universal appeal (like music, and unlike literature). That's one of the strenghths of games, despite cultural differences. What goes here sometimes doesn't go there, different traditions, there are value and attitude differences between countries, we all know them or should know them beyond stereotypes; but American games, Japanese games, European games have a remarkably world-wide appeal like music.

It's about "style," not deep gameplay or deep ideological difefrnces between countries, not about searching for examples which confirm unacceptable stereotypes, (the Eye Toy was indeed developed by Sony of Europe and not in Japan) not about a biased selection of games of different countries in order to paint a distorted picture.

It's about something which burns on our nails in Europe, USA, Canada, and Japan. It's about the change in style for games. Super Mario seems outdated and doesn't sell as well in the US AND Japan (SM Sunshine had disappointing sales figures in Japan). The new upcoming Zelda features a more "adult" Link with probably (!) more realistic violence, and these so-called wonderful Japanese developers who supposedly search for the holy grail of innocent, creative gameplay of the past gave us "splashy-flashy" games like Devil May Cry, Onimusha, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy X, etc.

Nah, there is no big difference between Japanese and American games overall, only subtle nuances when it comes to niche markets; It's about a change in game- and play-style which American developers picked up earlier and are a tad ahead of the Japanese developers; it's also about the broadening of the sociodemographics of game players which American developers (in particular EA) achieved and the Japanese market didn't to such an extent; the latter is a speculation!

Without knowing how certain games did exactly in BOTH markets, who exactly bought which games, how exactly the same game did in both markets, and without very specific sociodemographic data of Japanese gamers we can only speculate.

[lendelin]

Since we're on the subject of US v. Jap/EU games, the same argument applies to film. I'm stunned every time I hear someone say that foreign films (lumped together, of course) are more innovative and interesting that US films. Whether or not this is true, the fact still remains that only top foreign films get a worldwide release. If the only US films released were Oscar nominees, we'd be fawning over them as well.

I completely agree! This bashing of American movies compared to European movies is babble, and I say this as a German. The German movie industry is almost dead for four decades now becasue in the 60s and 70s the connection to the audience was lost, the French movie industry is in a beauty sleep for the same time. There are only two countries in the world with healthy and well-alive movie industries, the US and India. The US movies have world-wide appeal, while most Indian movies have restricted regional appeal, but play in immensely important role withiin the country.

The ideological trashing and hailing of European movies is based merely on the success and dominance of US movies worldwide. Let's face it, the Americans just make better movies, and German filmmakers if they want state of the art technology have to fly in experts from the US or produce partially in the US, that's how bad it is! That's not to say that European are less creative, it's merely that the creativity doesn't have a channel anymore.

[kainemaxwell]

If you think american developers are more creative, i got 3 words for you: the madden series

Four words right back: The Street Fighter series.

-- Z.

Can you say "Mega Man" boys and girls?

[Ed Oscuro]

One thing I wish to correct, if indeed that's what it is -

Inafune didn't say a thing about deep gameplay

Now, we Japanese have to learn from how Americans make games, to make it more of a movie experience. [Emphasis mine]

Beyond that, yes, I'm very much in Lendelin's camp of thinking here for the most part. The comment "It's amazing to me how easily national borders are drawn for a medium like games which have a remarkably universal appeal..."

However, I would point out the finish of the sentence -

(like music, and unlike literature). That's one of the strenghths of games, despite cultural differences.

While visual works such as games are more readily understood than translated literature, it's true that there is a cultural barrier for BOTH games and literature. Literature also tends to deal with issues which can be boiled down into the more classic themes of love, politics, war, technology and culture; its range is much wider - unlimited, in fact, since a computer/video game has certain expectations of construction and performance it must meet to actually be usable to a player. Books may be terribly written, but it's hard to mess them up completely. That said, we aren't talking about buggy games, we're talking about games vs. literature in general - and I feel that comparing the two isn't quite fair since games as we think of them are quite restricted by design. Games tend to have rigorous systems ensuring that effects have causes by design or user input; literature usually does not.

Literature can discuss three, two, one, or ZERO dimensional worlds (one and zero dimensions indicate an infinite line and a point, respectively), so right there we have a case where games simply must not break expected rules of design.

Nah, there is no big difference between Japanese and American games overall, only subtle nuances when it comes to niche markets;

I agree with this, but I must define it in my own fashion.

Japanese and American games both *do* the same things. Cel shading, bump mapping, Golden Age comic book art style vs. "anime" - these are HUGE differences, but in the grand scale of things very small. Both Japanese and American developers tend to focus on games where you control a single "unit," (or sending about individual units singly or in groups, as in an RTS), and that unit (or units) tends to be something mobile (even the two-way Joystick on my Stratovox machine allows the rocket launcher at the bottom to move around); it can do things or project influence within its world space (would you call the Game of Life a game after the point where you hit the "Go" button?), and of course there are (once again) expectations on the look of that world.

I'm fairly sure most of that is pretty obtuse and my writing style shot to pieces, but I expect and hope some of my points will shine through anyways.

[Aussie2B]

For all of you who drew these carricature of American games, how do you explain that the Japanese game market is in a serious condition and the American market is not?

Are these Japanese gamers just plain dumb not to recognize the wonderful creative games they get offered?

You're ignoring the fact that the Japanese economy is in a huge slump right now and that is a MAJOR factor in why the game industry there isn't doing as well as in the past. It's been reported that many gamers say they haven't been buying as many games because they can't AFFORD them. Not to mention games and music cost A LOT more there than in the US. A music CD will usually set you back the equivalent of 20-30 dollars, and a brand new PS2 game will usually be around 70 bucks.

Are these Japanese gamers just plain dumb not to recognize the wonderful creative games they get offered?It's about something which burns on our nails in Europe, USA, Canada, and Japan. It's about the change in style for games. Super Mario seems outdated and doesn't sell as well in the US AND Japan (SM Sunshine had disappointing sales figures in Japan). The new upcoming Zelda features a more "adult" Link with probably (!) more realistic violence, and these so-called wonderful Japanese developers who supposedly search for the holy grail of innocent, creative gameplay of the past gave us "splashy-flashy" games like Devil May Cry, Onimusha, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy X, etc.

C'mon, you KNOW that the violence in those kinds of games is TOTALLY different than in the typical violent American game. The blood and gore may be the same, but the themes are entirely different. Violent Japanese games tend to have a very mature, moody, dark fantasy theme in which you kill zombies, demons, monsters, etc. In American games, it's usually a much more realistic situation, such as a recreation of a real war or games in which you play a cop or a bad guy and you go around killing the other. You're not gonna see a Japanese game where you play Snoop Dogg and shoot at gang members, prostitutes, and mafia people anytime soon. :/

[lendelin]

One thing I wish to correct, if indeed that's what it is -

Inafune didn't say a thing about deep gameplay

Now, we Japanese have to learn from how Americans make games, to make it more of a movie experience. [Emphasis mine]

He talked about "style" and "movie experiences," not a change in basic gameplay, and I interpret it as perspectives during gameplay, mood settings by graphics, surprise effects by cahnging players perspectives, etc. which resemble movies. Same basic gameplay as before presented in a presumably more attarctive different style.

Beyond that, yes, I'm very much in Lendelin's camp of thinking here for the most part. The comment "It's amazing to me how easily national borders are drawn for a medium like games which have a remarkably universal appeal..."

However, I would point out the finish of the sentence -

Quote:
(like music, and unlike literature). That's one of the strenghths of games, despite cultural differences.

While visual works such as games are more readily understood than translated literature, it's true that there is a cultural barrier for BOTH games and literature. Literature also tends to deal with issues which can be boiled down into the more classic themes of love, politics, war, technology and culture; its range is much wider - unlimited, in fact, since a computer/video game has certain expectations of construction and performance it must meet to actually be usable to a player. Books may be terribly written, but it's hard to mess them up completely. That said, we aren't talking about buggy games, we're talking about games vs. literature in general - and I feel that comparing the two isn't quite fair since games as we think of them are quite restricted by design. Games tend to have rigorous systems ensuring that effects have causes by design or user input; literature usually does not.

Literature can discuss three, two, one, or ZERO dimensional worlds (one and zero dimensions indicate an infinite line and a point, respectively), so right there we have a case where games simply must not break expected rules of design.

Literature is language centered, games are not. We can live with bad translations in RPGs as long as we understand what's going on; if you have bad translations for poems, novels, or dramas it means the demise of an author in a country.

I could give you a long list of authors who weren't successful in a country merely based on terrible translations. Writers who are immigrants and have to live in another country have a terrible fate usually, they depend on good translations (besides cultural differences in tastes).

Directors and actors? Much easier for them, sometimes it's good to have an accent. Comedy slapstick comedians? No problem becasue the joke is visual and universally understood or rejected. Comedy and satyre which depends on words? They share the same fate as novelists and poets. Jerry Lewis was always popular in Europe, but I can't imagine a Loriot (a German comedian and writer who heavily depends on subtle and ironic language style) to be popular in America.

I agree mostly with your notions about differences of games and literature (important for aspects to play and not merely watch or read a story in a game), but they don't affect the problem I addressed.

I just wanted to point out how easily some others drew strict national borders for a medium like games which not only have a universal appeal like music, but (most of them) are created with a worldwide audience in mind surpassing national borders

.

[lendelin]

For all of you who drew these carricature of American games, how do you explain that the Japanese game market is in a serious condition and the American market is not?

Are these Japanese gamers just plain dumb not to recognize the wonderful creative games they get offered?

You're ignoring the fact that the Japanese economy is in a huge slump right now and that is a MAJOR factor in why the game industry there isn't doing as well as in the past. It's been reported that many gamers say they haven't been buying as many games because they can't AFFORD them. Not to mention games and music cost A LOT more there than in the US. A music CD will usually set you back the equivalent of 20-30 dollars, and a brand new PS2 game will usually be around 70 bucks.

This is what I wrote in my first post:

If we assume that other factors for the bad sales figures like the misery index (inflation, GDP, unemployment rate) aren't so important (BIG assumption then we have to look indeed into game quality and the conformity/innovation of genres.

...besides, America experienced an economic slow-down in the last couple of years as well, and the game industry did well; and even if the economic situation in Japan influences game sales (which is a given and it would be dumb to assume otherwise) Japanese publishers have to ask themselves how the industry did in comparison to other economic branches under the same conditions; I don't know about changes of record sales, electronics, PCs, cars, houses, etc. in comparison to videogames, but Iassume from what I read that videogames are not on a high priority list for consumers anymore. They are probably more affected by the economic situation than other branches of the entertainment industry; and then the big question is why, and how can we get on top of the priority list again.

Inafune knows the game market in Japan better than both of us together, and he knows which kind of games sell well and which didn't, and he probably knows which games and genres were recycled to death without giving the player the feeling to experience something new.

As much as I like traditional style RPGs from Japan, (look up the PS1 games of my games below), as much as I like the set-ups and themes, every genre can be beaten to death and looses it's appeal if nothing new is offered. You reach a saturation level at some point. Traditional RPGs were always much more popular in Japan than in America, but maybe values, tastes change in a way so they seem outdated and are just not bought anymore.

C'mon, you KNOW that the violence in those kinds of games is TOTALLY different than in the typical violent American game. The blood and Capone may be the same, but the themes are entirely different. Violent Japanese games tend to have a very mature, moody, dark fantasy theme in which you kill zombies, demons, monsters, etc. In American games, it's usually a much more realistic situation, such as a recreation of a real war or games in which you play a cop or a bad guy and you go around killing the other. You're not gonna see a Japanese game where you play Snoop Dogg and shoot at gang members, prostitutes, and mafia people anytime soon. :/

I think that's beside the point of what I wrote and Inafune addressed. To go into the direction of "more (!) movie experiences" deosn't mean more realistic violent settings for games. (besides, the Japanese as well as the Germans as loosers of the war fighting on the "wrong" side of history with the accompanied simplistic pacifistic culture developed after WWII cannot easily offer realistic war themes; the victors can)

The issue behind Inafunes quote is not a national issue at all, it's a universal one for games. Tastes and preferences for games have changed in all countries, and that means the search for new styles (presenting the games in a new way). American developers picked up earlier of the new trend and developed it further, nothing more and nothing less.

Jak II is the way to go, not Super Mario Sunshine, if we like it or not. Final Fanatsy X is the way to go, not Tales of Symphonia. Broadening of themes and complex stories referring to current issues simply played is the way to go, not alone fantasy settings and mythological historical events hundreds of years in the past. The latter will always be there (thank goodness), but themes, settings, and styles have to expand.

We experience the change in game style as a reflection of value and attitude changes for some time now. Two years ago I heard two 12 year olds discussing a game purchase in a game store, and the one guy said "not Super Mario Sunshine, it's so cheesy." With Jak 2 now they won't have any problems with the "cheesy" factor or "cool" factor, if we like it or not. As long as the new style providesthe same and great gameplay (and Jak 2 does), I have nothing against new styles of games which always come and go.