A company involved with localising Japanese games for the US has publicly lamented the fact that US retailers refuse to carry games which insist on substituting Chinese cartoons for the sort of manly testosterone dripping beefcakes Americans apparently love so dearly.
Xseed, the localisers for Japanese RPG Zwei, report that “retailers aren’t too crazy about the cutesy graphics, which makes our job a little more difficult.”
In an earlier update they mourn the fact that US retailers apparently refuse to stock insufficiently manly games:
“We do take game requests, but games based on anime are very difficult to do – unless it’s a Dragon Ball or Naruto title, retailers refuse to carry them.”
Japanese publishers and US retailers seem to agree – American gamers simply hate anime.
Obligatory “east vs west” cover comparison:
Depends on the company really. If it is NIS America, I can completely understand why people don’t want to buy their games. They localize a bunch of the l♥♥i / moe games that have terrible gameplay and are very buggy / laggy. It never gets fixed either. Compare to xseed games that localize quality games with excellent stories, deep game play, and are polished off the shelf. You really can’t lump them together. Using Y’s as an example is also unfair and misleading. The new Y’s game for PS Vita is a hot item, people actually are buying the handheld specifically for that game.
I think retailers have no clue what they are talking about. There are pleanty of rpg gamers, ect. that don’t want beefed up charcters, enough to make a profit. I find this very disgusting that retailers think this.
This article is bull. It’s only true if you completely ignore the largest console game market, the DS. Cute graphics are the only thing that sell on the DS. Anime games on the other hand don’t sell cause the only ones in english are crap. The western made games that do well have anime style graphics though.
Western made games ‘influenced’ by anime-style? Definitely. But not ‘hardcore’ anime style
Thank the internet for servies like Steam. I’m trying out Recettear (English version http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2010/09/11/recettear-an-item-shops-tale-now-available-in-english/ ), which I downloaded through Steam, now as I type this.
I don’t think the problem is that people don’t like anime its just that a lot of Japanese games that come here have crappy game play
fuuuck! blind asswipes have no idea …. sigh. screw it im moving to Japan, ill learn Japanese so i can play all the “GOOD” games , not very often have i seen a game from my country that lives up to my standards, 1. it needs good animation, not graphics, i mean sure graphics are nice for eye candy, but ill take the old .hack games over gears of war any day, (dunno if thats a good comparison but hell idc atm)
2. good voice acting, yeah… as stated way above this, VO is key to any good game these days, (save ones like Okami and monster hunter, badass in general :3)
3. a character that has depth emotion (not too much emotion, emphasis on emo.) the main character(s) have to be real in a sense that you can discern what drives and hurts them, american characters are just too out there and untouchable, their motives are right there on the surface and thats usually 1 of 2 things, A. the girl; B. revenge, or a mix of both.
or then theres the wildcard who couldnt give a damn about anyone just their misson