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[homelessbaby]

Is Tokyo Jungle 2 confirmed Switch exclusive?

 

[freethoughtbubble]

What a great interview, and fascinating perspective on game design. Compliments to Rolling Stone.

 

[ajjow]

What an amazing interview.

Some interesting points are:

1st. - It shows that western developers treat games like movies. Just important as the game is the brand. Western developers crave to create games that will sell books, OST, toys and other stuff. Japanese focus on the gaming product mainly.

2st. - Because of point number one, Western developers are better prepared to go against bad reviewed games. The businness is much better protected.

3st. - Japanese developers focus on creating better experiences. That`s why their games are better in the long term. Just compare games created by EA and Capcom or SquareEnix.

4st. - These different philosophys/approachs explain why Nintendo took so long to create themes parks or even creating toys (Amiibos and similar stuff).

5st. - I can see a future where more acquisitions like Square made with the ceratos of Tomb Raiders happens more frequently.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

We got games like The Last Guardian and Nier Automata in the last year. It's not like they don't have competent writers and narrative creators making games in Japan. It's just that their focus seems to often lie in the realm of gameplay mechanics and systems.

That's what I said just above you, on post 79. I even referred to Nier Automata! I'm not sure why you keep quoting me, I agree with you.

 

[flintstryker]

Ehh no thanks. I like both and there are plenty of great western devs that beat the tar out of the eastern devs in some respects. It goes both ways. The idea that Platinum games has never made a bad game is completely ridiculous. They've made multiple bad games. Some of their budget games like Turtles are a disgrace to the name.



They would do well to start getting good Japanese writers to work on their games. Japanese games are falling way behind in competent storytelling, and that will never be good for the future of the medium or their own sales. They need to adapt better. It doesn't mean we need Witcher 3 from all of them, but they need to start writing competent storylines with engaging characters. Gameplay and story don't have to be this far apart.

I don't give two shits about story in video games so I don't mind

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

maybe nintendo should stop assuming they know everything better than everyone else and I wouldnt have given up on splatoon due to its horrid design

 

[wandering]

They would do well to start getting good Japanese writers to work on their games. Japanese games are falling way behind in competent storytelling, and that will never be good for the future of the medium or their own sales. They need to adapt better. It doesn't mean we need Witcher 3 from all of them, but they need to start writing competent storylines with engaging characters. Gameplay and story don't have to be this far apart.

While I agree that it'd be nice to see more of an effort in storytelling from Japanese devs as a whole, I'd say that plenty of Western games have abysmal writing. Western devs might put a greater focus on narrative, but all too often it's clumsily done. Not saying that Japanese devs necessarily do a better job, though.

 

[OniBaka]

Probably why I prefer japanese games because of the fun gameplay. Also Yakuza series has good gameplay and narritive.

The game really wants that open world but with a narrative structure and Tabata spent a good chunk of 2015 playing The Witcher 3.

http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2016..._team_played_a_lot_of_the_witcher_3_last_year

I don't blame them for copying one of the most successful games but I wished they stuck with what they were good at.

 

[watershed]

Jordan Amaro has been giving a lot of great interviews lately. It's rare to see individual Nintendo developers being interviewed, especially relatively unknowns not promoting a specific game.

His list of top 6 game developers is cool. I really wonder what Aonuma is like as a developer. I feel like it is easier to understand the design sensibilities of Miyamoto and Koizumi than Aonuma.

 

[Snakeyes]

Can you give me this list, because I'm really struggling to find Japanese games that have superior narratives

Off the top of my head;

Tactics Ogre
Vagrant Story
Dragon Quest V
Suikoden series
Yakuza series
Radiant Historia
Shadow Hearts Covenant
Mother 3
Silent Hill 2
Nier series

 

[TheGreatMightyPoo]

Damn this dude has the insight and spitting the truth between western devs and Japanese devs.

No lies detected.
There are obviously great Western developers and teams though.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

It seems to me, when I look at the way game design was done at Kojima Productions, the way it’s done at Capcom and Nintendo, the way I feel it’s being done at Platinum Games or From Software, I feel there’s a lot more importance and focus given to game mechanics over world, setting, story, message, all that stuff.

I’m stereotyping, but in the West, scope, visuals, and features are the main attraction. For example, when we used to have Kojima Productions L.A.—we had an office in Los Angeles—we would get proposals for new games, pitches. It always started with: “This is the world you’re in. This is the experience I’m going to give you.” And gameplay was relegated to page 5 or 6 or 10. It was always about who you’re playing, who is the character, what’s going on, but not the “how,” how am I playing this?

In Japan, a pitch is a page, maybe two. The first page you write what the game is about and how you play it. And the second page, maybe you need an illustration. We don’t care about who, or what the story is, what the game world is, all of this doesn’t really matter.

this is why i prefer japanese games over western aaa

So I would get this sentiment if we were talking about AAA Western games from 2008-2012, but it's hard to imagine many major studios going about things this way in 2017.

Like we can just look at all the same vendors this guy worked at to see this in practice.

Ubisoft:

Last Gen: Their flagship products were games like Assassin's Creed that tried to build an experience for the player more than focusing on the individual game mechanics. Story was a huge push with these, and they would often highlight things like Far Cry's villains or Assassin's Creed's setting.

Current Gen: Their flagship products are games like Rainbow Six Siege, The Division, and For Honor which focused basically entirely on multiplayer gameplay and the related mechanics. Siege didn't even have a campaign, people never seem to mention For Honor's campaign, and I can't remember anyone saying anything positive about The Division's plotline, which felt incredibly secondary to the rest of the game. Even Rainbow Six Siege came from Ubisoft cancelling Rainbow Six Patriots, which was a singleplayer focused, cinematic linear shooter with Heavy Rain-esque gameplay segments thrown in. What did they show at E3 this year? Mario + Rabbids, a Far Cry built around co-op, an online pirate ship battle game, an online racing game, and an online Beyond Good & Evil game.

Crytek:

Last Gen*: They made Crysis, and then made a more cinematic version of Crysis with Crysis 2 and 3, and then made Ryse: Son of Rome, which is basically a parody of the direction the industry was headed with cinematic games.

* I'm aware that Ryse got delayed to be an Xbox One launch title, but it was clearly designed last generation.

This Gen: Their newest title is an all in on gameplay, multiplayer oriented, competiting survival monster hunting game.

2K:

Last Gen: BioShock, The Darkness, Mafia, Borderlands, sports titles, and Firaxis games. They were about half and half on gameplay versus experience design.

This Gen: Mafia 3 is their only remaining experience game, and the started development in 2010. Both of their new IPs were gameplay and multiplayer oriented. I'm sticking to the 2K half of Take-Two, but we could also bring up GTA Online and Red Dead Online here versus what Rockstar used to do.

well all of those games are multi-player games

so i guess as an alternative for how he describes the western pitch process we could add "how do we get people to keep buying microtransactions in our full price games"

 

[Toparaman]

Damn, this guy got to work on some great games.

He had some pretty interesting stuff to say in this interview. In particular, he got to the core of why I'm consistently disappointed with Western single-player AAA. They have such excellent technical qualities, but the gameplay is just off. Western indie and "AA" are sometimes great though.

 

[DxD]

What is Japanese G? Like 50 G Unit?

 

[SinCityAssassin]

What is Japanese G? Like 50 G Unit?

Looking up the phrase "japanese g" is not recommended in the work place.

 

[Datschge]

I liked this quote:

I think it’s a Western idea to think that being young and fresh to something means that you’re going to think new and differently. It’s the contrary. The younger people are usually the ones who are going head-on to what is already trending, what is the most pleasing, what is the most familiar. They haven’t lived enough yet.

 

[Clefargle]

I don't give two shits about story in video games so I don't mind

Boom

I don't either, gameplay and performance over all else. Somebody tell the west they missed the memo.

 

[Dark Cloud]

I don't really care about story in video games either. This is why Mario will probably always be my favorite series.

I wanted to say I'm not used to a Nintendo employee talking like this. I'm not sure if he's a more serious and blunt type of person. It kind of comes off as that since I'm so used to "laughs" lol. I know it's an interview so it doesn't say much.

Maybe we'll get to see him more so I get an idea of his personality. I always think of Miyamoto and Aonuma and they're always so happy.

 

[Vismund Cygnus]

Rolling my eyes every time a gaming interviewer asks questions trying to fetch any difference between them as 'The West' and the Other 'Japanese'. That language even seeps to the interviewee who if aware, can avoid that useless train of thought

There are several Japanese approaches. Every company has its own culture.

Yes. EVERY COMPANY. No matter where Geographically.

 

[Regiruler]

I roll my eyes and get angry every time the interviewer tries to bring in Breath of the Wild with absolutely no nuance.

The game could just randomly pick out of all of the maps.

The two map stuff is dumb and makes a lot of matches in a short period of time repetitive, it's definitely Splatoon's worst element.

Splatoon 2 is more repetitive than the first game despite its shorter rotation, IMO.

 

[Moose Biscuits]

Rolling my eyes every time a gaming interviewer asks questions trying to fetch any difference between them as 'The West' and the Other 'Japanese'. That language even seeps to the interviewee who if aware, can avoid that useless train of thought

Yes. EVERY COMPANY. No matter where Geographically.

True, but the way your country's culture thinks as a generalised whole is going to affect how you as a studio think to an extent as well.

 

[Cuningas de Häme]

True, but the way your country's culture thinks as a generalised whole is going to affect how you as a studio think to an extent as well.

This. Companies are ALWAYS affected by their surrounding society and culture.

Japanese are different from the West, just like European games differ from the US ones (of course EU and US are more closely related, but there is differences).

 

[Bluth54]

The game could just randomly pick out of all of the maps.

The two map stuff is dumb and makes a lot of matches in a short period of time repetitive, it's definitely Splatoon's worst element.

Yeah I've had times where I play the same map 4 or 5 times in a row. It gets really boring playing the same map over and over again.

 

[OrbitalBeard]

What a fascinating interview!

 

[hotcyder]

Yes. EVERY COMPANY. No matter where Geographically.

Exactly. I know a lot of people like to boil down the difference between Western and Eastern developers being that the former treats games like films and the latter treats them like toys, but it's more a studio by studio ideology. Kojima wants his games to be more narrative driven, indie games are totally mechanically driven.

 

[djtiesto]

So I would get this sentiment if we were talking about AAA Western games from 2008-2012, but it's hard to imagine many major studios going about things this way in 2017.

Like we can just look at all the same vendors this guy worked at to see this in practice.

Ubisoft:

Last Gen: Their flagship products were games like Assassin's Creed that tried to build an experience for the player more than focusing on the individual game mechanics. Story was a huge push with these, and they would often highlight things like Far Cry's villains or Assassin's Creed's setting.

Current Gen: Their flagship products are games like Rainbow Six Siege, The Division, and For Honor which focused basically entirely on multiplayer gameplay and the related mechanics. Siege didn't even have a campaign, people never seem to mention For Honor's campaign, and I can't remember anyone saying anything positive about The Division's plotline, which felt incredibly secondary to the rest of the game. Even Rainbow Six Siege came from Ubisoft cancelling Rainbow Six Patriots, which was a singleplayer focused, cinematic linear shooter with Heavy Rain-esque gameplay segments thrown in. What did they show at E3 this year? Mario + Rabbids, a Far Cry built around co-op, an online pirate ship battle game, an online racing game, and an online Beyond Good & Evil game.

Crytek:

Last Gen*: They made Crysis, and then made a more cinematic version of Crysis with Crysis 2 and 3, and then made Ryse: Son of Rome, which is basically a parody of the direction the industry was headed with cinematic games.

* I'm aware that Ryse got delayed to be an Xbox One launch title, but it was clearly designed last generation.

This Gen: Their newest title is an all in on gameplay, multiplayer oriented, competiting survival monster hunting game.

2K:

Last Gen: BioShock, The Darkness, Mafia, Borderlands, sports titles, and Firaxis games. They were about half and half on gameplay versus experience design.

This Gen: Mafia 3 is their only remaining experience game, and the started development in 2010. Both of their new IPs were gameplay and multiplayer oriented. I'm sticking to the 2K half of Take-Two, but we could also bring up GTA Online and Red Dead Online here versus what Rockstar used to do.

It seems that instead of story-first, gameplay second, western devs made the push to "figuring out how we can bilk our consumers for every last dollar with a service game first", gameplay second

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

It seems that instead of story-first, gameplay second, western devs made the push to "figuring out how we can bilk our consumers for every last dollar with a service game first", gameplay second

rainbow 6 siege is one of the most gameplay first games ever, and its fucking incredible.

It didnt do much with microtransactions at all until later other than a season pass that wasnt even needed to get access to everything

 

[mckmas8808]

What an amazing interview.

Some interesting points are:

1st. - It shows that western developers treat games like movies. Just important as the game is the brand. Western developers crave to create games that will sell books, OST, toys and other stuff. Japanese focus on the gaming product mainly.

2st. - Because of point number one, Western developers are better prepared to go against bad reviewed games. The businness is much better protected.

3st. - Japanese developers focus on creating better experiences. That`s why their games are better in the long term. Just compare games created by EA and Capcom or SquareEnix.

4st. - These different philosophys/approachs explain why Nintendo took so long to create themes parks or even creating toys (Amiibos and similar stuff).

5st. - I can see a future where more acquisitions like Square made with the ceratos of Tomb Raiders happens more frequently.

The BOLDED is just your opionion. It's not even close to a fact.

 

[Blackpanther25]

It's an interesting theme I've seen with Nintendo and I wasn't aware it was reflective of Japanese society like that.

It sure is. it takes some time but after awhile it becomes the norm.