"Japan used to rule video games, so what happened?"

[Lyric Suite]

The means by which you determine "greatness" are by setting criteria by which we can objectively evaluate the degrees by which each item satisfies the given criteria. So first you have to define the word "greatness," which you are not doing because you're not a "relativist," even though your failure to define the actual word itself confines you to reiterating your own subjective opinion.

The first step in having an objective discussion is obviously to agree on a set of objective terms by which you can further qualify the discussion. You're not doing this so that you can continue bleating.

You still don't get it. Reason is limited in what it can grasp, and there is no definition or criteria that can help you overcome this limitation. But the intellect can overcome all obstacles:

Love has rosebowers amid the veil of blood; lovers have affairs
to transact with the beauty of incomparable Love.
Reason says, “The six directions are the boundary, and there
is no way out”; Love says, “There is a way, and I have many
times travelled it.”

Reason beheld a bazaar, and began trading; Love has beheld
many bazaars beyond Reason’s bazaar.
Many a hidden Mansur there is who, confiding in the soul of
Love, abandoned the pulpit and mounted the scaffold.
5 Dreg-sucking lovers possess ecstatic perceptions inwardly;
men of reason, dark of heart, entertain denials within them.
Reason says, “Set not your foot down, for in the courtyard
there is naught but thorns”; Love says, “These thorns belong to
the reason which is within you.”

Beware, be silent; pluck the thorn of being out of the heart’s
foot, that you may behold the rosebowers within you.
Shams-i Tabrızı, you are the sun within the cloud of words;
when your sun arose, all speech was obliterated

By love, of course, Rumi is talking about the intelligence. Indeed, in many traditional societies, it was the heart, and not the brain, that was thought to be the seat of the intellect.

The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could percieve.
And particularly they studied the genius of each city & country, placing it under its mental deity;
Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of & enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began Priesthood;
Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales.
And at length they pronounc'd that the Gods had order'd such things.
Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/blake_ma.html

Are we talking about the same Blake who derived his artistic style from medieval poetry and medieval illumination (obviously perceiving something in medieval art that others in his age couldn't)? And it is all the more amusing considering this verses are actually referring to the human "heart", precisely, the true seat of the intellect. The Priesthood of Blake is rationalism, whether of the religious or non-religious kind. For Blake, art was the "fiery chariot of contemplative thought" riding which the artist could “meet the Lord in the air.”

 

[Emily]

How does one obtain love or intelligence then? Reason seems much more straightforward and obtainable

 

[Lyric Suite]

I don't know. In my case it was awakened by exposure to genius. Took me a while too, it wasn't an easy process. According to the Perennialists, intellection is not something anybody can have access to, but modern civilization has aggravated the situation by denying the possibility of its development even to people who have an affinity for it. Many of us here are able to recognize the truth of certain things, but we can never be certain because we've been taught since we were children that something can only be true unless it can be proven in a visible or discursive manner. Wasn't this forum created precisely to escape that predicament? Once you start down that road, why stop?

 

[Emily]

True i cannot imagine a worse setting then a modern city for such an undertaking. It seems the path to it is so much filled with suffering that is just inhumane to even try.

 

[anus_pounder]

Move thread to general discussion retardo land.

 

[laclongquan]

As awesome as the meanderings of this thread no doubt are, I was surprised that the rapid aging of Japan had not been mentioned as a reason for the decline of Japanese gaming culture, in the naive innocence of the first few pages.

Fewer young people will always mean fewer leisure hours being spent in aggregate over a society, fewer minds fresh and ready to accept new storylines, and less chance of a new talent creating something beyond a stale remake. It would be strange if Japan could remain atop a changing industry, when there simply isn't much new blood.

I dont think so.

Market: the jap make games not just for japanese market but for chinese, korean, and chinese-language markets in asia (singapore, taiwan, hongkong, etc...) So even with an aging pop, they still got expanding markets. And playing games in japan does not carry the bad images as in us or eu, so 40+ something still can play.

Producers: they outsource a lot of works to their markets: china, korea, ... and non-market like Vietnam. There's logic in that, as the game is not so much an import, so easier to get accepted.

With that, the aging factor is not much of a problem.

 

[Telengard]

The article's entire question is disingenuous anyways. Might as well ask - America used to rule videa gamez [in the era of Atari], so what happened?

"Ruling" implies being able to hold your seat. When you play King of the Hill business version, you've got to be able to knock the other bastards down. You don't just walk up to the top of some mound in the middle of an empty field and claim "I rule!" and suddenly win.

If some bumbling (though admittedly quite aggressive) American company can knock you off your perch in just five years, you never really ruled anything. You just didn't have any competitors.

 

[80s Stallone]

I dont think so.

Market: the jap make games not just for japanese market but for chinese, korean, and chinese-language markets in asia (singapore, taiwan, hongkong, etc...) So even with an aging pop, they still got expanding markets. And playing games in japan does not carry the bad images as in us or eu, so 40+ something still can play.

Producers: they outsource a lot of works to their markets: china, korea, ... and non-market like Vietnam. There's logic in that, as the game is not so much an import, so easier to get accepted.

With that, the aging factor is not much of a problem.

They can play but it is not as enjoyable to old people as it is to kids. Your brain gets too slow.

And yes, old population less innovation.

 

[laclongquan]

I dont think so.

Market: the jap make games not just for japanese market but for chinese, korean, and chinese-language markets in asia (singapore, taiwan, hongkong, etc...) So even with an aging pop, they still got expanding markets. And playing games in japan does not carry the bad images as in us or eu, so 40+ something still can play.

Producers: they outsource a lot of works to their markets: china, korea, ... and non-market like Vietnam. There's logic in that, as the game is not so much an import, so easier to get accepted.

With that, the aging factor is not much of a problem.

They can play but it is not as enjoyable to old people as it is to kids. Your brain gets too slow.

And yes, old population less innovation.

Are those subjective observation or do you have any proof for your theories?

 

[evdk]

This thread:

 

[Agesilaus]

anime happened. the horror, the horror

 

[Azrael the cat]

The best thing for consumers would be for Japanese developers to keep doing what they're doing: focussing on their own culture, ideas and local markets. This leads to diversity and innovation. From a gamer's perspective, there's little value in having Japan ape Western mainstream development.

I don't mean that they should try to become financially sustainable on domestic markets alone. But a series of smaller companies making a variety of games is a better outcome than the gradual convergence into the cinematic-thinga-me-shooter-story-thing mega-genre.

 

[Lyric Suite]

focussing on their own culture, ideas and local markets. This leads to diversity and innovation.

Indeed?

 

[Azrael the cat]

focussing on their own culture, ideas and local markets. This leads to diversity and innovation.

Indeed?

Better than trying to emulate existing products from other markets. We're better off having multiple gaming culture making multiple types of games, than a conglomerate industry.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Yeah, but i wonder where that idea also applies. Come on, don't be slow now.

 

[Lyric Suite]

At any rate, the real answer is that Japanese developers and producers have become just as retarded as their western counterpart. The 80s were wrong. The world isn't going to end in a nuclear war, or some kind of apocalypse or another. The world is dying of stupid, plain and simple. Everything is shit because everybody is a retard nowadays. Check your feelings, you know it to be true.

 

[Lyric Suite]

How does one obtain love or intelligence then? Reason seems much more straightforward and obtainable

To drive the point further, i was reading Shakespeare again, spurred by this thread, and i find this little gem in Othello:

Virtue! a fig! ‘tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our
bodies are our gardens to the which our wills are
gardeners.…If the balance of our lives had not one scale of
reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and
baseness of our natures would conduct us to most
preposterous conclusions; but we have reason to cool our
raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts.

This is coming from Iago, supposedly one of Shakespeare's worst villains. I can't imagine a more explicit attack on rationalism and its application in morality, which is humanism.

 

[SunDaYu]

Philosophers are children who cup their ears and scream at God, "I can't hear you!" Read the Bible and may God grant you wisdom from above.

Japanese culture states that if something works, then don't fix or innovate. Look at the Megaman X games; they haven't changed since the first one was made. Why bother making something new and innovative when there is demand for more of the same? There's also the Japanese approach to video game: they see games as a reflection of their own lives (boring and repetitive), this is why cosplay is a thing. They do not want strategy or change. They want more soma.

So what's wrong with this? At least it's an honest approach. Japanese games have given us some freaky stuff, but at least it wasn't abstract art or atonal music. They know they don't have genius and are ok with it.

 

[80s Stallone]

Are those subjective observation or do you have any proof for your theories?

That creativitiy and reflexes decline? This should be common knowledge but Western people suffer from "Peter Pan" syndrome. They won't deny that their body's are aging but your brain is also aging.

Thus, an aging population might have different interests in video games and a smaller pool of creativitiy. Not my theory but I think it is a good approach. Of course, many people will oppose this because as soon as a problem cannot be just nailed down to be a "structural problem" but rather a fundamental one, that cannot be changed by tinkering some organizational elements wild denial breaks out.

 

[laclongquan]

So no proof, then?

To counter, Japan stand 4th in top 30 most creative countries of the world

http://www.bloomberg.com/slideshow/2014-01-22/30-most-innovative-countries.html#slide28

Take that and swallow, biatches~

 

[861129]

Philosophers are children who cup their ears and scream at God, "I can't hear you!" Read the Bible and may God grant you wisdom from above.

Japanese culture states that if something works, then don't fix or innovate. Look at the Megaman X games; they haven't changed since the first one was made. Why bother making something new and innovative when there is demand for more of the same? There's also the Japanese approach to video game: they see games as a reflection of their own lives (boring and repetitive), this is why cosplay is a thing. They do not want strategy or change. They want more soma.

So what's wrong with this? At least it's an honest approach. Japanese games have given us some freaky stuff, but at least it wasn't abstract art or atonal music. They know they don't have genius and are ok with it.

Are those subjective observation or do you have any proof for your theories?

That creativitiy and reflexes decline? This should be common knowledge but Western people suffer from "Peter Pan" syndrome. They won't deny that their body's are aging but your brain is also aging.

Thus, an aging population might have different interests in video games and a smaller pool of creativitiy. Not my theory but I think it is a good approach. Of course, many people will oppose this because as soon as a problem cannot be just nailed down to be a "structural problem" but rather a fundamental one, that cannot be changed by tinkering some organizational elements wild denial breaks out.

Many artists have created their finest works towards the end of their lives. I am not sure if the decline of age makes for an explanation, unless in the sense that passion -rather than ability, exactly- has been lost to time and circumstance.

laclongquan is not "Western people", anyway.

 

[Lyric Suite]

So no proof, then?

To counter, Japan stand 4th in top 30 most creative countries of the world

http://www.bloomberg.com/slideshow/2014-01-22/30-most-innovative-countries.html#slide28

Take that and swallow, biatches~

Bitch, please.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Remember the times when dumbed-down popamole games made for dudebros used to represent the very worst in western game design? Because modern mainstream aesthetics have made even pedo animu shovelware look tame by comparison, these last seven years have been uncanny.

Former achievements seem so distant after years of utter retardation and creative bankruptcy that I can no longer hold western games in high regard. Japan wins.

 

[AdamReith]

You can't compare an emerging market with an established one. Japanese games were good when they had to be, Sega versus Nintendo, Square versus Enix. Sony versus the world.

Now it's clear what sells and the path to market is basically set in stone, it's about pumping out material in the most cost efficient manner possible.

Only by eliminating the segment of the population that find infinite amusement in glorified pachinko machines with flashy graphics will we get good games from the still presumeably quite capable Nihon again.

 

[Thac0]

You can't compare an emerging market with an established one. Japanese games were good when they had to be, Sega versus Nintendo, Square versus Enix. Sony versus the world.

Now it's clear what sells and the path to market is basically set in stone, it's about pumping out material in the most cost efficient manner possible.

Only by eliminating the segment of the population that find infinite amusement in glorified pachinko machines with flashy graphics will we get good games from the still presumeably quite capable Nihon again.

I wouldn't say Japan is making bad games, or lacking competition now...
Atlus is struggling to become a first name JRPG developer, Yakuza went turn based to compete with the rising popularity of turn based JRPGs, Atelier is doing better than ever, Xenoblacde Chronicles is not my cup of tea, but Monolyth is healthy competition to Squeenix, even Square got so much flak that they are mustering up and releasing good JRPGs again.

Sure they are no longer as mainstream relevant as they used to be, but I don't think they got significantly worse.