USA vs. Japan
*An interesting article comparing American and Japanese videogames and culture*

(You can also read the text behind ))




The United States of America is the source of a huge number of modern inventions - the automobile, the television, the computer, and many, many others. And in many cases, people from other nations have added and improved upon the initial concept, vastly expanding the horizon for each of these technologies. The same applies to video gaming. Though electronic gaming was born in America, today's industry is supported by publishers from across the globe. Still, gaming is largely dominated by just two forces: America, the creator, and Japan, the nation that saved console gaming in the mid '80s.

Creating a game requires more than just blood, sweat and tears. Every area of a game is heavily influenced by the culture that produced it, whether it be the visuals, the musical scoring, or even important aspects of the gameplay. Both American and Japanese cultures are very accepting of foreign ideas, but they tend to twist them around to suit their own tastes. Japanese designers watched American action movies, added in some over-the-top craziness and came up with Metal Gear Solid. Americans saw 3D platformers like Super Mario 64 and created similar but darker games like Jak and Daxter.

New ideas are always being bounced around, warped, and remade, creating concepts that are both uniquely tailored to the local culture while still maintaining a feeling of familiarity. But why do gamers in each of these markets like the games that they do? Why are American sales charts dominated by the likes of big, burly men with guns while the Japanese flock towards fanciful RPGs?

Through exploration, research and discussion, we've stumbled onto some intriguing answers. Not all of these are proven, scientific theories, but they may offer some insight as to why, for instance, the Xbox 360 lingers unsold on Japanese shelves.

FREEDOM

Americans are very big on personal freedom, which give a greater sense of individuality. Americans all have their own political or religious beliefs, and defend them vigorously. Americans love their cars, because it affords us opportunities for independence that public transportation can't afford. Americans love commercial competition, because it feeds capitalism and innovation. America is a country that fought for its independence primarily to grant these kind of freedoms, a nation famous for its frontier mentality.

Naturally, Americans love freedom in their games, too.
"I think that most Western games are made for the audience, whereas many Japanese games are made to invite the player into the designer's world," says James Clarendon of Breakaway Games, who previously worked on Ion Storm titles like Deus Ex: Invisible War and Thief: Deadly Shadows. This philosophy shines through in practically every area of game design.

For instance, camera control tends to be handled very differently in American and Japanese games. "Many Japanese titles fix the camera for a better cinematic presentation, while good Western titles allow the player to look around the environment for better gameplay," says Clarendon.

Popular games like Grand Theft Auto, Splinter Cell and Ratchet and Clank offer full camera control. Compare this to various Japanese games, which tend to use established camera angles. The Japanese developed Devil May Cry games never let the gamer fiddle with the viewpoint. Dynasty Warriors, one of Japan's most popular action series, only let the gamer re-center the camera (although this changed in the recent Samurai Warriors 2). Many critics complained about the lack of a free camera in Metal Gear Solid 3, prompting Konami to add it in the Substinence director's cut.
Why the limitations? Motion sickness, for one -- a prevalent affliction amongst the Japanese. But equally significant is the fact that a limited camera allows the developer to more careful control the user's experience.

"Most Japanese games limit your interaction with the world. They can get away with more fixed cinematic style cameras where the game's internal director is in control," says Kane Shin, also of Breakaway Games. "This may be a relic of the retro gaming mentality -- in 2D retro games you typically see the entire relevant playing field onscreen at the same time. Game-design wise, this simplifies the process of making a fun game by fixing what the user will have to deal with. Western games have typically favored being able to interact with the world at all angles."

Hiroyuki Kobayashi, producer of Resident Evil 4, as well as the original Devil May Cry, agrees. "In general, Japanese development teams want to make sure the user experiences the game they have envisioned. To make sure the player sees what the developer wants them to experience, the fixed camera angles are more common. If the fixed camera angles are done right, the player shouldn't feel the need to constantly move the camera around, and that's part of the challenge of designing the game."

Keiji Inafune, producer of Dead Rising and Lost Planet, and long time employee at Capcom, elaborates further. "The Japanese don't really feel the need to control the camera. For instance, Japanese gamers playing Lost Planet at Tokyo Game Show sometimes had trouble controlling the camera, and it was clear to me that they are simply not acclimated to this sort of control. In traditional Japanese games, such as a 2D side-scroller or an RPG, there is absolutely no need to move the camera whatsoever. Japanese people, who prefer to have a very focused idea of what must done, prefer this way of doing things because they can focus on the actual game play. Western audiences, I feel, are much better at multitasking, and adapt to the freedom and requirements of a user controlled camera much better than Japanese gamers."



The difference in culture also manifests in the handling of games saves. Many Western games implement a "save any time" mechanic, allowing gamers to create their own checkpoints. On the other hand, many Japanese games tend to use save points at predetermined spots.

This particular issue is, in part, a holdover from the setbacks of older technology. Many Japanese games were are cartridges, which didn't have nearly enough memory to save all relevant data at once. Many Western designers began designing on personal computers, which offered much more memory. It's only been within the past generation of video gaming that consoles have had enough to space to allow precise game saving, yet the Japanese tradition of save points continues.

"I think Western developers, who are used to PC development with much larger amounts of RAM and persistent storage, aim to architect their games such that they can save them anywhere and reload them," says Clarendon. "Primarily this feature is for the players, and we see Western developers writing titles to accommodate the audience."

Shin offers a similar explanation. "Being able to save anytime, anywhere is a pain in the butt to implement, and if your audience doesn't expect it, then you really don't want to support it, so maybe the Westerners do it as a throwback to the expectations of evolving PC gamers. "

Inafune explains the Japanese persepctive. "American designers do not view the save system as part of the gameplay experience. In Japan, the save system is viewed as part of the game. In previous generations, designers took what should have been a negative for the game due to technical limitations and turned it into a gameplay positive. For instance, in Resident Evil, part of what makes the game fun is knowing there might be a zombie between you and the save room. It adds tension to the encounters. If you could save anywhere in Resident Evil, it would not be the same game.

"Manipulating the save system is one of the many details that Japanese designers take very seriously," he adds. "For instance, with Dead Rising, Japanese gamers would be turned off by the save anywhere approach. They would feel that the game is not challenging, that it isn't really a game. Knowing your status, what kind of weapon you have or how far away the restroom save point is integral to the tension and fun of Dead Rising. Some people understand this and enjoy it, others do not."

The Western focus on personal freedom has given birth to entire genres. One of the earliest genres to put players in full control was the "God game", made popular by the likes of Populous and Sim City. Both of these games allow players to take on the role of an omnipotent being who could mold the land to their whim. Although the gameplay was carefully balanced to ensure there was some challenge, these games focus on the player building a unique experience for him or herself. Sim City in particular was quite popular in Japan, where it was turned into one of the first titles for Nintendo's Super Famicom (Super NES). Creator Will Wright has expanded the series into hugely successful spin-offs like "The Sims," while the Japanese have spun it into more niche titles like Natsume's Harvest Moon.

It's easy to see why the Japanese might enjoy a farming game -- the nation has a strong agrarian tradition. But Harvest Moon involves the same concepts of nurturing and caring that made the Tamagotchi so popular. Likewise, this could be one reason for the national obsession with role playing games where gamers put in hours of hard work to level up their characters. Rather than reaping a bountiful harvest as their reward, however, a gamer would have a max level fighter who can deal 9999 damage in a single hit.

Although the god-game format lets gamers play around to their heart's content, the term "sandbox" more commonly refers to a go-anywhere, do-anything game like Grand Theft Auto or Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. While these games feature set storylines to follow and concrete goals to achieve, these elements are ultimately secondary. The real emphasis is upon the path through the adventure, which is ultimately determined by the player -- again drawing upon the desire for personal freedom. This is a stark contract to popular Japanese RPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, which puts players on a linear path while emphasizing strong storytelling.

"Culturally speaking, Japanese culture is firmly rooted in wet-rice agriculture and its status as an island nation," says Inafune. "Japanese want to be able to plan, they want to have guidance, they want to have focus. To put it simply, Japanese people feel uncomfortable with the unknown and not understanding the future. RPGs illustrate this well -- it is your turn to attack, it is the enemy's turn to attack. You pick a magic spell and you have a predictable result. You progress through the game with clearly defined goals. Japanese enjoy having these clearly-defined goals, and it progresses all the way through to the actual game implementation. Japanese people don't like just being dropped into a sandbox with no guidance. If you tell a Japanese person they are free to go anywhere, often times they will choose to go nowhere.

"Westerners, on the other hand, seem to be excited by the unknown. For instance, as a hunting and trapping society, an American may go deer hunting and encounter a bear. Japanese would be scared by this encounter, whereas the American will probably shoot the bear and go back excited that he got a bear instead of a deer. The unknown encounter becomes even better than the known. I feel this is the key difference."

Kobayashi agrees. "Part of this relates to the recurring theme of Japanese developers wanting to provide a very definitive experience for gamers. In this case, the linear story helps to keep the player involved in the story as a smooth flow from start to finish much like reading a book. A lot of gamers overseas prefer to make the adventure their own and prefer the open-ended style, which is one reason we think that Resident Evil 4 was so popular as it was more open than any Resident Evil before it."

This concept of linearity versus freedom shows up in more than just the role playing genre. Long ago, the adventure genre was popular in both territories. Computer gaming practically began with the text adventure game Zork and evolved through classic LucasFilm Games and Sierra titles like The Secret of Monkey Island and King's Quest. The same thing happened on the other side of the globe, to a lesser extent, with games like Snatcher, published by Konami and borne from the mind of the not-yet-world-famous Hideo Kojima.

Although both Japanese and Western style games focused primarily on story telling and puzzle solving, the Western games let gamers explore the scenery through a combination of the mouse and keyboard, allowing them to walk wherever they pleased or examine anything they saw. Compare this to Snatcher, which was primarily viewed from the first person perspective and was entirely menu-based. Although the ends were similar, the means were entirely different, as Western games offered a lot more opportunity to poke around and explore, compared to the rigidly-defined menus.

The adventure game genre has practically died in America, sustained only by a few European companies with titles like The Indigo Prophecy and Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. It lives on in Japan, however, although now they're usually termed "visual novels". Since most of these are usually licensed anime games or pornographic dating sims, visual novels on consoles rarely leave Japan, with the rare exception being titles like Atlus' Touch Detective and Capcom's Phoenix Wright - the latter of which was criticized by Western reviewers for its linear gameplay but lauded for its excellent writing and sense of humor.

It's quite easy to tell a game developed in Japan from an American creation just by looking at it. Americans games tend to focus primarily on realism. In contrast, Japanese games are usually brighter, more colorful, and have more varied art styles. An easy comparison would be to take Activision's Tony Hawk series and place it side-by-side with Sega's Jet Set Radio. Naturally, this tends to cause some cultural clashes -- Japanese gamers that American games look too similar, with bland, unattractive characters, while American gamers groan about wild-haired pretty boys that seem more suitable for fashion shows than sword fighting.

Japan, as a culture, is very visually oriented. The average television show filled with text to grab the viewers' attention, and many Japanese magazines have pages overflowing with text, gigantic headlines, and lots and lots of screenshots and artwork. Historically, they've had a long-standing fondness for attractive and ornate visuals, such as classic Kabuki theater.

"Japan has several thousand years of cultural and artistic tradition while America is less than 300 years old. Even the Japanese writing system is based on pictographs and visual imagery, which is not the case with English script," says John Opplinger, who runs a daily column dealing with Japanese culture at the store / new site Animenation.

The distinction can be seen in action in each nations' 19th-century military uniforms, before Japan's westernization. Japanese samurai wore extravagant helmets with equally extravagant armor, and their soldiers wore a similar garb. The police guard of the era, known as the Shinsengumi, wore bright blue kimonos with a distinct white pattern. Compare these to Federal and Confederate soldiers in the American Civil War, who wore comparitively plain uniforms.

America was founded primarily by Europeans, but everyone that crossed the ocean essentially experienced a cultural reboot. Although many values were carried over from their respective homelands, American citizens were free from old constraints, and could rebuild their ideals for themselves. Many times this was out of sheer necessity. When trying to survive on the vast American frontier, objectives such as "finding something to eat" and "not dying of dysentery" were far more important than observing cultural traditions. The inelegant uniforms of the Civil War soldiers aren't attractive because they don't need to be -- they're practical and nothing else.

But these are just general ideas as to why the Japanese tend to put more effort into stunning visuals. When it comes to video games, there are plenty of more technical reasons. A significant contributor is the so-called "arms race" of graphics cards. PCs are far more prevalent in the Western world than in Japan, so there's a constant need to put these cards to the test and make things look as real as possible.

"I think you'd have to look at the competition that's raged for the past umpteen years regarding graphics horsepower," explains Clarendon. "I use that term intentionally, since a convincing argument could be made that the macho desire for performance out of cars is now analogous to how 'smoking fast' your 'rig' is."

Because Japanese developers aren't necessarily focused with putting the latest hardware to the test, they're free to experiment a bit more, or find ways to take the graphic deficiencies of console hardware and turn them into benefits.

"Where the Japanese developers succeed immensely is in capturing essence without filling in all the details," adds Clarendon. "One could argue that this may even be linguistically-based, with Japanese being a language comfortable with its use of vagueness and context-sensitivity. This is what [comics critic] Scott McCloud refers to as 'iconic realism.' The characters look good, but not all the details are there. This allows a simpler method of expression that, in my opinion, is more powerful."

"I think Japanese have a natural affinity with soft, supple, and flexible things, unlike Western cultures that tend toward angular, rigid, strength and permanence," says Opplinger. "Particularly in Japanese culture, the idea of "softness" may coincide with the Japanese social etiquette of fitting in and going with the flow rather than being independent.

"It also manifests in things like architecture. Japanese temples are characterized by flowing lines and curves while traditional Western Greco-Roman architecture consists largely of pillars and straight lines. Likewise, Western culture has developed an affinity for muscular and toned super heroes while Asian culture has developed "cute" characters, bishounen [pretty boys], and martial artists who emphasize flexibility and technique over straightforward strength."

Kobayashi attributes the radical difference in visual styles to the proliferation of manga in Japan.

"I think a lot of the bright, cartoonish visual look in many Japanese games is a result of the strong culture of anime cartoons and manga comic books we have in Japan," he says. "The gamers here have all grown up on anime and manga, and many continue to read manga into adulthood. Since Japanese anime and manga are usually very bright and colorful, that tends to be the kind of visual style that is accepted in Japan. For overseas, it might be that with more of an entertainment background in movies and TV, realism is the type of visual style that is desired."

Many Japanese games also tend to focus on featuring attractive characters, for the same reason why Lara Croft took off: sex appeal. But this isn't limited to just big-chested archaeologists in hot pants; many Japanese publishers are quite aware of the female audience, and target them accordingly. The result are handsome characters, like Final Fantasy leading men Squall and Vaan. Kojima has stated that Raiden, the girlish, white haired hero of Metal Gear Solid 2, was added into the game primarily to attract female fans who were sick of rugged action heroes like Solid Snake.

Much of the pretty boy look is inspired by the continued popularity of visual rock. Japanese rock stars like Gackt -- who even starred in the game Bujingai -- continue to flourish, dressing in hugely elaborate gowns and makeup.

For that matter, many Japanese game designers take a completely different approach to music than most Western games. Many Japanese games feature a wide variety of styles and have a strong focus on melody. On the other hand, Western games tend to feature orchestral soundtracks, licensed tracks or even forego the music in favor of atmospheric noises. Microsoft's Xbox was the first console to let users customize their soundtracks, which seemed to acknowledge that many Western games would prefer to use their own music rather than a predetermined score.

"From a design standpoint, I think Western designers have a much stronger background and influence from film," posits Inafune. "In film scores, orchestrated music is used to accompany a set piece and give it emotional weight. Western games implement this very film style technique much to the same effect. However, in Japan, since the days of the Famicom [Nintendo Entertainment System], Japanese composers have gone about making each individual sound one by one. They created sounds using the Famicom that sounded like other instruments and layered their work. Now that technology has advanced, Western designers view it as the opportunity to branch even further into the idea of film scoring, while Japanese designers continue that traditional approach to instrumentation that developed during the 8-bit era."

"With Japanese games, the directors and development staff want to present an experience that they have envisioned, and to do that, they often want to maintain more control over the music and how it is used in the game," says Kobayashi. "With licensed music, since it is something that usually hasn't been made for the game, it may not fit the atmosphere the development team is trying to convey as well as an original piece that they design and create from scratch to fit a scene or stage."

A few recurring aspects of Japanese and American games can be downright off-putting to the other nation's gamers. A popular complaint amongst Western RPG gamers are the rather sappy main characters. Americans like their heroes to be gung-ho cowboys or action heroes, not mopey emo kids.

"The prevalence of children and teens, and particularly emotionally distraught teens in Japanese anime and video games may be a reflection of modern Japanese society," says Opplinger. "After all, Japan does have an unusually high rate of youth suicide in the industrialized world. These game characters may provide a healthy outlet for frustration and confusion that can't be politely discussed or revealed in real life. Americans may find this sort of emotional displacement frustrating or aggravating because we're not used to dealing with stress and personal conflict through introspective or second-hand avenues. The theory in American society is to medicate, or to talk about your problems. The opposite is true in Japan. Personal problems stay personal, so teens dealing with the confusion and emotional stress of adolescence may use personal, individual outlets like video games in place of psychologists, friends, and anti-depressant medications."

This reasoning can also be used to explain the prevalence of dating simulations, which are rarely seen out of Japan. But there are also several other genres that rarely see the light of day outside of Japan. These include train simulations, such as Taito's Densha de Go!, which are most likely popular due to the prevalence of public transportation in Japanese society. Tokyo, the center of Japanese culture, is criss-crossed with an enormous and high efficient rail system, and the shinkansen bullet train remains a triumph of Japanese engineering.

Of course, the opposite is true in America with the popularity of military and war games like Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, and Call of Duty. The general Japanese populace may not warm up these games simply due to the attitude given towards conflict in post-World War II Japan. After all, the country has no real military outside of the Self Defense Force. Similarly, there are strict gun laws in Japan, while Americans have the constitutional right to bear arms.

This may also explain why the Japanese tend not to like first person shooters. Again, Japan's home computer market isn't nearly as gamer-focused as it is elsewhere in the globe, so most Japanese gamers are forced to do their gaming on consoles, which usually feature lower frame rates and don't offer the precise mouse/keyboard combination that many FPS vets swear by. Combined with the hyper-realistic visual designs that are usually geared towards Western gamers, it's easy to see why the Japanese would be put off by the likes of Gears of War and DOOM.

Each nation's games tend to focus on more specific themes as well. Japan can't seem to get enough of railing against the evils of organized religion, which usually result in the characters banding together and killing God. It's an especially common motif in RPGs, including Breath of Fire 2, Final Fantasy Legend, Final Fantasy Tactics, Xenogears and any number of Shin Megami Tensei titles.

As most Japanese citizens adhere to Shinto or Buddhist beliefs, the nation has few Christians. Their relative lack of attachment to the church compared to Western cultures allows them to approach the topic without fear of blasphemy. In that light, an evil church out to exploit its followers is hadly any different than a diabolical corporation like Shinra from Final Fantasy VII. Additionally, while the Japanese are generally tolerant towards other religions, Christianity has not had a pleasant history in the country. The first Westerners came to Japan back in 16th century to spread the word of God but were later kicked out by the emperor once the atrocities occurring in other parts of the globe came to light. In fact, the entire country isolated itself until Matthew Perry forcibly reopened its ports in the mid-19th century.

But there may be other reasons why the Japanese don't killing God to be particularly unusual. "Japanese religion consists of countless gods and spirits rather than a single God," explains Opplinger. "Christian theology dictates a single life while Buddhism believes in rebirth and renewal, which may explain the death of gods and the beginning and ending of civilizations, eras, and gods. Japanese culture itself has gone through numerous cycles and births, including the end of the feudal era, the introduction of the West, and the atomic bombings and the following rebuilding. Since Christian culture has only one God, we don't think about the death of God. But Asian culture and beliefs like karma are cyclical."

The variance in attitudes towards game difficulty is yet another important difference. There seems to be a misconception that Japan is the land of video gamers -- and if all one ever looked at was pictures of Akihabara, Tokyo's electronic district, it's easy to get that impression. But in reality, the nation's market is segmented much like it is everywhere else -- a small group of hardcore gamers who love their games filled with gigantic quests and complicated mathematics and teeth punching difficulty, and the much more dominant casual gamers, who enjoy playing video games but don't want to be assaulted by overly complex gameplay.

On this same note, it's also not entirely true that the Japanese prefer their games to be more difficult. Many Americans seem to think that Japanese games are dumbed down during localization, either to make them easier to understand or easier to beat. This falsity probably stems from the RPGs of the early 90s, where the English market got the simplified version of Final Fantasy II. (To be fair, this same downgraded version was also released in Japan as Final Fantasy IV Easytype, so a wider audience could play it.) Since then, a number of games - especially action titles - have been made more difficult for the American market. The now-defunct Working Designs often increased the difficulty in their localized titles. To this day, Capcom still gives the Western market more daunting experiences -- the original American release of the PlayStation Resident Evil went through slight modifications to make it more challenging, and Westerners initially got a much harder version of Devil May Cry 3. Konami even implemented extreme difficulty levels for the European market in their Metal Gear Solid games.

"I'm not sure that it's so much that Japanese gamers prefer easier games, but rather gamers overseas tend to like more challenge," explains Kobyashi. "It's a slight difference in nuance, but when making a game, we don't intentionally make it easier for Japanese gamers. For years, we have always received requests from users overseas to 'make the games harder,' and we have been responding by adding challenge to the games we release overseas."

"There are two reasons for the difficulty changes," says Inafune. "The first one is from a business perspective. Western markets also have rental markets. [Renting games in illegal in Japan.] If you make a game that is too easy, it will become a rental instead of a purchase and the game's sales will suffer. Thus, those on the business side of things often request that games be made harder to counter-act the rental market.

"The second reason is from a design standpoint. Western gamers like to challenge things. If a game is very difficult, they view beating it as a triumph over a sort of foe. Japanese gamers will quit if a game is too hard. They want an RPG where you never die. If you play an RPG correctly, you should not die. That is the point. Most RPGs are not concerned with raising your skill, they are concerned with raising your experience points. I think that Japanese companies are slowly losing the ability to make hard games that still appeal to Japanese users, and this is evidenced by the decline in sales of action games as Japanese users lose interest in challenging higher difficulty levels."

CONCLUSION

One might look at the Japanese console sales charts and make broad claims, like how the Japanese don't like the Xbox. This is not entirely true -- just dive through Japanese message boards or blogs, and one can find legions of enthusiastic fans discussing and praising the likes of Halo, Ghost Recon, Oblivion, Splinter Cell, and Prince of Persia. It just so happens that Western games are a niche market over there. It's much like the Western market and games such as Shin Megami Tensei or Disgaea; they may not be big sellers, but they've garnered underground success and attracted thousands of obsessed fans. As it turns out, great games are great games, enough to overcome hundreds of years of cultural divergence.

There are instances of similar game design that show up in different ways. The Japanese have games like Dynasty Warriors and Dragon Quest that focus on long bouts of repetitive grinding to build up characters, while Westerners have World of Warcraft and Diablo. Where English message boards are filled with posters complaining about shoddy localizations and bad voice acting, there are plenty of Japanese fans that bemoan how many Western games aren't even translated into their native language, and the ones that are are often shoddy. Just like America has vast lobbies calling for the censorship of games for being too violent, Japan has also been clamping down, in some cases forcing companies to remove some of the gorier aspects of Resident Evil 4, Dead Rising, and God of War. On the surface, as much as things may seem to be different across the ocean, we're more similar than most realize.