Innovation Wars

( 0 Votes ) So recently I stumbled across a episode of Sessler’s Soapbox in which Adam Sessler discusses Japan’s so called lack of innovation. Now normally I fully agree with Sessler and I think he is one of the greater minds in gaming journalism but this time I have to object to his various statements.

Sessler basically says that it’s somewhat shocking that Japanese developers have a lack of innovation and often opt out of taking chances to make the same old thing. In my opinion this is not a bad thing. There is the adage “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” after all. However this isn’t where I take issue.

Sessler goes on to state that the western developers of the world have been bringing great new IP’s and innovating at the same time and uses Bioshock and Assassin’s Creed as examples. While I can’t heap enough praise on to Bioshock I can’t help but think that the game is not really all that innovative. The game had it’s predecessors such as System Shock (Of which some say the game is a spiritual successor of sorts) and even games like Deus Ex helped pave the way for a game like Bioshock. To be sure Bioshock was a incredible experience and blended story telling and first person game play masterfully. However is that really innovation? I don’t really think so.

Bioshock is not the first shooter to have RPG elements implemented into the game and nor is it the first game that blended story into a first person experience. That honor would go to Half-Life. What Bioshock did do was bring a level of polish and immersion never before seen in a game of it’s type and for that the game succeeded.

As for the Assassin’s Creed mention I have to say I disagree that the game is innovation in anyway at all. The game to me was nothing but a glorified tech demo to show of f the incredible free climbing animation blending. Outside of that astounding tech the game was a repetitive chore to play. You basically repeat the same 4 or 5 tasks at nausium throughout the game. However somehow the game gets a pass and is considered a great masterpiece by many a gaming enthusiast which makes no sense to me.

Sessler points out that he would like to see more Japanese games which try to westernize themselves in order to appeal to us more and uses Metal Gear Solid 4 and Resident Evil 5 as examples of this. However what you are not told is that these games are part of long running series and so can get away with doing something like that. A new original IP created with a western focus always ends up bombing in the Japanese market and the reason is simple enough. Because games designed for the west do not really appeal to the East. This is the reason massive blockbusters like Halo and Gears of War don’t nearly sell as well in Japan.

The bottom line is that the vast majority of games would not get away with being westernized as doing so would alienate the Japanese fans and would cause them to pass on the game altogether. Considering the fact that the vast majority of Japanese development studios are smaller then their American counterparts means that they cannot take as many chances as the US tends to.

That doesn’t however mean that Japan is not innovating in gaming today. There have been some prime samples of the Japanese gaming industry doing just that recently. However the games they make seem to enjoy less then stellar sales leading many to brand the games as flops or bombs when the games themselves are masterful to say the least. A perfect example. Valkyria Chronicles is a game from a Japanese development house that blends two types of game play flawlessly and is unlike anything else on the market today. However while the game released to much critical acclaim the game saw little in numbers of sales. However the game did indeed innovate. As I said there is no other game like it on the market today.

Another example would be Persona 3 and 4. Here are two games that completely turned the traditional turned based RPG formula on it’s head and was all the better for it. Not only that the games implemented story lines unlike anything else seen at the time. But again these games while critically acclaimed were niche titles and sales were not stellar. Which leads me to wonder. Does something need to be a blockbuster seller to be innovative? Surely not as that logic makes little sense.

The simple fact is that Japan is still innovating in gaming today. The difference is that the games they release more often then not are niche titles that don’t receive much fanfare by the gaming media at large and as such are largely overlooked by the majority of gamers. While this is the case it is easy to see why one would think that Japan lacks innovation in their games.

Neither the US nor Japan are innovating any more then the other. While the Japanese gaming industry is a flood with RPG’s we are up to our necks in FPS’s in the US. The West brought us great games like Little Big Planet while Japan has given us Katamari. Each side still innovates and thinking one is better then the other is incredibly narrow minded. Personally I think it’s time for gamers to take a step back and think about why they got into gaming. Stop worrying about if there is enough innovation and who is bringing the most of it to the table. You need to step back and remember the reason we play games is to have fun and I think that has been largely forgotten in this generation.

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