Japanese game creators>>>>>Western game creators

Am i alone in thinking that Japanese game creators still have their mind set on areas of gaming that really counts. I mean, we can debate whether or not their dominance is a thing or not, but what we cannot ignore is the fact that they still create the right gaming experiences. Devs at Nintendo still manage to make old franchises feel new, MGS games continue their proven path, platinum games are becoming an industry class, from Software as well with the Dark Souls games among many others i fail to mention.

I am of the impression that western game creators are more focused on how to make money first, then decide how to design the game around that philosophy in comparison to the games from japan which focus on game first, then the money after. Maybe i am alone with this thinking, share your thoughts?

Eh. NO.

All these developers were/are miles better and relevant than any *** dev over there.

Bioware, when they were good (Baldur´s Gate 1/2, The KOTOR, Mass Effect 1/2, Dragon Age),

Interplay (Fallout 1/2)

Rockstar (GTA 1-5)

Bethesda (Fallout 3, Skyrim, Dishonored)

Eidos (Deus Ex 1/3, Thief 1/2/3, Commandos 1/2/3)

Naughty Dog (Uncharted 2, TLOU)

Bungie (Halo 1/2/3/4)

Ubisoft Montreal (AC2, AC:Brotherhood, AC:Black Flag, Far Cry3)

CD Project (Witcher 1/2)

Blizzard (Warcraft 1/2,3, StarCraft 1/2, WoW, Diablo 1/2)

Valve (Half Life 1/2, Portal 1/2, Left4Dead 1/2, Counter Strike)

omg! I think exactly the same thing, almost word by word! specially the part where you said western devs prioritize on how can they sell a game first while Japanese devs prioritize on how are they gonna make the game a good experience, but ofcourse not all devs

Eh sure...like Capcom that ruined RE franchise and doesn´t stop milking Street Fighter or Square Enix that ruined Final Fantasy...

Bethesda published dishonored, not dev it I thought. Halo 4 wasn't Bungie

both make wonderful games, but the Japanese dev's need to get back to what they are good at (the majority of them) and nintendo still go from strength to strength on the gameplay front where as squeenix are too desperate to capture a western market who just want final fantasy games as good as the golden days and a shift away from the terrible games like xiii.

both sides of the coins have their good and bad, but this gen its been a more prominent push in western developers making good games sicne the whole stigmatism bout gaming being geeky,niche etc has finally started dying off in the mainstream.

Not to mention a western companies product as one of the market leaders in the US and some european territories last gen would have helped the western devs gain a bit more ground aswell.

like I said, not all devs, there are still some Japanese devs who tries to westernize their games and fail

EAD Tokyo>>>>>>>>> everyone except storytelling

If it was 1986 you would be right. But it is 2014 and western devs are seen as a joke.

Yep, you're alone in that thinking.

If anything... I feel you accidently mixed those two up..

Western developers in 1986?

Japan dominated for a long time it has not been until recently that the western style of games has started taking over....

There's nothing "western" about trying to milk a franchise. Capcom has been doing it since the 16-bit era, remember all the street fighter games?

Both Japanese and Western developers focus too much on micro-transactions. Hell remember that the Sega Dreamcast was the first console to include "DLC" that was already on the disc, by a Sega game of all things.

I'd say Western developers are generally superior these days with more games, more genres and an overall better quality

I think he got them mixed up too, but just as a clarification, Western developers were pretty strong in 1986, it's just that they made computer games instead of consoles games

As much as i like ff and mgs no just no.

@megaspiderweb09: i actually like both for different reasons. The Japanese market usually come up with some crazy type of games like Catherine, Seaman, etc..while American games continue to cater to my childhood gaming enthusiam. I like both Eastern & Western RPG's. So for me it's pretty close. I'd say I play 60% Western & 40% Eastern games.

Yeah and SquareEnix recently announcing that Tomb Raider: Definitely Edition will be $60. lol!! Why, it's the same game with some minor extra content and a higher resolution. Japanese developers and publisher are more about the money today then when they were back in the 1980's. when it cost them just a couple $100K to make one game.

What is the right gaming experience? It's much more a preference thing and varies from person to person. I used to like many Japanese games back in the Nintendo-Sega days. But, I started finding Western games more appealing and gradually tilted towards the latter. Nowadays, I barely look at Japanese games except for those I play with my kids.

No,not even close.

They make the best horror games. There's really no debate about that.

Also Zone of The Enders: The 2nd Runner is one of my top 3 all time favourite games.

So yeah to some extent I do enjoy Japanese games a lot I just wish more were localised, like the Gundam games :(.

When was the last good horror they made?

That is true, but the majority of them were not that great in my opinion and several were knock offs or rehashed rehashes... lol

I don't really even consider PC gaming when I think of gaming in general... I separate console and PC gaming as two separate commodities.

I think it is safe to say that Western games are A LOT more known and prevalent now then they were over 20 years ago.

I'm with you OP.

This was true maybe 5-10+ years ago, but these days Japanese devs are pretty close to dead. Which is unfortunate because I prefer Japanese-made games rather than the same crap that Western ones provide every holiday.

There's a certain something about Japanese developed titles that just doesn't jibe with me. Resident Evil 5, MGR Revengeance, Lost Planet 2- the list goes on- there is just something a little... off... in the presentation. They just don't feel natural in their execution. The funny thing, though, is that I never noticed it- that is, I would never stop and realize the game I was playing was a Japanese title- until this generation.

And to the dude complaining about Street Fighter, remember that there were 5 different versions of Street Fighter 2- Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior, Championship Edition, Hyper Fighting, Super Street Fighter 2, and Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo.

No they really didn't.

That's even more untrue than 1986.

Well, Atlus is one of the best publishers/ devs in the business. I have loved every product of theirs that I have played, although I haven't played nearly as many as I would like. I also dig JRPGs, and other Japanese type games. That being said, most (not all) of the games on my 360 are by western devs, and I enjoy the majority of them. Overall, though I'd say I like Japanese a bit more.

Although I find that a lot of the "big name" western devs are really overrated, especially ones like Rockstar, who can make incredible technical achievements but not fun games.

Lol no.

Maybe 20+ years ago this would have been arguable. Now it's not even close.

Sorry TC, but Western devs pretty much outpace Japanese devs in every way for a long time now.

From my experience yes

Japan: super polished and focused on quality gameplay and design. It feels like they develop a good gameplay experience first then build the setting and story around it.

Western: less polished and focused on either too many elements or a cinematic experience over a strong gameplay foundation. It feels like the plot and setting is developed first and then the stick the gameplay in after.

Of course this is a massive generalization and I love a lot of devs from both sides (my two favourite devs are actually western), but overall this is how I feel about it.

Japan will never be on top again unless they actually make an attempt at modernizing their games. There are no excuses for having clunky, terrible UIs and outdated gameplay in 2014

Compare the UI from a game like Pikmin 3 and Mario 3D World to the UI of your average Xbox One first party game. It's no contest. Japanese do UI better. And outdated gameplay? How does gameplay become outdated?

....... only true of nintendo. mot of Sony's SUCCESSFUL first parties are western.

how can you even say this when japan just churns out same old JRPGs? that have done CRAP this generation. other than nintendo, and say dark souls? and the occasional tales games...

japan is becoming less relevant outside of handhelds.

.... really.... mario is such a simple game getting it wrong would be special bus material.

On average? no

Their best stuff can easily compete with the best triple A western game. In fact I usually prefer it.

*scratches head* anything in the last few years? The souls games maybe?

Also what you're talking about is maybe 1 or 2 Japanese games for every 10, maybe 20, hell even 30 Western games and people can point to certain niche games that 20 people care about and safe in the knowledge that no one else has played and scream "What about this?!?" in reply, but we all know that those aren't to the same production standards.

Naw, they are both really good and generally bring a different flavour to gaming. I like both. When they are both on the top of their game, they are pretty equal.

This pretty much.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/9159905.stm

"In 2002, it is estimated that Japan accounted for nearly 50% of the world's gaming market. That has now fallen to around 10%"

I think the figures above speak for themselves. Japan did dominate the gaming industry for a long time, even in 2002, let alone 1986... But what's even more surprising is how its market share declined almost four-fold in under a decade.

I'm talking best against best. Great on great. Bayonetta was fantastic, the Galaxy games were fantastic, Zelda is a very good game this year, The Souls games are a givenl, Catherine is a very unique game, Street Fighter and Virtua Fighter were excellent fighting games, valkyria chronicles and when in the **** do I care about production value? I'm not of the mindset that every year has 5-10 great games. It's more like 2, maybe 3 on a really amazing year. Otherwise it's more really good stuff, than great.

And the good stuff this gen on average is in the wests favor. But The best of the best games this gen, I think Japan had a healthy for one country vs all those other regions. Especially when the best work from the West if anything was stuff from the indie side and not their triple A production value games that are purely flash over substance in the game design department. Nevermind their desire to tell me a shitty videogame story. I'm not arguing quantity, that goes without saying. I'm saying that of the games I found great this past gen, there were plenty of Japanese games that I felt more than held their own.

Plus popularity? really? Come on blue, you're better than this.

Yep... thanks for pulling that out man. I would have done the work, but didn't know if it was worth my time... lol

Always found it odd to compare Japan to pretty much the rest of the gaming world (America, Europe, Canada, etc.)

Depends on what you want really:

If you want a great game that has good gameplay and a compelling enough story concept to get you through = Japanese

If you want your games to start being like every American film with cheesy one liners and explosions. And you want to play with friends via multiplayer = western

You brought up "triple A", so I was responding to that :P

Many of my fav games recently have comparably bugger all production value - Football manager, Crusader Kings 2, FTL, XCOM, Bloodbowl etc (you should check out how many hrs I've blown on some of those on steam, almost all in single player lol ) along with some of the bigger ones like TW and GTA.

Also in no list ever should Blehomehta ever be used close to the words "great" and/or "best" without the addendum "definitely not the". As a list though I don't think those stack up over the same time period as even close to what you're seeing in the US, let alone the West as a whole. Of course, at the end of the day its all down to personal taste.

maybe 15 years ago but JPN devs have been irrelevant for nearly 10 years now.

Please don't confuse all western games with consolised shooter/action games...

Oh yeah, i meant triple A more like the big you know the industry way of saying "triple A game". You know the 60 dollar retail game that better sell buckets to make back its money. And yeah man FTL is dope as ****.

Again if we're arguing quantity? the west won by a landslide of pure good games and even more great games(probably). But my top 10 would have a healthy showing of Japanese games. And yeah **** Bethesda. Average ass developer being paraded around as something impressive.

@jg4xchamp: Well as my top 10 would pretty much all be strategy and WRPG's + RDR I'm guessing we'd very different lists and prob why we have different views :D

EDIT although the walking dead might sneak in there. Top 10 lists are really tough for me!