I hope I came to the right place to talk about this...
This years' TGS, (Even though by now, it is old news) has opened a fascinating study for me. It has come to my attention that some games tend to more or less liked per region, with various reasons entailing that. But sometimes, the region's localization teams are not at fault; sometimes, it could be differing cultural values or preferences. Well, I have not found out for certain, but I am fascinated by this knowledge. You don't see that many First Person Shooters made by Japanese game developers, and as far as I have heard, the genre could pretty much be considered the equivalent to JRPGs to gamers in Western regions (America, Europe, Australia... I think I am a bit TOO general here, since I feel like I'm speaking mostly for North America.)
Since then, I've been researching and creating an article on GameFAQs, focusing on ten games that have some degree of exclusivity to the Western regions. Why? Because I was certain that as there exist games that we Westerners wont see officially exported to our regions, there also exist games made in the West that hardly see any exportation to Japan, but have fanbases there. And I was also looking at the games that are region exclusive and comparing them as far as their appeal is concerned.
Well, ok, so my knowledge in this area is limited by a lack of that many social contacts period, let alone someone from Japan. And that I've never actually flown to Japan, and due to reasons caused by the former, I have poor incentive to learn the language...
But still... everytime I look at games like Gears of War, Warhammer 40000, Starcraft II, God of War, Metroid, Call of Duty, and Team Fortress 2, I've constantly thought... "Hey, what do they think of them?"
This years' TGS, (Even though by now, it is old news) has opened a fascinating study for me. It has come to my attention that some games tend to more or less liked per region, with various reasons entailing that. But sometimes, the region's localization teams are not at fault; sometimes, it could be differing cultural values or preferences. Well, I have not found out for certain, but I am fascinated by this knowledge. You don't see that many First Person Shooters made by Japanese game developers, and as far as I have heard, the genre could pretty much be considered the equivalent to JRPGs to gamers in Western regions (America, Europe, Australia... I think I am a bit TOO general here, since I feel like I'm speaking mostly for North America.)
Since then, I've been researching and creating an article on GameFAQs, focusing on ten games that have some degree of exclusivity to the Western regions. Why? Because I was certain that as there exist games that we Westerners wont see officially exported to our regions, there also exist games made in the West that hardly see any exportation to Japan, but have fanbases there. And I was also looking at the games that are region exclusive and comparing them as far as their appeal is concerned.
Well, ok, so my knowledge in this area is limited by a lack of that many social contacts period, let alone someone from Japan. And that I've never actually flown to Japan, and due to reasons caused by the former, I have poor incentive to learn the language...
But still... everytime I look at games like Gears of War, Warhammer 40000, Starcraft II, God of War, Metroid, Call of Duty, and Team Fortress 2, I've constantly thought... "Hey, what do they think of them?"