Why Don't Japanese Developers Make First-Person Shooters?

Ever wonder why not many Japanese developers make westernized games? Well a few of the industry’s leaders take center stage and speak to that very question. The answers are quite surprising and shockingly reasonable during this years Infinity Ventures Summit.

Reported by Rocket News 24, Yasufumi Ono states that “the market share of Japanese companies has shrunk to just 30 percent in North America and Europe, and to a paltry 13 percent worldwide.” The difference between Japanese games, and the games created in the US and in Europe are almost black and white.

President of Sega Networks and Sammy Networks, Harunori Satomi, says  “Europeans and North Americans like strong people, so the main character has to be a fully-grown, middle-aged man.” One can only assume he is speaking in generalizations, as titles like Telltale’s, The Walking Dead stars a young, black female lead, and has won multiple awards, including 2012’s Game of the Year.



Satomi continues, “On the other hand, in Asia, people like stories about middle or high school students growing up or becoming stronger….” He then asserts “only the countries that won World War II, play war-based video games.” He also draws comparisions to the rest of our media-consumption with a fascination of war.

Kenji Kobayashi - who spoke for a rapidly-growing mobile game developer DeNA - expresses his thoughts, saying “Japanese companies can’t make a game like Skyrim. In an open world game like that, you can spend 30 minutes playing and still not have any idea what you should do next. I think Japanese gamers prefer having a more defined route to the story for them to follow."

It would appear some of the top Japanese game developers have an interesting outlook at the western market. With a whopping 13% market penetration, there’s not much room for error.  Hopefully this isn’t the beginning of the end for Japanese development as we know it.

@Coatedpolecat