Why Are FPS Games So Unpopular In Japan?

[DSC]

Its just something I find odd... I have no idea why it is. I see japanese people do all sorts of crazy shit in games of nearly every single other genre, but FPSes are pretty much untouched. JCP was nice, but honestly, I sometimes wonder what kind of insanity they would manage to pull out were Doom and shooters in general just a little more well-known among them.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

FPS games tend to lean more toward realism or at least grit, the Japanese tend to like more colorful or visual games. Ironically they're way more into hardcore violence than Americans (well, you know that, you've seen Japanese movies), but I think the reason for their violence being more extreme is because it's usually less realistic. A lot of them perfer games that don't rely so much on reaction time, like Final Fantasy or Dragon quest, with Dragon Quest in particular nicknamed "Japan's Favorite Franchise". When you look at that game, it's the epitome of what they like most in video games: colorful graphics, menu-based combat, a focus on characters over plot, length, humor, and a feeling of adventure. Plus, I would think the ratio of PC:console gamers is quite different over there - FPS games have always been more of a PC staple than a console one.

Edited October 19, 2022 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[Rudolph]

Well, both Resident Evil 7 and Village are first-person shooters. Did they do poorly in Japan?

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

6 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

Well, both Resident Evil 7 and Village are first-person shooters. Did they do poorly in Japan?

Those are both entries in an old Japanese franchise that started out as third person survival horror. They are quite different than the typical FPS gameplay you'd get from DOOM or CoD. The series amassed its fans from when the games were still third person.

 

If you're curious how well they sold, I have a cool website: www.google.com

[dasho]

If you've played Resonance of Fate and see how much they understand about guns I think you'd know.

 

[ReaperAA]

There are likely 2 main reasons for that I can think of:

• Japanese audience generally disliking guns (don't know the exact reason for this, but this is definitely true). Even in most of their shows and anime, the weapons used (especially by protagonists) are anything but standard modern day weapons or guns. And since FPS mostly revolve around guns, so they are not popular.
• Consoles are far more popular than PCs in Japan than in any other country. While FPS games do exist on consoles, the FPS genre lends itself much better towards PC

[TheFocus]

3 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

 

• Consoles are far more popular than PCs in Japan than in any other country. While FPS games do exist on consoles, the FPS genre lends itself much better towards PC

the Japanese market has moved far more toward PCs in the last decade, for many reasons i won't get into here.

[ReaperAA]

Just now, TheFocus said:

the Japanese market has moved far more toward PCs in the last decade, for many reasons i won't get into here.

If so, then I stand corrected 

[Gez]

The answer is simple: not enough FPS games are about moe catgirls.

[roadworx]

i feel like another thing that has yet to be mentioned is that, in japan, swords are just seen as a lot more culturally significant than guns are. swords and swordmaking are kind of a big part of japanese tradition; in fact, hand-crafted swords made in japan are literally considered pieces of art as opposed to weapons. obviously, that's gonna be a bit of a hurdle for the fps genre to overcome there, considering that...you know. 99% of them use guns lol

[PsychEyeball]

9 minutes ago, roadworx said:

i feel like another thing that has yet to be mentioned is that, in japan, swords are just seen as a lot more culturally significant than guns are. swords and swordmaking are kind of a big part of japanese tradition; in fact, hand-crafted swords made in japan are literally considered pieces of art as opposed to weapons. obviously, that's gonna be a bit of a hurdle for the fps genre to overcome there, considering that...you know. 99% of them use guns lol

We must bring everyone to the same page now. Make a game about a gun which shoots swords. Everyone is happy.

[Redneckerz]

A lot of PSX games are first person, like Hellnight, Shadow Tower, King's Field. The thing is that they aren't necesarrily shooters, but more like walkers.

 

So the Japanese definitely do some shooters. Want more material @DSC? Here is a very hefty list:

 

Complete list of Japanese first-person shooters

[GarrettChan]

I honestly think the early markets of video gaming are isolated. Therefore, the whole different styles of western games and Japanese games are developed like this. In the 1990s, Japanese games are more about RPGs, so I kinda feel it's a market differences.

 

The other one could be, Japanese are not very good at English. As a Chinese, it's somewhat affected by this as well. For most of the Chinese when I'm young, they tend to play Japanese games because at least they can read a few kanji and understand something, while English games are harder to digest in general. (Not for me because I learn English from playing games, so I have no problem with them, but almost none of my friends/classmates play western games)

 

Solely speculation, no backup stats.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

48 minutes ago, dasho said:

If you've played Resonance of Fate and see how much they understand about guns I think you'd know.

 

Ha! I watched a Japanese film a while back, in one scene a character tells his friend to retrieve his "revolver" so he can get some target practice in, and his friend brings him back a 9mm.

[Rudolph]

15 minutes ago, PsychEyeball said:

Make a game about a gun which shoots swords.

Borderlands 3 has at least one, if I am not mistaken.

[Kyka]

1 hour ago, PsychEyeball said:

We must bring everyone to the same page now. Make a game about a gun which shoots swords. Everyone is happy.

 

I feel that should be the other way around. A sword made of guns. That would work way better in Japan.

 

Here is the storyline. Our hero plays a stock standard FPS. Collecting the usual array of guns: Grenade launcher, shotgun, machine gun, pistol, rocket launcher, generic exotic weapon. And after gaining all the guns, our hero returns to  his peasant village, wherein resides a master weapon smith. He of the ancient metal working skillz takes all these guns and smelts them down and makes the untimate melee weapon: the BFS 9000.

 

From there our hero teams up with all the catgirls and preteen schoolgirls and goes on an epic quest to find honour, glory, and an array of carefully hidden weapon collectibles, which if found, would allow the player to make - le gasp - the BFS 10K. A weapon made from the crushed remains of a hundred regular BFS' mixed with the equally crushed remains of their former owners. Not included in the standard game release: the tears of anime fans everywhere.

 

Mag. Nificent.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Kyka

[taufan99]

Welp, Apex Legends is rather popular in Japan, but mostly only because of the battle royale aspect.

 

On the other side, most Japanese video games and/or fans are catered around escapism within their entertainment media, for reasons that should be obvious enough if you're aware of the condition of Japanese society, hence the popularity of FPS games there (or lack thereof).

[Azuris]

Cultural difference.

 

Japanese Art was colorful and crazy even houndreds of Years ago.

Their Culture is still stronger conected to Swords, as they isolated themself and had a shorter Period from Middle Age to Modern Age.

 

It sounds stupid and i will describe it in a stupid way:

USA are Cowboys - Pew pew Billy the Kid!

Joke aside, the History and so its Culture of the USA is more modern, when Gun Powder was something normal and it marched from Independence through the wild West to World War 2.

 

Europe is somewhere between, as many Countries can find their Roots in Rome or the germanic Tribes, marched through the Middle Ages, Napoleon Wars and the World Wars.

 

[Sena]

If the anecdotal evidence of the 2-3 Japanese people I know is anything to go by, it's not FPS that's unpopular, but singleplayer FPS specifically. It's not like Japan is the one market that won't touch hugely popular games like Call of Duty and Apex Legends, because it just so happens the 3 blokes I mentioned are all way more into Call of Duty than anyone else I know. I wouldn't mind getting a Japanese perspective on the FPS genre, but I guess so long as all the big studios are working elsewhere, it's not gonna happen.

[magicsofa]

They do love Splatoon 3!

I'm skeptical of drawing major cultural-difference lines around this, but it is interesting that CF Japan shut down four years ago supposedly due to low player count. 

[Paf]

1 hour ago, Redneckerz said:

A lot of PSX games are first person, like Hellnight, Shadow Tower, King's Field. The thing is that they aren't necesarrily shooters, but more like walkers.

 

So the Japanese definitely do some shooters. Want more material @DSC? Here is a very hefty list:

 

Complete list of Japanese first-person shooters

For a second I thought that was gonna be a search button again

[fai1025]

I think it's probably their aren't much Japanese companies or studios that make FPS games, secondly most FPS games are made in English and Japanese are known for having shitty English, and honestly Japan are quite isolated from Western world (there's a reason why Japanese side of Twitter is a lot less toxic)

I guess Asia in general wasn't that into FPS, China will ban them, Japan not popular, Taiwan more into Japanese games, what else.

[rzh]

It's a cultural thing, kinda like how in my part of the world apparently everyone played Heroes of Might and Magic 3.

[Master O]

https://guncite.com/journals/dkjgc.html probably has a lot to do with it as well.

 

[Kinsie]

This thread mostly just feels like a collection of weird half-understood stereotypes. Kind of gross, TBH.

[Rudolph]

27 minutes ago, Kinsie said:

This thread mostly just feels like a collection of weird half-understood stereotypes. Kind of gross, TBH.

Agreed. As I pointed out, two of the biggest Japanese games these last few years - i.e. Resident Evil 7 and Village - were first-person shooters. At the end of the day, I think it is ultimately just a matter of circumstances that games like Doom have not been as successful in Japan as in other parts of the world. After all, StarCraft was such a smashing success in South Korea that it more or less gave birth to the whole eSports industry, yet I do not see anyone arguing that there is anything intrinsically Korean about a real-time strategy made by a Californian studio.

[BGreener]

Resident Evil 7 was also initially a matter of circumstance, considering it was intended to be played with VR. Ironically enough, I don't have much interest in first-person RE games because I love how they play in third-person. Capcom has consistently made some of my favorite player character animations ever, except for maybe RE6.

[BaileyTW]

I think it really mostly has to do with early games really. Early games in japan, less gun, less gun gets more popular, so now less gun. Early games in the us at least, more haves gun, more gun gets popular, now more gun popular.

[Rudolph]

11 minutes ago, BGrieber said:

Ironically enough, I don't have much interest in first-person RE games because I love how they play in third-person.

True, and I hear that they are reintroducing third-person view for Village in the upcoming DLC, but still, it does not change the fact that Capcom designed two (successful) first-person shooters in a row.

[Eurisko]

I wouldn't say Resident Evil 7 is an FPS at all. I'd say it's First person survival horror