The Super BunnyHop Thread

[flyingjohn]

Hijacking top youtube comment:
I didn’t know you did movie reviews!

 

[draug]

Glad to see him putting out another Critical Close-up. These were the entire reason I started watching his channel in the first place. Honestly, I wish he would just stick to game reviews in general...

 

[flyingjohn]

 

[Edward The Mediocre]

It should be titled "2017 in review: western developers really shat the bed so we couldn't ignore japanese games this year."

 

[Ash]

There has been a bit of a resurgence of the Japanese industry of late, but still not a lot that's really catching my eye regarding the games themselves. I need to play more of the games though, as I have been a little neglectful. Still, from what I have played and seen overall this year, there's very minor incline but things still really aren't great. And yeah, western game design is still in a horrible rut.

 

[Mark Richard]

2017's big budget market belongs to the Japanese, the only reason to own a console. Their games had variety, polish, and weren't designed from the ground up to psychologically manipulate players into taking out a second mortgage. I struggle to call it a renaissance because the competition from the West has been quite literally laughable. I have never had as much fun on a forum as I did on the Codex when Mass Effect: Andromeda released.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

The result was expected. He has admitted many times by now he's a bit of a weeb and Platinum fanboy. Good video still.

Also is it just me, or ever since he started patreon he now doesn't follow any sort of timetable to send out his videos, and instead of reviewing games (what he does best) it's mostly shit nobody cares?

 

[Ash]

IDK, he does some investigative or historical gaming journalism type vids, some game design or game business theory and parody, which are pretty cool. I personally don't align all that much with his personal gaming tastes (prob like 50% overlap), even though I like (old) Japanese games a lot too (probably equal to western, maybe slightly less), so I'm not too fond of his reviews anyways. He's a bit too much of a storyfaggot, which is where we differ greatly. I think I prefer him doing the random shit he keeps doing. I check them out more than I did his reviews anyway.

Edit: I just remembered that he did a damn fine job with his reviews regardless...was some time ago now. He did his research extensively, though he does that with all his vids to be fair.

Edit2: also, I don't think this result was so much related to him being a weeb or a console gamer at heart than it is to the evident resurgance of the Japanese market while western gaming is still coasting along as it always has been this past decade, with the exception of the continual rise of the indie (well, that's been going on for like a decade now too). Mind you I guess you're right, as there was next to no western games in this vid AT ALL when there was some ripe for mention. Not many, but some.

 

[flyingjohn]

I think Japanese games success is that they actually make games their audience want to buy.They aren't gonna abandon their primary franchises unless they stop selling.Also they aren't going for the "one super game to make a lot of money or go bankrupt" model the west is famous for.
Just look at stardew valley,pubg or star citizen,western companies refused to make this type of games because they re more interested in selling what their marketing tells them instead of selling what their audience wants.

 

[Cross]

I think Japanese games success is that they actually make games their audience want to buy.They aren't gonna abandon their primary franchises unless they stop selling.Also they aren't going for the "one super game to make a lot of money or go bankrupt" model the west is famous for.
Just look at stardew valley,pubg or star citizen,western companies refused to make this type of games because they re more interested in selling what their marketing tells them instead of selling what their audience wants.

What a weird thing to say, considering western triple-A games sell very well, meaning these games must appeal to their audiences.

The difference between Japanese and western game development is that Japanese developers have done a much better job of retaining and refining talent and development practices. The major Japanese developers from the 80's are still around in some form or another, and independent. By contrast, during the 90's and early 2000's, almost every notable PC developer was shut down or swallowed up by a few mega-publishers and put to work on very different games than the ones they made prior.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I think Japanese games success is that they actually make games their audience want to buy.They aren't gonna abandon their primary franchises unless they stop selling.Also they aren't going for the "one super game to make a lot of money or go bankrupt" model the west is famous for.
Just look at stardew valley,pubg or star citizen,western companies refused to make this type of games because they re more interested in selling what their marketing tells them instead of selling what their audience wants.

What a weird thing to say, considering western triple-A games sell very well, meaning these games must appeal to their audiences.

The difference between Japanese and western game development is that Japanese developers have done a much better job of retaining and refining talent and development practices. The major Japanese developers from the 80's are still around in some form or another, and independent. By contrast, during the 90's and early 2000's, almost every notable PC developer was shut down or swallowed up by a few mega-publishers and put to work on very different games than the ones they made prior.

Western AAA market has been on the decline from what I've heard. They still sell well, but less well than before. Even normies have a limit to how many times they can play through the same shit over and over again.

 

[Ash]

Western AAA market has been on the decline from what I've heard. They still sell well, but less well than before. Even normies have a limit to how many times they can play through the same shit over and over again.

That and the aggressively corrupt business practices western AAA are subscribing to, which while present with certain Jap companies too, is notably less aggressive/intruding/declined. Some exceptions apply. Yet take in-game gambling microtransaction loot boxes for instance, know of any Jap game that has those (excluding mobile ofc, that is declined to the core no matter where you look)?

 

[Cross]

Western AAA market has been on the decline from what I've heard. They still sell well, but less well than before. Even normies have a limit to how many times they can play through the same shit over and over again.

Quite the opposite, it seems:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-11-08-call-of-duty-ww2-launch-sales-double-infinite-warfare

Call of Duty: WW2 launch sales double Infinite Warfare

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-11-08-assassins-creed-origins-launch-sales-double-syndicate

Assassin's Creed Origins launch sales double Syndicate

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-division-breaks-more-sales-records-passes-dest/1100-6435683/

The Division Breaks More Sales Records, Passes Destiny

 

[Hobo Elf]

Western AAA market has been on the decline from what I've heard. They still sell well, but less well than before. Even normies have a limit to how many times they can play through the same shit over and over again.

Quite the opposite, it seems:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-11-08-call-of-duty-ww2-launch-sales-double-infinite-warfare

Call of Duty: WW2 launch sales double Infinite Warfare

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-11-08-assassins-creed-origins-launch-sales-double-syndicate

Assassin's Creed Origins launch sales double Syndicate

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-division-breaks-more-sales-records-passes-dest/1100-6435683/

The Division Breaks More Sales Records, Passes Destiny

That.. actually doesnt mean anything. Syndicate and Destiny sold poorly, so twice as much as that is still not much. I heard that CoD Infinity sold poorly as well so the same logic applies. AAA is indeed on the decline. These articles are just marketing damage control.

 

[Cross]

That.. actually doesnt mean anything. Syndicate and Destiny sold poorly, so twice as much as that is still not much. I heard that CoD Infinity sold poorly as well so the same logic applies. AAA is indeed on the decline. These articles are just marketing damage control.

https://gamerant.com/destiny-sales-day-one-record/

‘Destiny’ Nets $500 Million on Day 1; Sets Record for New Game Launch

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/2016s-best-selling-games-in-the-us-revealed/1100-6447090/

2016 Top 10 Games

1. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
2. Battlefield 1
3. The Division
4. NBA 2K17
5. Madden NFL 17
6. Grand Theft Auto V
7. Overwatch (no Battle.net sales)
8. Call of Duty: Black Ops III
9. FIFA 17
10. Final Fantasy XV

 

[Hobo Elf]

Launch day record doesnt mean anything in terms of lifetime sales. People had high expectations for it because of Halo, but the game bombed hard. It was an especially vicious victim to trade ins, which is why they adopted a code based expac system so people couldnt resell them as well.

 

[Edward The Mediocre]

Dude, the current AAA MO is to make fewer titles but throw in mircotransactions and DLC that nickle and dime you to make their profit because that's less riskier than making a variety of smaller titles per year in the traditional cycle.

 

[fantadomat]

Did it really? To me looks like it is the same,only thing that have "risen" is the hype around it. Everyone is talking about switch and games like zelda and nier but how many actually did buy them? Pretty sure that there are more people bragging about them than people owning them. Most jap games do have far too fanatical fallowing that overwhelms everything with positive opinions and can't take any criticism. I do know that they sold ok but you can hardly call them amazing successes.

 

[kalganoat]

lol using FF15 but not DQ11 as an example of good Japanese games okay.

 

[Young_Hollow]

As much of a retarded thing it is to make a sweeping statement as ''Japanese games suck'', its at least an equally retarded thing to say ''Japanese games are great''. And correct me if I'm wrong, but the last few years of Japanese games' decline as Mr Hop puts it gave us games like Metal Gear Rising, Dark Souls 2, Bloodborne, Splatoon, MGS5, and whatever Smash,Mario Kart and Pokemon games came out, none of which were below average unless you count the story portion of Kojima Gear 5. It seems contrived to both say there was a decline and then an improvement this year, as if all these games weren't in development before 2017 and them being Japanese has anything to do with it.

 

[Edward The Mediocre]

It would be more accurate japanese games are consistent qualitywise, both in flaws and merits.

 

[Archibald]

I think it is hard to say if anything really changed in terms of quality when you compare western and eastern games of last couple of decades. Sure you can pinpoint certain games breaking new ground or whatever, but we are talking about whole mass here and as always there was lots of shit and some gems.

For me this whole thing about games from Japan suddenly becoming shit (and now having a rebirth) feels a bit more cultural thing than factual. Roughly at the same time we had "Japanese games suck", gamers are dead, consoles are dead and similar shit. To me games from Japan always felt like an alternative to mainstream gaming (even if they sold very well I never got the feeling that they were treated as mainstream) and at times I got the impression that some people wanted really badly to push them out so that American indies would become this alternative gaming thing. I don't want to say that this was some kinda conspiracy, but just bunch of different things happening and forming this sort of environment where suddenly future of gaming was indie shovelware that addressed "grown up" themes and everything else was pushed aside.

But years later it turns out that neither gamers nor consoles are dead and that nothing really happened to Japanese games. Not to turn this into gamergate thread, but I think that slow death of "Japanese games suck" narrative is just another sign that things ain't as bad as they might look.

 

[Ash]

False. Japanese games, just like western, declined and they declined hard. Around the late 2000s. They've still not recovered, but this little resurgence is good news.

 

[Cross]

For me this whole thing about games from Japan suddenly becoming shit (and now having a rebirth) feels a bit more cultural thing than factual. Roughly at the same time we had "Japanese games suck", gamers are dead, consoles are dead and similar shit. To me games from Japan always felt like an alternative to mainstream gaming

That...makes no sense. After the video game crash of 1983, Japanese developers dominated console gaming. Western developers re-established a prominent console presence in the early 2000's with the launch of the Xbox and the massive success of GTA 3, but it wasn't until the Xbox360 generation that they definitely overtook Japan as the face of mainstream gaming (with the exception of Nintendo, which is still the most recognizable and iconic developer in the industry).

But while their commercial success has certainly dropped, the sentiment that Japanese games have massively declined in quality is largely a false narrative spread by game journalists and, ironically, fans of Japanese games themselves, both groups enamoured with the new western presence on consoles. I lost track of how many times I read internet comments along the lines of 'I used to be a massive JRPG fan until I played Mass Effect and Oblivion.'

 

[Archibald]

False. Japanese games, just like western, declined and they declined hard. Around the late 2000s. They've still not recovered, but this little resurgence is good news.

I mean if we compare western games to Japanese games, not Japanese games of today with Japanese games of 20 years ago. Basically what I mean is that I don't think that one side had bigger drop in quality than the other.