October 30th: Is the Japanese game industry in decline?

In his interview with Gamespot, Keiji Inafune opens by lamenting the sorry state of the Japanese game industry, pointing to the lacking Japanese presence at GDC, and the apparently declining influence of Japanese developers on the world stage. While such pessimism is entirely understandable from Inafune, considering the mishandling of the Mega Man series by Capcom, the fortunes of the Japanese game industry need not be considered so downcast. Certainly, it is possible to speak of a period from the late eighties to the early years of the new millennium, where Japanese products unambiguously dominated the gaming scene, a situation that has since degraded. Yet, at the apogee of Japanese influence in the early nineties, only Japan and the United States could boast significant gaming industries; Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany were only marginal presences, while Russia, Eastern Europe, China and South Korea had little in the way of game industries. If the Japanese influence has declined, it has come largely through facing vastly increased competition, while facing potentially larger, but more fragmentary markets.

There is also the process alluded to in the article by Mia Consalvo, of the cultural hybridization of video gaming. A little over a year after his Gamespot interview, Inafune would go on to successfully crowdfund a 'spiritual successor' to his Mega Man series, entitled Mighty No.9 on Kickstarter. While the staff for the new game remains largely Japaneseⁱ, an American website was used to solicit funding and presumably substantial amounts of support came from West users of Kickstarter. The situation described by Consalvo has intensified substantially in the intervening years since its publication, especially in light of platforms such as Kickstarter, breaking down barriers between national traditions of game design. Thus, a Japanese company recently saw success in raising funds for new game with a hybrid Japanese-Western development teamⁱⁱ, while a current pledge drive for Cosmic Star Heroine – fully funded at this writing – cites classic Japanese titles Chrono Trigger and Phantasy Star as inspirationsⁱⁱⁱ.

It would be wrong, then, to begin eulogies for Japanese gaming; rather, as with other national traditions, seems to be integrating into a trans-national fusion, where it becomes more difficult to speak of a game that is distinctly 'Japanese' or 'Western'.

ihttp://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mightyno9/mighty-no-9

iihttp://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1300298569/project-phoenix-japans-indie-rpg-feat-aaa-talent?ref=card

iiihttp://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1596638143/cosmic-star-heroine-sci-fi-spy-rpg-for-pc-mac-ps4?ref=category