The perception of Western video games in Japan.

[Lemnear]

A curiosity that I wanted to ask to Japanese users of the forum, or those who live in Japan.
How are Western video games perceived in Japan? Things like Halo, Baldur's Gate, Civilization, Doom, but also Horizon, Spiderman, God of War etc.
Because it is known that many Japanese games are viewed very positively in the West (the list of titles is infinitely long). I wondered if this was also the other way around or not and what perception do they/you have of them.

[To Far Away Times]

I'm not a Japanese user but I know Battle Royal games are big over there, especially Apex Legends.

[Squire Grooktook]

Watch some vtubers to find out

And yeah Battle Royal shit is really popular. I know a guy who's an australian english teacher in Japan and I remember he once said all the kids are all over the fortnites and shit. Lot of JP vtubers fall down the Apex Legends hole and never escape.

I will say whenever I find out that a western developed franchise that I truly love has a strong fanbase in Japan (like Dead Space), it does give me a tingle of patriotic pride.

[Steven]

Call of Duty of all things sells well for a non-Japanese thing on non-Nintendo hardware. Other than that and shit like Apex, I don't think most people care about not-Japanese not-Nintendo not-phone games. The reason, of course, is because Nintendo's marketing is EVERYWHERE and every ad that you see that is for a non-Nintendo game is for a phone game. You can't escape Nintendo's marketing here. It's pretty much 100% completely impossible unless you go to somewhere like the top of Mt. Fuji or someplace else where there is no advertising, or maybe in places where nobody wants to live like Gunma. Like you go on the train or whatever and there's adds for Mario and Splatoon and Pikmin whatever else they have out. All of the other ads are for phone crap, and there are probably more of these than even Nintendo's boring mediocrity.

I will say whenever I find out that a western developed franchise that I truly love has a strong fanbase in Japan (like Dead Space), it does give me a tingle of patriotic pride.

The fun part about this is that no Dead Space ever got released here until like 2023. Japanese Dead Space just didn't exist at all. I found out about this in an interesting way, too; I was talking to a Japanese dude who LOVES horror games, so I asked him about Dead Space and he'd never heard of it. I'm like WTF how have you never heard of Dead Space? It's fucking awesome! I checked later, and sure enough, the entire series just never got released here, at least at that point in time. CERO is super super super restrictive about violence, and it would have gotten a Z for sure.

[vol.2]

That tracks. I don't live over there anymore, but when I did, my Japanese relatives played only Nintendo games. Of course PlayStation is also huge, though that is more for teenagers and adult gamers and not so much anything children (in my family) were even allowed to have.

I don't know about "only Nintendo" when it comes to marketing, but I haven't been there for over ten years. When I lived there, PlayStation ads were around. The switch is still far an above the king in Japan, but PS4-5 sales are somewhere around 2/5th of the combined Switch device sales.

[Squire Grooktook]

I will say whenever I find out that a western developed franchise that I truly love has a strong fanbase in Japan (like Dead Space), it does give me a tingle of patriotic pride.

The fun part about this is that no Dead Space ever got released here until like 2023.

lmao, that explains the talk of fan translation projects I vaguely remember hearing about : D

Reminds me of how me and a friend of mine were having a cross cultural exchange about TTRPG's with some Japanese players, and it came up that most World of Darkness properties had never had an official release/translation in Japan (IIRC just an anemic ruleset if anything, with none of the batshit 90's edge, mystical esoterica, and crude boundary pushing that made the games what they are). I'd probably guess because the setting and writing of WoD might've been considered too lurid at the time for whatever powers that be might've been doing the exporting.

[Lemnear]

Thanks for the replies.
I didn't think FPS were going strong in Japan too, especially things like COD and especially Apex Legend
Looking at the sales data, only Nintendo games always pop up, at least in the top 20 positions, including online things like Monster Hunter, which I assume has a huge community in Japan...and I think at this point that FFXIV also has a pretty large community over there.
My thought also started from the general conception of Japanese game developers, I can't think of a FPS Made in Japan for example (Third Person Shooter yes, there have been some).
So I assumed that developers had tastes not too different from those of the rest of the population after all.
But maybe that's why they're so popular, a bit like JRPGs are popular in the rest of the world, or fighting games...or character action games.

The fun part about this is that no Dead Space ever got released here until like 2023. Japanese Dead Space just didn't exist at all. I found out about this in an interesting way, too; I was talking to a Japanese dude who LOVES horror games, so I asked him about Dead Space and he'd never heard of it. I'm like WTF how have you never heard of Dead Space? It's fucking awesome! I checked later, and sure enough, the entire series just never got released here, at least at that point in time. CERO is super super super restrictive about violence, and it would have gotten a Z for sure.

Seriously? I mean Dead Space didn't make it until the Remake? WTF? But if they have a lot of manga/anime and horror movies that are way more violent...this is really weird.

[it290]

My thought also started from the general conception of Japanese game developers, I can't think of a FPS Made in Japan for example (Third Person Shooter yes, there have been some).

There's stuff like Outtrigger and Resident Evil 7/8.

[Lemnear]

My thought also started from the general conception of Japanese game developers, I can't think of a FPS Made in Japan for example (Third Person Shooter yes, there have been some).

There's stuff like Outtrigger and Resident Evil 7/8.

RE7/RE8 I don't really consider them FPS but maybe FPH.
Never heard of Outtrigger >_>

[vol.2]

Japan was less overwhelmingly influenced by Doom and Quake than the western video game world was, so obviously it just doesn't pop up quite so ubiquitously.

That said, the odd FPS does pop up from time to time, but they don't usually resemble the same type of game we associate with FPSes in the west both because they don't have that direct influence from the 1990s FPSes, but also (as previously mentioned in this thread), Japan takes violence in video games a lot more seriously, and things like FPSes are somewhat locked behind an age barrier and also a "Nintendo" barrier as to their corporate policies.

For that reason, I believe you see FPSes look more like FPH games because they are also more adult focused and have an established niche in the culture. Though perhaps games like RE7/8 play more like a FP version of something like Silent Hill, they are still FPSes, as are other oddball one-offs like Killer7. A game doesn't have to be a "combat simulator" to be an FPS.

[Steven]

Seriously? I mean Dead Space didn't make it until the Remake? WTF? But if they have a lot of manga/anime and horror movies that are way more violent...this is really weird.

Yes, and Japanese Dead Space 1 and 3 still don't exist, leaving only the remake and 2, both of which are also PC exclusive, and the remake is of course essentially an online-only game thanks to fucking awful Denuvo. When they finally allowed people in Japan to buy 2 in 2023, it still wasn't in Japanese. That came later in a patch, I guess.