Japan is not the problem

I recently found this post at Kotaku, with an interview with Ryan Payton of Metal Gear Solid 4 fame. I’ve been reading about this guy for the last few months, mostly because of the MGS hype, I he seems to be quite cool and honest. I hope him the best with his new life, by the way.

But I digress. In that specific article I’m pointing you to, Ryan states that, while Japan might be the center of the gaming world money-wise, it’s certainly no longer in the development front. As basis of that statement is the apparent disinterest in HD gaming shown by the japanese gamers. Again, the base behind this statement is the less than impressive hardware sales for the Xbox360 and PlayStation 3 consoles.

If we read a little further, we find the following quote:

“It’s not about the tech in Japan, it’s about the games, it’s about nostalgia.”

This is the interesting part for me. Let’s get this straight: Japanese gamers have a historic, well-known aversion to western gaming hardware and software. It wasn’t until the Tales of Vesperia launch (a classic japanese-style RPG for those who haven’t heard of it) that the 360 saw real sales. That game alone moved thousands on consoles off the shelves, something not many games were able to do. So, finally a true japanese game arises and the western, HD-enabled console, sells out. Seems like the japanese didn’t hate western consoles nor HD graphics that much after all.

The problem here aren’t the hardware platforms or their origin per se. As Ryan points out in the previous quote, it is about the games not the hardware. Granted, it might have something to do with nostalgia, but that can be hardly considered a japanese-only characteristic. Chrono Trigger DS will sell a royal ass-ton all around the world and I bet my pants that any game called Duke Nukem will sell a lot too. And Duke isn’t japanese at all. Nostalgia sells all around the world.

Going back to the games, there’s a clear trend among triple-A developments: Blowing up stuff and kicking rear ends in glorious HD sells. It’s a fact, games like Halo or Gears of War are two clear examples of the western gaming tastes or, more specifically, the american gaming taste. Most western gamers will ignore pretty much every other game component if the game looks good too; you just have to read the comments about any Wii game at blogs like Kotaku, Destructoid or 1UP and you’ll find a few dozens of comments about how ugly the game looks just because it doesn’t feature fancy shader effects or doesn’t use the Unreal Engine 3. It’s surprising how many people seems to think they know what a 3D engine actually is…

The fun part is that all those shaders and millions of polygons with hi-res textures are, most of the times, used in yet another FPS or hot-kickass-chick beat’em up game (Boob physics never looked so good, indeed). Or american sports for that matter.

So my question is: That’s the direction the western gamedev is taking? And Japan is lagging behind because of this? This kind of developments are everything but innovative (except for a few exceptions of course): it’s the very same we’ve been seeing for the past years (decade?), but this time bigger, badder,  with more glitz and fireworks. In HD, of course.

Don’t get me wrong, technology is meant to evolve, and the power of the new consoles can, and most certainly should, be used to bring new worlds, new fantasies, new experiences that were plainly impossible with our previous technology. But I don’t see that. The technology is evolving much faster than our game ideas, and that shall bite us back in the not-so-distant future. Fortunately, the independent gamedev scene is gaining momentum and I want to see what can those talented developers bring to the table with proper budgets and development tools and processes.

I don’t want to keep going on because this is turning into a senseless rant, so I’ll shut up for the time being. Japan might be suffering of some nostalgia-induced stagnation, yes. But while our symptoms aren’t the same, we’re not doing much better.

The so-called next-gen hasn’t yet begun.