I am wondering will WoW be released on Japan ? Do they even play MMOG’s in Japan ?
I have released wow on Japan on several occasions.
Self-publicizing aside, about half of FF11’s substantial subscriber base is believed to be from Japan. They’re the market leader there. Ultima Online also has a significant percentage of their subscribers in Japan, and has for some years now (their latest expansion pack was actually Japanese-themed).
It would be interesting to know why DAoC has a minimal impact in both Japan and Korea, while Lineage (and its 23452345 clones) and FFXI are able to produce insane numbers.
The different types of games should justify substantial gaps but not THAT huge. I really do not understand those markets but I’m sure there’s a reason somewhere.
Because Lineage et al are targeted first at those markets, and western markets second would be my guess. And vice versa, of course. The western game that cracks the asian market will be a huge cash cow. I’m not sure that WoW is there yet, but they seem to be the closest.
The Korean and Western markets are radically different. The Korean and Japanese markets are also different (the Japanese market is closer to the Western market in terms of infrastructure, although not content).
Most Korean MMOs are designed to be played in PC rooms, not the home. That’s the biggest difference and most Western MMO companies can’t wrap their brains around trying to bill for that - it requires a lot of personal contact with the PC room providers instead of selling boxes.
Korean MMOs are almost all PvP. Korean society (to grossly generalize) is also pretty PvP. Korean CEOs tend to throw things in board meetings at underlings just to show they’re still in charge, for example.
The Japanese MMO market is owned by Square and UO/EA mainly because they got there first with localized product (in Square’s case, FF11 was a Japanese product translated for the US) and other western MMOs have a good shot at doing well. The Korean market is vastly different - I’ve studied it from the outside as a hobby for the past few years and still know very little. For one thing you REALLY need to know Korean to get very far.
And the (mainland) Chinese MMO market? Last I heard the government was trying to close it down with the rest of the PC room industry.
I’m sure Kitsune can chime in with more about the JPN MMO market, living there and all. I will say one of the things that fascinated me the most about FF11 was the unapologetic throwing together of Japanese and US player bases. It was an interesting experiment that unfortunately didn’t end up very well, with the player bases self-segregating to a huge degree.
Okay, but this still doesn’t make sense, at least overall.
Even the manga, the anime and the movies are targeted at a japanese market for example. Still there are awesome products and it’s not a case that they are terribly successful even when they are offered on the western market.
A similar reasoning can be done for FFXI, which was successful even here to an extent. It’s a good quality game and I can see why it has been successful.
Quality is quality, in general there are gaps due to the targets but it’s something reasonable. The numbers of Lineage, sequels and clones are UNreasonable.
Most Korean MMOs are designed to be played in PC rooms, not the home. That’s the biggest difference and most Western MMO companies can’t wrap their brains around trying to bill for that - it requires a lot of personal contact with the PC room providers instead of selling boxes.
This, maybe, makes sense if you are saying that it’s a “visibility” problem.
What I mean is that the exuse of the “different market” doesn’t hold that much. If it isn’t that important it also means that there’s a huge market over there that is just waiting for better products.
You damn kids, You say WoW and I keep thinking WoW64. pfft.
Except that the Korean market’s definition of “better products” is wildly divergent from the Western market. Transplanted Western products usually won’t work.
Starcraft was an exception, and it can be argued it was far more successful in Korea than the West. They actually had Starcraft operas in Korea. With people in Zergling costumes running around the stage swinging mandibles. Wacky stuff. It will be interesting to see if World of Warcraft does as well. No other western MMO to date has.
The PC room phenomenon in Korea isn’t simply a problem with people not knowing to buy PC games for the home (broadband penetration of the home in Korea outpaces the West). There’s a fairly large (and somewhat looked down on) subculture of young people that like to play games in smoky dens of iniquity with their friends.
A good overview of Korean PC rooms: Dotdash Meredith - America's Largest Digital & Print Publisher 5 years old but still pretty accurate, I’m told. Another good writeup: http://www.gamegirladvance.com/mmog/archives/2002/08/13/korea_gaming_mojo.html The most relevant quote from that article:
What makes Lineage a distinctively Korean experience is that when players assemble to take down a castle, they do so in person, commandeering a local PC baang for as long as it takes. In the middle of a battle, these people aren’t text-chatting. They’re yelling across the room. Platoons sit at adjacent computers, coordinating among themselves and taking orders from the Blood Pledge leader. Lineage has a fixed hierarchy, unlike American role-playing games, in which leadership structures emerge organically. At the outset, you choose to be either royalty or a commoner. If you’re a prince or princess, your job is to put together an army and lead it. If you’re a commoner, your job is to find a leader. You pledge loyalty and fight to take over castles, and no matter how great you are at it, you can never be in charge.
This kind of tightly defined clan structure, which mirrors the Confucian hierarchy of Korean society, would be anathema to American players, who generally want to be the hero-king Lone Ranger. “In Korea, everyone is very comfortable with taking on subordinate roles,” says Richard Garriott, who created Ultima and now runs the US division of Lineage’s developer, NCsoft. “Their groups are extremely well structured, to the point where they march in lines, attack in waves, and have a style of coordination that you could not possible match in the United States.”
Arguably, it is the tight-knittedness of Korean society, and its people’s tendency to physically gather around technology, that makes Lineage and the PC baangs a success. Unsurprisingly, Lineage hasn’t taken off in North America, partly because it’s a game in which not everyone can be the boss. More fundamentally, the distance between Americans, physically and socially, makes it impossible to replicate the contagiousness of the game, which is also the contagiousness of PC baangs in South Korea and of broadband overall in the country. In the US, going online is not generally a group social experience and almost never a face-to-face social experience — in fact, we presume that if you’re online, you’re not talking to someone who’s in the room.
All the stuff about Korean society is interesting and all, but ultimately I’m left with the only question possible given the brief synopsis:
Anyone have any .avis of the Starcraft Zergling Opera?
It was called “Starcraft Side Story”. Like West Side Story, but with Zerglings and Protoss. Sadly the link I had for it is dead.
The utter magnitude of the tragedy of losing a live link to a version of West Side Story constructed with Zerg and Protoss simply cannot be overstated. The internet, sadly, has completely failed me at this moment in time. :(
Woah … that is definitely interesting to know. Also first time I have heard the phrase “PC baang”.
I can only speak for Japan–specifically, Okinawa, and then not as someone who lives there but who visits there every couple of years–but from what I’ve been able to tell, the high cost of computers and software is what drives the popularity of netrooms there. I just got back from three weeks there and computers were selling at about twice what they cost here, putting all but the low-end machines well out of the reach of most consumers, and definitely out of the reach of kids. Netbox (a netroom franchise), on the other hand, was charging 200 Yen ($2.00) for the first hour and 60 Yen ($ .60) for every hour after that for use of its games-capable machines. Not a bad price at all. I took advantage of it myself a couple of times when I needed to check the 'net for something.
Anyway, the local Netbox was vacant during the day, but packed with kids at night (there were somewhere around a hundred cubicles and machines in that particular store). I presume they were playing games, although I didn’t do any kind of survey. I did notice a big, black Lineage II banner hanging down from the ceiling, however.
The sensibilities of Asian gamers are a hard thing to grasp and communicate to Westerners. They’re so not interested in the things that we think are so bitchin’ over here, and conversely tend to be enchanted by many things we find pedestrian. In a way, if you strip away the hentai and stuff like that, they are more like '50’s-era Americans: they like straightforward morality tales with good guys and bad guys and aren’t drawn to subversive and/or over-violent fare. They (the Japanese in particular, due to their history) shun wargames almost completely, having no interest in machine-gunning down a platoon of soldiers, and don’t quite get the appeal of something like GTA:SA, although they like its open-ended design. They’re far more drawn to cutely animated Save-The-Princess games like DragonQuest and Final Fantasy.
As for their preference for Lineage over, say, WoW, I think a previous poster has it right: they are more drawn to the communal aspects than the individualistic aspects of MMORPGs. In Japanese culture, it’s basically impossible for a single individual to be a standalone hero in real life. Everyone considers himself to be a single ant in a huge anthill, and virtue is thought to lie in fulfilling one’s given role in the anthill. There’s no crawling all over one another for celebrity, fame, and fortune the way there is here, and the nail that pops up too high out of the board tends to get banged back down pretty hard. This way of seeing the world is reflected in the kinds of games that appeal to them, and that’s why, I think, a game that lets them be the (sole) hero doesn’t have the same resonance with them as it does with Westerners–or at least not in the same way. The Japanese kid wants to be the guy who defeats the Foozle, to be sure, but he can’t have done it with that defiant, who-needs-you attitude of the modern Western hero. He needs to have done it within the proper social parameters that reflect the world he lives in, and those aren’t reflected in the designs of contemporary Western MMORPGs.
Nah, as long as I can remember, I’ve had my own computer. I hate to say this, but a lot of times I don’t think visitors display much of a good grasp of bargain shopping down here. I hardly ever see you guys haggle for instance. :)
The sensibilities of Asian gamers are a hard thing to grasp and communicate to Westerners. They’re so not interested in the things that we think are so bitchin’ over here, and conversely tend to be enchanted by many things we find pedestrian.
Err, I wouldn’t say that. Certainly, there’s a wide gap, but some things are quite the same. After all, we practically sell our Japanese Wackiness ™ to you guys as a cultural commodity. And lots of worldwide culture fascinates Japanese players. For a nation that is so comparatively homogenous, its like one more window onto the world we live in. Products that give you an idea of what the wider world is like tend to be a huge, unlimited market over here. The net cafes you talk about are simply an extension of our love affair with European cafes that has burned so hot for the last decade or two.
In a way, if you strip away the hentai and stuff like that, they are more like '50’s-era Americans: they like straightforward morality tales with good guys and bad guys and aren’t drawn to subversive and/or over-violent fare.
What? Wait? What? Are we playing the same games? I completely disagree. This is utterly up to the personal convictions of whatever the player wants to play, which widely, widely vary. And there are just way, way, way too many games that are more than straightforward morality tales. I mean did we both see the ending to FFT? Who was at fault there? Ovelia? Ramza? Delita? Valkyrie Profile, the story of a woman slowly coming to realize the nature of her profession and identity. Moon was about criticizing the culture of mass consumption. Silent Hill 2 about the guilt of a husband for euthanising his wife. Even games like Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy are hardly that simple. (In FFVIII the plot is more of a parody of Japanese high school tropes and the story of Squall’s gradual opening up from emotional shut in to feeling human being again. If they were so interested in telling a black and white reality tale, they wouldn’t have made Seifer sympathetic, Laguna something of a lovable loser and Squall a compete and total asshole.) And if you’re going to slay a game like Paper Mario or Zelda, you have to realize that’s hardly the point of those games, its like criticizing the plot of Commander Keen or Space Quest. With the exception of Suikoden II and III, you can’t possibly see the man in the mask as a black villain and the fire hero as the white savior. Suikoden II gets rid of their most one-dimensional character half-way through the game and the conflict still goes on.
As far as quality of storytelling goes, it pretty much shares the same spectrum of any other country’s games I’ve seen.
And I don’t see how China and Korea differ all that much from us.
They (the Japanese in particular, due to their history) shun wargames almost completely, having no interest in machine-gunning down a platoon of soldiers,
True…
and don’t quite get the appeal of something like GTA:SA, although they like its open-ended design. They’re far more drawn to cutely animated Save-The-Princess games like DragonQuest and Final Fantasy.
Not true! If we don’t get the appeal, then why do those games sell well here? And why do the Saga games sell? And Way of the Samurai? And why are there all sorts of other games like that do similarly well, either critically or sales-wise? I’ll give you cute, the cute is the universe! But man, are you ever off-base here. And hello, Final Fantasy hasn’t been about saving princesses since the first one. (Neither for that matter, has Dragon Quest, but at least in that case the series is interested in those classics archetypes.)
In Japanese culture, it’s basically impossible for a single individual to be a standalone hero in real life. Everyone considers himself to be a single ant in a huge anthill, and virtue is thought to lie in fulfilling one’s given role in the anthill. There’s no crawling all over one another for celebrity, fame, and fortune the way there is here, and the nail that pops up too high out of the board tends to get banged back down pretty hard. This way of seeing the world is reflected in the kinds of games that appeal to them, and that’s why, I think, a game that lets them be the (sole) hero doesn’t have the same resonance with them as it does with Westerners–or at least not in the same way. The Japanese kid wants to be the guy who defeats the Foozle, to be sure, but he can’t have done it with that defiant, who-needs-you attitude of the modern Western hero.
YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!
I could point you to dozens upon dozens, maybe even hundreds of advertisements, back-of-the-boxes, websites and other places in Japanese that emphasize over and over again the selling points: jibun dake no character (create your own unique character) and kosei yutaka na character-tachi (characters abundant in individuality). These are as ubiqitous as the phrase, “Brand new” or “New and improved” that I hear in American advertising. Its an extremely strong draw. Everyone’s always talking about creating your own road, or defining your own style and on and on and on.
Meanwhile in popular culture tons and tons of stories from dramas to music to games to manga to movies emphasize main characters who stick out.
Third, it is not only entirely possible to become successful as a standalone hero in real life. Our frickin’ prime minister got to be so because he went against the grain and promised tough, hard times in order to improve our economy. He is still so even though tides have changed and he’s faced massive criticism for some of his choices. He’s easily made the most contraversial political moves in the country since 60s and 70s and he is also the only prime minister to be in office more than a year for a streak of like 11 years in a row. All the other ones were political brain farts who towed the line.
Popular music stars Shiina Ringo and Cocco, shine because their individual personalities are so noticeable, go look up some of the things these two have done. Does that sound usual or like it would be accepted by the average Japanese? (For the uninitiated, Cocco claims singing purges her of the demons that inhabit her soul and Shiina Ringo had, among other things, a music video in which she made lesbian sex with another girl, both in nurse uniforms in a hospital while she completely totaled the place. These two have million-selling albums and such.)
Just because the culture as a whole leans toward the view that harmony within society is the greater goal over that of the individual does not mean that individuality is repressed to such an extent. Balancing is not as much of a conflict as people always say it is. And also, different cultures express their individuality in different ways. The very concept of what freedom means can differ quite a lot even between democratic nations.
Oh, BTW, is anyone interested in demographic data on online games in Japan? There was a result of a recent study reported. The most important facet I think is that it extrapolated that 78% of the respondents had never played online games before. I think that’s much higher of online virgins than Korea and North America.
-Kitsune
[quote=“muttbunch”]The sensibilities of Asian gamers are a hard thing to grasp and communicate to Westerners. They’re so not interested in the things that we think are so bitchin’ over here, and conversely tend to be enchanted by many things we find pedestrian. In a way, if you strip away the hentai and stuff like that, they are more like '50’s-era Americans: they like straightforward morality tales with good guys and bad guys and aren’t drawn to subversive and/or over-violent fare. They (the Japanese in particular, due to their history) shun wargames almost completely, having no interest in machine-gunning down a platoon of soldiers, and don’t quite get the appeal of something like GTA:SA, although they like its open-ended design. They’re far more drawn to cutely animated Save-The-Princess games like DragonQuest and Final Fantasy. [quote]
I wrote a long post, but read it and realised how angry it sounded, and decided that you were probably more ignorant than malicious.
Seriously, muttbunch, you have gone so far south of improper stereotyping that it smacks of cultural supremacy. Seriously, “strip away the hentai and stuff like that they are more like '50’s-era Americans” - what are you trying to say? Asians (whatever you mean this to refer to) are backward? You understand that this is implied if not intended?
First challenge: define “Asian”. Once you do, you’ll realise how difficult it is to apply what you’re saying to the various nationalities and their cultural preferences. There are Taiwanese, Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian, Singaporeans, Thais, Filipinos, Indonesians etc. and they are Asian. Are you saying what you talk about applies to all those groups?
And I’ll leave Kitsune to educate you about what the Japanese like.
More education, please.
Argh! Spoiler alert! I’m still working on Silent Hill 2 off and on :)
Argh! Spoiler alert! I’m still working on Silent Hill 2 off and on :)[/quote]
Oops! Sorry about that. Spoilers don’t usually ever faze me so I’m always pretty careless with them. Err, not an excuse, just an explanation. Again, sorry! I’ll try to be more careful next time.
-Kitsune
Go fuck yourself, kid. I’m not interested in your sociology teacher’s opinions. I wrote about the Japanese gamers I know–admittedly a small group, but they seem fairly representative. I could well be wrong.
(Sorry if you’re not actually a kid, btw, but if you’re not you’ve got some serious growing to do. Your reaction is precisely that of a modern, college-indoctrinated dolt.)
Seriously, “strip away the hentai and stuff like that they are more like '50’s-era Americans” - what are you trying to say? Asians (whatever you mean this to refer to) are backward? You understand that this is implied if not intended?
No, I don’t understand any such thing. '50’s-era Americans were far superior in almost every way to today’s Americans. I know. I’m within a few months of being one myself.
First challenge: define “Asian”. Once you do, you’ll realise how difficult it is to apply what you’re saying to the various nationalities and their cultural preferences. There are Taiwanese, Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian, Singaporeans, Thais, Filipinos, Indonesians etc. and they are Asian. Are you saying what you talk about applies to all those groups?
Surprise. I’ve actually been to most of these countries, so I don’t need the likes of you to lecture me about them. To be honest, though, you’re right. I didn’t actually have nationalities in mind when I said “Asian.” What I had in mind was “Non-Christian, non-Western, of the Buddhist and, generally, submissive tradition.” Have fun with that one.
And I’ll leave Kitsune to educate you about what the Japanese like.
Omigod, d00dperson. Do you realize what a bigot and a racist you are? Are you saying that they’re all the same? That just because Foxy is Japanese, he/she knows what all Japanese people think, and what kind of games they all play and why? I’m utterly shocked and horrified! That’s just beyond the pale! You should be taken out back by your sociology teacher and re-educated.