12 ms·

The author's basic premise stands: Japan has undergone a post-industrial transition where the sudden prosperity of post-WWII generations was quickly followed by

The author's basic premise stands: Japan has undergone a post-industrial transition where the sudden prosperity of post-WWII generations was quickly followed by stagnation of those coming of age later; the shrunken opportunities afforded to the younger cohort leads them towards idle leisure, or anxiety-filled corporate drone work. The nature of consumerism has changed: there's still outward signalling but the goals have coalesced around personal experiences and fulfillment within an intimate group, as opposed to nebulous segments of the society at large. This makes for an interesting comparison with South Korea, where the nature of consumerism has become markedly more extroverted instead. The economic and demographic points are fair, but the author tries too hard to tie elements of Japanese culture in with American trends. Yes, Japanese animation has mainstream appeal, but not universally. Video games can be pointed to as the most successful cultural export, but enduring appeal of Mario, Pokemon, and Link isn't functionally more different than Lego or Barbie in their respective times. If the world of video games were devoid of the above, they would be more realistic, more violent, with bleak storytelling and morally ambiguous characters, as we've seen from typical Western AAA games, so perhaps ironically, Japan's most influential cultural export is optimist escapism.

LMYahooTFY 8y ago
I'm not sure I understand the dichotomy you propose at the end; that if Nintendo didn't market to children, no other large publisher would?
- coldtea 8y ago
  Parent doesn't speak specifically of Nintendo (even if they mention several of their titles). The point being made is: if those Japanese games were absent from the market, we'd be left with the more bleak and violent US-made games.
  - satokema 8y ago
    Would we? It seems to me there was appeal to those games - not just random luck that they won out. Seems like a market hole would exist if we were stuck with "more bleak and violent US-made games", and I doubt your caricature of Americans would allow a market hole like that to exist. :)
    - coldtea 8y ago
      >Would we? It seems to me there was appeal to those games - not just random luck that they won out An appeal yes, but also a cultural fingerprint. Else we'd see Japanese and Americans doing those kind of games in equal measure. If the example was with music, few would argue that Brazil and co etc would make more and better samba and the like than the US, or that the US will make more and better jazz or hip hop. So why not accept that video game genres and styles can also be more cultivated in this or that area as well?
      - pandaman 8y ago
        >Else we'd see Japanese and Americans doing those kind of games in equal measure. But we do. You might have been trying to say that American-made non-violent games do not have such massive success some Nintendo games do but what does it prove? It's about as same as claiming that Swedish music is culturally pre-disposed to saccharine pop because ABBA is the most popular Swedish band.
  - ateesdalejr 8y ago
    >The point being made is: if those Japanese games were absent from the market, we'd be left with the more bleak and violent US-made games. I think that's partially untrue as there are quite few indie publishers in the US, who don't produce violent games.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- Larrikin 8y ago
  Do you view games that aren't ultra violent as childish? Nintendo fills a popular space and no one has been able to get anywhere close to their success in their area.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 8y ago
    As much as I hate Disney these days, I've always wondered why they've had extremely limited success stepping into Nintendo's domain -- and why they haven't tried to partner / aquire.
    - kha 8y ago
      They have :) re: Kingdom Hearts
      - yomly 8y ago
        KH is really just licensing of their content through - Square Enix do the hard work...
    - derefr 8y ago
      My hypothesis: Nintendo makes games 1. for families, and 2. for themselves; whereas Disney makes games the way they make movies—for each member of a family as separate "channels" braided through the experience, and not really for themselves. Nintendo make games for families, as in, they think games should still be fun when people of drastically different skill levels—like a parent and child—are playing. Smash Bros has handicaps. Mario Kart has blue shells. Mario Party is skill-based over the short term but luck-based over the long term. It's all in the service of "having fun regardless of skill disparity." That's also why they make the only good "party games." And Nintendo make games for themselves, as in, for example: they never make plain sequels (even Mario Galaxy 2 had new mechanics and a different level design philosophy) because that'd be unsatisfying to them as players. Nintendo is run by auteurs who care about inventing fun new game mechanics first-and-foremost, with the branding/license that those game mechanics should be "wrapped in" coming later in the design process. Strip all the aesthetic of a Nintendo game off, just laying the game loop bare, and each of their games is still unique. One way I've seen this put is "Nintendo seems to have the vision of a bunch of parents, each imagining using these games as levers to enhance their time spent playing with their own kids." Nintendo don't make new games to give parents more of the same lever; the levers they produce already have replay value. Instead, Nintendo are trying to give you, as a parent, enough qualitatively different levers that you can find the one (or the several) that's a perfect enhancement to your individual family's bonding time. --- Now, Disney might know what makes an experience a family can enjoy (vis. movies, theme parks) but I think they follow a different philosophy, where the different people in a family will enjoy the same experience for different reasons. They create their experiences to have individual components that are individually satisfying to separate imagined user-roles, while being benignly ignorable to people who don't fit that user-role. That works for a movie—it means that as you grow, your transition between roles will mean that the movie has rewatch value. And it works for a theme park—kids just enjoy the components for them, while parents both enjoy the components targeted at parents and vicariously enjoy the components targeted at kids, through their kids' enjoyment. But I don't know if it works for games. A game that is actually a collection of separate layers, where any individual player will only connect with some layers, isn't going to be hailed as great pretty much anywhere, because the experience won't have been systematically polished for any particular user. Disney Infinity is not "for" anyone. It's for families, but it's not specifically for a particular player in the family, nor is it for the family as a whole in the way a Nintendo game is. And, because Disney experiences are not really so much for connecting families together in a shared experience, so much as they are providing individual experiences good for each family member, Disney don't try to make games that they'd like to play—because that just means that they'd be biasing their production in favour of the adult experience at the expense of the child experience. So they just focus-group adult reactions, and child reactions, and maybe further split that into parents/not-parents, male/female, etc., and optimize for each of those groups' satisfaction with the experience. But in doing so, they further diminish the thing that makes a game that is "family-friendly" an attractive proposition. (Disney did used to make some good, memorable games, mind you. In the 8/16-bit era, DuckTales and Aladdin were both excellent. I think this was back when they were forced by cartridge limitations to focus the experience solely on one hypothetical user—one "family member.")
almostApatriot1 8y ago
Yes, Japanese culture has filled a gap. If there were more components to Western Culture outside of America's influence maybe it wouldn't be so prominent. But what, culturally, is coming out of Canada, Europe, Australia, South America, or Asia (outside of Japan)? Not much that is universally appealing.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Clothes fashion and industrial design, for one, come mainly from Europe.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  British music and TV spring to mind as examples of cultural exports that pinch well above their weight.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - chrisweekly 8y ago
    pinch -> punch (as in, punch above your weight class in boxing)
- jogjayr 8y ago
  Canada's done all right in terms of music exports. I don't even know Western popular music all that well and I can name Bryan Adams, Shania Twain, Celine Dion, Justin Bieber, and Drake - I'm sure there's many more. Hollywood and American TV has a ton of Canadian actors, which reminds me of the Canadian brain drain article from yesterday - maybe that's not restricted to tech :-) "Asia (outside of Japan)" I can only speak to India. I'd say yoga and various forms of meditation (TM and some others) are pretty big in the West, as is Indian cuisine. People typecast Bollywood as this exotic industry that churns out musicals with no kissing scenes (both outdated info) but its exports are reasonably influential in the Middle East and parts of Africa. But yes relative to its size, India hasn't had much cultural influence upon the world in the 20th and 21st centuries.
poisonarena 8y ago
wow, I liked your point on video games and 'optimist' escapism. Living in Japan right now for a bit and your comment helped me understand more than the article did!
ObeyTheGuts 8y ago
u son win a reptilian of the month award

LMYahooTFY 8y ago

I'm not sure I understand the dichotomy you propose at the end; that if Nintendo didn't market to children, no other large publisher would?

coldtea 8y ago
Parent doesn't speak specifically of Nintendo (even if they mention several of their titles). The point being made is: if those Japanese games were absent from the market, we'd be left with the more bleak and violent US-made games.
- satokema 8y ago
  Would we? It seems to me there was appeal to those games - not just random luck that they won out. Seems like a market hole would exist if we were stuck with "more bleak and violent US-made games", and I doubt your caricature of Americans would allow a market hole like that to exist. :)
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >Would we? It seems to me there was appeal to those games - not just random luck that they won out An appeal yes, but also a cultural fingerprint. Else we'd see Japanese and Americans doing those kind of games in equal measure. If the example was with music, few would argue that Brazil and co etc would make more and better samba and the like than the US, or that the US will make more and better jazz or hip hop. So why not accept that video game genres and styles can also be more cultivated in this or that area as well?
    - pandaman 8y ago
      >Else we'd see Japanese and Americans doing those kind of games in equal measure. But we do. You might have been trying to say that American-made non-violent games do not have such massive success some Nintendo games do but what does it prove? It's about as same as claiming that Swedish music is culturally pre-disposed to saccharine pop because ABBA is the most popular Swedish band.
- ateesdalejr 8y ago
  >The point being made is: if those Japanese games were absent from the market, we'd be left with the more bleak and violent US-made games. I think that's partially untrue as there are quite few indie publishers in the US, who don't produce violent games.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
Larrikin 8y ago
Do you view games that aren't ultra violent as childish? Nintendo fills a popular space and no one has been able to get anywhere close to their success in their area.
- onlyrealcuzzo 8y ago
  As much as I hate Disney these days, I've always wondered why they've had extremely limited success stepping into Nintendo's domain -- and why they haven't tried to partner / aquire.
  - kha 8y ago
    They have :) re: Kingdom Hearts
    - yomly 8y ago
      KH is really just licensing of their content through - Square Enix do the hard work...
  - derefr 8y ago
    My hypothesis: Nintendo makes games 1. for families, and 2. for themselves; whereas Disney makes games the way they make movies—for each member of a family as separate "channels" braided through the experience, and not really for themselves. Nintendo make games for families, as in, they think games should still be fun when people of drastically different skill levels—like a parent and child—are playing. Smash Bros has handicaps. Mario Kart has blue shells. Mario Party is skill-based over the short term but luck-based over the long term. It's all in the service of "having fun regardless of skill disparity." That's also why they make the only good "party games." And Nintendo make games for themselves, as in, for example: they never make plain sequels (even Mario Galaxy 2 had new mechanics and a different level design philosophy) because that'd be unsatisfying to them as players. Nintendo is run by auteurs who care about inventing fun new game mechanics first-and-foremost, with the branding/license that those game mechanics should be "wrapped in" coming later in the design process. Strip all the aesthetic of a Nintendo game off, just laying the game loop bare, and each of their games is still unique. One way I've seen this put is "Nintendo seems to have the vision of a bunch of parents, each imagining using these games as levers to enhance their time spent playing with their own kids." Nintendo don't make new games to give parents more of the same lever; the levers they produce already have replay value. Instead, Nintendo are trying to give you, as a parent, enough qualitatively different levers that you can find the one (or the several) that's a perfect enhancement to your individual family's bonding time. --- Now, Disney might know what makes an experience a family can enjoy (vis. movies, theme parks) but I think they follow a different philosophy, where the different people in a family will enjoy the same experience for different reasons. They create their experiences to have individual components that are individually satisfying to separate imagined user-roles, while being benignly ignorable to people who don't fit that user-role. That works for a movie—it means that as you grow, your transition between roles will mean that the movie has rewatch value. And it works for a theme park—kids just enjoy the components for them, while parents both enjoy the components targeted at parents and vicariously enjoy the components targeted at kids, through their kids' enjoyment. But I don't know if it works for games. A game that is actually a collection of separate layers, where any individual player will only connect with some layers, isn't going to be hailed as great pretty much anywhere, because the experience won't have been systematically polished for any particular user. Disney Infinity is not "for" anyone. It's for families, but it's not specifically for a particular player in the family, nor is it for the family as a whole in the way a Nintendo game is. And, because Disney experiences are not really so much for connecting families together in a shared experience, so much as they are providing individual experiences good for each family member, Disney don't try to make games that they'd like to play—because that just means that they'd be biasing their production in favour of the adult experience at the expense of the child experience. So they just focus-group adult reactions, and child reactions, and maybe further split that into parents/not-parents, male/female, etc., and optimize for each of those groups' satisfaction with the experience. But in doing so, they further diminish the thing that makes a game that is "family-friendly" an attractive proposition. (Disney did used to make some good, memorable games, mind you. In the 8/16-bit era, DuckTales and Aladdin were both excellent. I think this was back when they were forced by cartridge limitations to focus the experience solely on one hypothetical user—one "family member.")

almostApatriot1 8y ago

Yes, Japanese culture has filled a gap. If there were more components to Western Culture outside of America's influence maybe it wouldn't be so prominent. But what, culturally, is coming out of Canada, Europe, Australia, South America, or Asia (outside of Japan)? Not much that is universally appealing.

coldtea 8y ago
Clothes fashion and industrial design, for one, come mainly from Europe.
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
British music and TV spring to mind as examples of cultural exports that pinch well above their weight.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- chrisweekly 8y ago
  pinch -> punch (as in, punch above your weight class in boxing)
jogjayr 8y ago
Canada's done all right in terms of music exports. I don't even know Western popular music all that well and I can name Bryan Adams, Shania Twain, Celine Dion, Justin Bieber, and Drake - I'm sure there's many more. Hollywood and American TV has a ton of Canadian actors, which reminds me of the Canadian brain drain article from yesterday - maybe that's not restricted to tech :-) "Asia (outside of Japan)" I can only speak to India. I'd say yoga and various forms of meditation (TM and some others) are pretty big in the West, as is Indian cuisine. People typecast Bollywood as this exotic industry that churns out musicals with no kissing scenes (both outdated info) but its exports are reasonably influential in the Middle East and parts of Africa. But yes relative to its size, India hasn't had much cultural influence upon the world in the 20th and 21st centuries.

poisonarena 8y ago

wow, I liked your point on video games and 'optimist' escapism. Living in Japan right now for a bit and your comment helped me understand more than the article did!

ObeyTheGuts 8y ago

u son win a reptilian of the month award