Writing an academic book chapter on danmaku games, have qs!

[MaasBiolabs]

Hi folks,

So, I find myself writing a chapter for an upcoming academic book entitled "Video Games in East Asia"; my chapter is about shmups/danmaku games, their origins in Japan, expansion outside Japan, the online competition for high scores and world records (this forum gets mentioned a few times), and a few other topics. It's going well, and it's nearly finished, but I realize there are a few things that I probably need to crowd-source to ensure I don't make any mistakes. I've only been in (or interested in) this community for around two years, and so I have a few questions I'm hoping somebody will be able to answer.

1) Are there any works out there that give a detailed analysis of danmaku games in Japan specifically? History, presence in arcades, Japan-only record competition, etc? This is probably the most important question of the bunch, and any source, regardless of how much information, about specifically these games *in the Japanese context*, particularly in the Japanese *arcade* context, would be fantastic.

2) Are any of the world records for the most major/well-played/famous games (Ikaruga, DDP, Mushi, etc) held by non-Japanese players?

3) Are there any other score boards beyond this one for danmaku/shmup high scores?

Thanks folks! Will keep you updated with the book/chapter as we move forward...

[DoomsDave]

1) Are there any works out there that give a detailed analysis of danmaku games in Japan specifically? History, presence in arcades, Japan-only record competition, etc? This is probably the most important question of the bunch, and any source, regardless of how much information, about specifically these games *in the Japanese context*, particularly in the Japanese *arcade* context, would be fantastic.

I'm sure you've probably seen this already but I'll post it just in case you haven't. It's French with English subs.

Japan: History of Shooting Game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AHhkq7p3Qw

[Erppo]

abschüssig held the record for Homura for a while. Not sure how you define "major", but it's an arcade game so the level is high.
iconoclast had the best known score for one SDOJ ship for some time, but it was an active game so it may or may not have been a world record.

[HydrogLox]

You probably know about this one already - though it's more about arcades in general, so shooting games are only part of the story:

100 Yen The Japanese Arcade Experience
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PfK2v02Pnk

Discussion/critique thread:
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=33811

You may be further ahead by disclosing which sources your are already referencing so that only the missing ones are posted.

[MaasBiolabs]

Thanks folks! Re: the two documentaries, I have seen the first, but not the second.

In terms of sources already used: basically only academic sources thus far. There are a few pieces in journals discussing arcade games generally, the odd book here and there, a few sources about skill/mastery/learning, some useful comparisons with eSports and speedrunning. It's much more the thing of thing posted in this thread I'm after: documentaries, fan-made pieces, that kind of thing, which I want to balance out the more scholarly analysis with some other content (and, indeed, to an extent I'm trying to write the first academic chapter *specifically* focused on danmaku, so obviously primary sources are needed!). I'm using quite a few threads from this forum too; just threads which I think illustrate interesting things about strategy discussion, scoring, etc.

abschüssig held the record for Homura for a while. Not sure how you define "major", but it's an arcade game so the level is high.
iconoclast had the best known score for one SDOJ ship for some time, but it was an active game so it may or may not have been a world record.

Interesting! I'm defining major as just the games which have the highest levels of competition. Obviously that's never going to be formalized/codified anywhere, but I don't think it's too tricky to judge which are which, generally. Thanks for those two examples, I'll look into those...

[Erppo]

I think arcade / non-arcade is clearly the biggest step in competition level. The very top level of players tends to come from the Japanese arcade scene and they rarely pay much attention to games not available in arcades. While the level obviously varies between arcade games too, it can be taken for granted that all of them will eventually have records of pretty high level. The overall records for Cave's arcade games are probably the strongest scores there are and the other major developers won't be far behind.

[pbsk8]

Great book and it presents an interview with tsuneki ikeda as well.

Besides other genres like ufo catcher and card games.

[Shepardus]

Regarding #3, there's Restart Syndrome, and for Touhou specifically there's MotK and Royalflare.

Going by this list there don't seem to be many world records held by non-Japanese players besides counterstops. chum holds most of the Touhou 12.8 (Fairy Wars) records though.

[Pretas]

Great book and it presents an interview with tsuneki ikeda as well.

I have that book, it's typical Brian Ashcraft Kotaku weeaboo shit. He managed to get a hold of some great interview subjects, but generally fails to ask them any actual interesting questions that aren't common knowledge or with obvious answers, and takes extended unnecessary detours into print club machines and UFO catchers just to indulge his well-known Japanese schoolgirl fetish.

The one thing that comes close to redeeming it is a rare interview with the owner of the now-defunct Shibuya Kaikan arcade, alongside an overview of what the place was like. And maybe the amusing anecdote of Bashcraft peeping on some salarymen illegally gambling over mahjong.

[gray117]

I'd be very wary of ending up with 'Video Games in East Asia, According to Westerners' ... I suppose you just have to trust you have to just trust your editors on that front though since you're only doing a section. Of course, it's practically an inevitability on a practical level, but avoiding that kind of non justified/authoritative tone can be quite important - Interviews and supporting source materials are a prime way to help avoid this perception/feeling/tone.

Also I would not describe it as an academic book, since the research objectives are somewhat vague at best [by necessity when putting together a compendium in this manner, unless they're retrospectively going to shape this material into a specific thesis?], and with the greatest respect I would not think that crowd sourcing under this kind of environment really counts as academic peer review.

... Not being a dick, but I know first hand how easy (and self defeating) it can be to use such terminology loosely.

[MaasBiolabs]

Thanks all!

Re: the arcades in Japan book, I appreciate the two perspectives on it. I have been trying to get hold of a copy and one is in the post to me now, so I'll see how it goes...

I think arcade / non-arcade is clearly the biggest step in competition level. The very top level of players tends to come from the Japanese arcade scene and they rarely pay much attention to games not available in arcades. While the level obviously varies between arcade games too, it can be taken for granted that all of them will eventually have records of pretty high level. The overall records for Cave's arcade games are probably the strongest scores there are and the other major developers won't be far behind.

Thanks; this is pretty much what I thought, but i appreciate the confirmation. Interestingly, my own investigations had suggested that Cave + Ikaruga/RS/etc would be those with the most optimized scores, but I'll look into this again.

Regarding #3, there's Restart Syndrome, and for Touhou specifically there's MotK and Royalflare.

Going by this list there don't seem to be many world records held by non-Japanese players besides counterstops. chum holds most of the Touhou 12.8 (Fairy Wars) records though.

Thanks for the Restart Syndrome page; hadn't heard of that one. The high score list I came across before and has yielded a lot of useful data (in a way for what isn't there, as much as what is there).

I'd be very wary of ending up with 'Video Games in East Asia, According to Westerners' ... I suppose you just have to trust you have to just trust your editors on that front though since you're only doing a section. Of course, it's practically an inevitability on a practical level, but avoiding that kind of non justified/authoritative tone can be quite important - Interviews and supporting source materials are a prime way to help avoid this perception/feeling/tone.

Certainly a risk, but I believe some chapters are from Japanese academics. The full list of chapters hasn't been yet released to contributors, since they normally wait until doing a second peer review on the paper, as well as the proposal, so I'll know soon enough.

Also I would not describe it as an academic book, since the research objectives are somewhat vague at best [by necessity when putting together a compendium in this manner, unless they're retrospectively going to shape this material into a specific thesis?],

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by "I would not describe it as an academic book". The call for papers was posted on an academic mailing list, I submitted an academic abstract, the book is edited by academics, I'm an academic, and all the chapters are expected to be written academically (referencing, citations, formatting, length, theory, method), and it is being published by an academic press. So... I'm not sure how it could be more of "an academic book". It's an edited collection (a very common thing in academia), of which I'm writing one chapter. I think I may have given the wrong impression about the purpose of this thread: as I stated in my original message, the chapter is essentially finished. I posted here to see if I could scoop up any useful sources of data I'd missed in my own sweep/search. An edited collection is no less "academic" than a single book with a single thesis

and with the greatest respect I would not think that crowd sourcing under this kind of environment really counts as academic peer review.

Again, perhaps I gave the wrong impression. Peer review has taken place on my proposal for a chapter, and will take place again after I submit.

... Not being a dick, but I know first hand how easy (and self defeating) it can be to use such terminology loosely.

Not sure what terminology you mean! Again, with all respect, I wouldn't be writing this chapter if it wasn't an academic book. I'm a postdoc, my writing time is precious and short, and wouldn't have committed a month to writing this piece it wasn't being published in an academic edited collection that can go on the CV. It's an academic paper, albeit in a book, rather than a journal.

[Skykid]

Thanks all!

Re: the arcades in Japan book, I appreciate the two perspectives on it. I have been trying to get hold of a copy and one is in the post to me now, so I'll see how it goes...
one.

It's wack, I wouldn't use that for academic anything.

[jepjepjep]

Thanks; this is pretty much what I thought, but i appreciate the confirmation. Interestingly, my own investigations had suggested that Cave + Ikaruga/RS/etc would be those with the most optimized scores, but I'll look into this again.

You may want to get into contact with forum member Gemant. He created a database of top scores of many arcade games from Japanese sources, and probably could offer a lot of knowledge on this subject. ARCA Project: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=50388

The Japanese arcade scene has seemed to really push the limits on many games, not just CAVE and Treasure.

[MaasBiolabs]

Thanks all!

Re: the arcades in Japan book, I appreciate the two perspectives on it. I have been trying to get hold of a copy and one is in the post to me now, so I'll see how it goes...
one.

It's wack, I wouldn't use that for academic anything.

Oh dear... my field (i.e. game studies) is generally quite willing to use non-academic sources, with an acknowledgement that these are non-academic sources, but I won't get my hopes up.

You may want to get into contact with forum member Gemant. He created a database of top scores of many arcade games from Japanese sources, and probably could offer a lot of knowledge on this subject. ARCA Project: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=50388

The Japanese arcade scene has seemed to really push the limits on many games, not just CAVE and Treasure.

That's really interesting, thanks. I'll give him a shout!

[CStarFlare]

Regarding #3, there's Restart Syndrome, and for Touhou specifically there's MotK and Royalflare.

Going by this list there don't seem to be many world records held by non-Japanese players besides counterstops. chum holds most of the Touhou 12.8 (Fairy Wars) records though.

The French shmup site has a very active high score section as well.

http://forum.shmup.com/viewforum.php?f= ... 52006aa445

IIRC they use an automated system similar to Restart Syndrome to generate their scoreboards so it's a mix of the two approaches.

There's a Chinese site that tracks scores, but I don't have the link on hand.

Am I wrong in thinking there's a healthy scene in Italy too? It sticks out in my mind but I can't think of a specific community. Maybe I'm just thinking of Gemant.

EDIT: I don't know that we have any arcade record holders but we have a few console record holders and a handful of people who are top tier in arcade games (GUS, ben shinobi, more?) though not quite the top.

[gray117]

and with the greatest respect I would not think that crowd sourcing under this kind of environment really counts as academic peer review.

Again, perhaps I gave the wrong impression. Peer review has taken place on my proposal for a chapter, and will take place again after I submit.

My bad it was I who had the wrong impression - had no idea it would be so thoroughly worked on. My (obviously patronising) worry was that you'd end up either finding your work in awkward context and/or the whole book subject to unfair expectations. I must say this has raised my interest in the book!

As mentioned despite being well represented the kotaku book is certainly more a surface-level-puff-curiosity-blog-journo-read, and perfectly decent for that - that's what Ashcraft does after all - but doesn't delve into much detail or analysis. I blithely assumed, although more substantial, this would be more the kind of thing the book would be - something more for the coffee table than the bookshelf

A single thesis is not a qualifier for academic standards, but would typically be valuable in framing a study (i.e. the whole book) as an academic endeavour if the submissions were coming in all shapes and sizes... An evaluation, or objective, typically being the academic component of such documentation. But it sounds like each submission will be more thoroughly a study in it's own right, or at least a properly contextualised interview/opinion piece, than I had imagined.

Exciting stuff!

[MaasBiolabs]

Regarding #3, there's Restart Syndrome, and for Touhou specifically there's MotK and Royalflare.

Going by this list there don't seem to be many world records held by non-Japanese players besides counterstops. chum holds most of the Touhou 12.8 (Fairy Wars) records though.

The French shmup site has a very active high score section as well.

http://forum.shmup.com/viewforum.php?f= ... 52006aa445

IIRC they use an automated system similar to Restart Syndrome to generate their scoreboards so it's a mix of the two approaches.

There's a Chinese site that tracks scores, but I don't have the link on hand.

Am I wrong in thinking there's a healthy scene in Italy too? It sticks out in my mind but I can't think of a specific community. Maybe I'm just thinking of Gemant.

EDIT: I don't know that we have any arcade record holders but we have a few console record holders and a handful of people who are top tier in arcade games (GUS, ben shinobi, more?) though not quite the top.

Thanks! That's all awesome. I didn't know there was an active sub-site, as it were, for French players and potentially other countries too. I'm actually in the process of widening my examination of well-known players, so GUS and Ben will fall into that!

My bad it was I who had the wrong impression - had no idea it would be so thoroughly worked on. My (obviously patronising) worry was that you'd end up either finding your work in awkward context and/or the whole book subject to unfair expectations. I must say this has raised my interest in the book!

As mentioned despite being well represented the kotaku book is certainly more a surface-level-puff-curiosity-blog-journo-read, and perfectly decent for that - that's what Ashcraft does after all - but doesn't delve into much detail or analysis. I blithely assumed, although more substantial, this would be more the kind of thing the book would be - something more for the coffee table than the bookshelf

A single thesis is not a qualifier for academic standards, but would typically be valuable in framing a study (i.e. the whole book) as an academic endeavour if the submissions were coming in all shapes and sizes... An evaluation, or objective, typically being the academic component of such documentation. But it sounds like each submission will be more thoroughly a study in it's own right, or at least a properly contextualised interview/opinion piece, than I had imagined.

Exciting stuff!

Not a problem - we're good : ). I'll be sure to post back here once it is published! I'd expect ~10 chapters? Oh, yes, it's very each submission is its own thing. I'm sure when the editors write the intro they'll do that usual thing for edited collections of trying to find some connections between the papers beyond the obvious East Asia + Games, but we'll have to see how substantial that'll be, and whether any themes emerge organically from the papers people submit.

[Chaos]

There's a Chinese site that tracks scores, but I don't have the link on hand.

http://www.niyaozao.com/Ranking/index.html

[MaasBiolabs]

There's a Chinese site that tracks scores, but I don't have the link on hand.

http://www.niyaozao.com/Ranking/index.html

Thanks!

[ProjectAKo]

Regarding #3, there's Restart Syndrome, and for Touhou specifically there's MotK and Royalflare.

Going by this list there don't seem to be many world records held by non-Japanese players besides counterstops. chum holds most of the Touhou 12.8 (Fairy Wars) records though.

The French shmup site has a very active high score section as well.

http://forum.shmup.com/viewforum.php?f= ... 52006aa445

IIRC they use an automated system similar to Restart Syndrome to generate their scoreboards so it's a mix of the two approaches.

There's a Chinese site that tracks scores, but I don't have the link on hand.

Am I wrong in thinking there's a healthy scene in Italy too? It sticks out in my mind but I can't think of a specific community. Maybe I'm just thinking of Gemant.

EDIT: I don't know that we have any arcade record holders but we have a few console record holders and a handful of people who are top tier in arcade games (GUS, ben shinobi, more?) though not quite the top.

I thought someone had a record in Mushi? With a lesser used pilot or something, don't remember the details.

[CStarFlare]

The only thing I can think of is RBS's Ultra Novice score in Mushi Futari. GUS has a Futari Ultra counterstop but got it a couple years after K.K did. To my knowledge there's no one else at the top.

I can't think of anyone outside Japan who'd qualify as even a high-level Mushi 1 player. Our scoreboards here at least tend to have records that are less than half of the WRs in their respective categories (Original excepted, for obvious reasons). It's hard to say there's lesser played categories in Mushi 1 since shot type isn't fixed for the whole game.

[ProjectAKo]

The only thing I can think of is RBS's Ultra Novice score in Mushi Futari. GUS has a Futari Ultra counterstop but got it a couple years after K.K did. To my knowledge there's no one else at the top.

I can't think of anyone outside Japan who'd qualify as even a high-level Mushi 1 player. Our scoreboards here at least tend to have records that are less than half of the WRs in their respective categories (Original excepted, for obvious reasons). It's hard to say there's lesser played categories in Mushi 1 since shot type isn't fixed for the whole game.

Yeah I found the thread I was thinking of. I should probably spell the game name correctly so we're talking about the same game, I kinda forgot mushihime existed http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=48817

[MaasBiolabs]

Our scoreboards here at least tend to have records that are less than half of the WRs in their respective categories (Original excepted, for obvious reasons). It's hard to say there's lesser played categories in Mushi 1 since shot type isn't fixed for the whole game.

This is very interesting: why is that, and how are the records therefore known/mediated? I know there are magazines etc in Japan, and records kept in some of the top arcades, but are those the only methods used to keep track? It's interesting to me that it seems (to a Western observer) far less codified than a single, centralized store of records/scores.

[XYX]

There is a site somewhere with all the Japanese developer interviews translated. Maybe someone else here knows where that is?

[Shepardus]

There is a site somewhere with all the Japanese developer interviews translated. Maybe someone else here knows where that is?

Shmuplations?

[CStarFlare]

Our scoreboards here at least tend to have records that are less than half of the WRs in their respective categories (Original excepted, for obvious reasons). It's hard to say there's lesser played categories in Mushi 1 since shot type isn't fixed for the whole game.

This is very interesting: why is that, and how are the records therefore known/mediated? I know there are magazines etc in Japan, and records kept in some of the top arcades, but are those the only methods used to keep track? It's interesting to me that it seems (to a Western observer) far less codified than a single, centralized store of records/scores.

The west, as a whole, doesn't seem to hit the level of dedication/skill that Japan does. The reasons are debated but speaking generally it falls on a difference in culture: we tend to be less dedicated, we're spread out so don't get to watch each other play and develop in an arcade setting, I imagine very few of us have been playing seriously for more than a decade, and so on. Dedication is the big one - I think it was NAK who claimed he could have bought his own PCB of Mushihimesama Futari Black Label with the money he spent playing in the arcade over the first few months? That level of dedication, coupled with the fact that some of these players remember playing Gradius when it was new, typically puts Japan's world record holders on another level.

For arcade games, Arcadia seems to be the Bible of WR scores. It's got its quirks - IIRC they rank by progress THEN score, so if someone scores 26 million but doesn't clear he won't take the top spot over someone who scored 24 and cleared. And if someone scored a 25 million clear at an arcade that isn't part of Arcadia's program, or does it on a console port, etc. isn't going to be considered, either. Someone who's more familiar with how Arcadia manages their records should confirm.

Otherwise, there's unofficial sources - blogs, twitter, 2chan? With the advent of online games leaderboards are a big help, but a #1 on a leaderboard isn't necessarily a WR and isn't necessarily valid. Gemant's list might be the closest thing there is to a curated, centralized list - he's probably the person to talk to regarding sources of WR info.

IMO, an "official" centralized list of scores is an impossible task. Anything that proclaims to be official needs to have standards and verifications in place, and it's not practical to put those in place nationwide (or worldwide). And those standards might shut out records that you consider valid, or accept records you consider less than ironclad. On these forums we're pretty loose with putting PCB, MAME, and port scores all on the same scoreboard for competitive purposes, but that's not acceptable practice everywhere.

Consider Donpachi, which was recently counterstopped with a video provided as proof, but it seems it was done in MAME. There's nothing obviously suspect about the video, but the player has in the past admitted to falsifying scores. Should that be enshrined as the record, or does the imperfect nature of emulation and the abuses it enables make it unworthy of consideration for the title of World Record? Here we'd be carrying him on our shoulders and spraying champagne on the player. Arcadia probably wouldn't even mention it.

[XYX]

There is a site somewhere with all the Japanese developer interviews translated. Maybe someone else here knows where that is?

Shmuplations?

Legend! That's the one http://shmuplations.com/

[MaasBiolabs]

There is a site somewhere with all the Japanese developer interviews translated. Maybe someone else here knows where that is?

Shmuplations?

Ah, yes, been on shmuplations before! A really interesting site, thanks for reminding me about it!

Super interesting stuff

Very interesting analysis. Most of what you said in your first paragraph I've covered in the chapter; dedication is an interesting one, and I think I'd need to perform some serious ethnographic research to look more closely into that question (which is beyond the scope of this particularly chapter/paper). What a curious scoring mechanism, but that's intriguing too; actually fits really nicely into something I'm talking about in the chapter about the idea of the "champion" in eSports vs the idea of the "record" in high scores/speedrunning. A big part of the chapter is about exactly what you described on the vagueness of records, uncertainty about whether the highest score on a board is actually the record, etc (that's the main middle section about the epistemology of "a world record"). I'm not sure about the requisite legalities, but if I can post a copy of the chapter online once it's done, I will!

So: thanks folks, this has been an awesome discussion to supplement (and double-check the veracity of) my own research. Feel free to add anything else you think is useful/relevant to the topics I described in the top post, but at this point I'm pretty much "done" with the chapter and just editing, perfecting it, etc.

[gray117]

For those interested I think the 'Video Games in East Asia' has become two titles and are due out soon - fingers crossed for december:

'Transnational Contexts of Development History, Sociality, and Society of Play: Video Games in East Asia'

'Transnational Contexts of Culture, Gender, Class and Colonialism in Play: Video Games in East Asia'

Personally very interested in these now that objective seems directing the work towards efforts examining the nature of 'play'. A conceit that has fascinated me ever since I was , an anxious 18 year old student devouring Marshall McLuhan's thoughts on what could be said to constitute a 'game'.

[Nameschonvergeben]

for 2)
Cactu holds the world record for touhou 6 on lunatic and Sakurei holds the record for touhou 8 extra. While they are not arcade games, the competition in those categories is probably still comparable to most of them. (the most popular ones not withstanding)
for 3)
There is also http://pndsng.wwww.jp/touhou/highscores/ which lists some Touhou scores that are not on the other sites, though it only includes Lunatic difficulty and 1cc runs.