Lost Planet producer concerned over Japan's "isolationism"
- February 02, 2007 11:02 AM PST
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Lost Planet producer Jun Takeuchi expresses his concern for Japanese "game development isolationism."
"A lot of Japanese developers have pretty much given up, and just focus on making games for Japan," states Lost Planet producer Jun Takeuchi in a recent interview with offical Lost Planet blogger, Brian Dunn. According to the interview, Takeuchi fears a serious decline in volume and quality due to what he calls "game development isolationism", in which Japanese developers shun the idea of universal appeal and instead regress towards making games strictly for the Japanese market.
"I think western developers borrowed and learned from Japanese developers all those years when Japan was ahead. They built on that and just blazed ahead on their own. There's so many new, creative, inventive games coming out in the west. [...] But one thing I think Japanese developers need to learn from western developers, and this includes Capcom but I think we are already trying to learn, is basically the definition of 'entertainment' when it comes to video games."
"And even though some Japanese companies may still think they're on top, all you have to do is look at the data and you see that Japanese games only account for 1/3 of the market share in the US and Europe. So I wonder why some developers choose to ignore everyone outside of Japan", he then adds.
Takeuchi then criticizes the Japanese industry for its propensity to fall back on "big" franchises:
"People say that RPGs are popular in Japan, but really it's the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy series that do well. There aren't really any other big RPG series besides those two, that do really well, anyway. So I think that if this trend continues, Japanese developers will just rely on those few big franchises. Japanese developers have to explore new territory, carve out new genres, try to make games that have universal appeal."
"If western developers started making games aimed at the Japanese market, competing for the market share," he concludes, "a lot of Japanese developers might have a hard time competing."
Bungie making a high school dating sim? Man, I would so totally pay to see that.
