Yes, I'm familiar with the behavior. What about the demographic of Japanese gamers? Given that it's a relatively solitary activity, is it mainly young guys?
Hmmm, I used to think there were more girl gamers here than in the U.S., but I'm not so sure anymore. I think, actually, it changed. Famicom->PS1 the girl gamer population grew, but it like completely died at PS2. So, yeah, it seems about the same as the U.S. Young guys. I think it might actually skew younger here. It feels like there are more titles squarely aimed at kids vs. America (although I've never actually counted to be sure). But, for example, if a Spongebob game comes out in America, we know it's aimed young, but it's also a non-event. Here, though, Bandai releases kid license after kid license that sells 1 million plus units.
This is also something I noticed on my own team, and I guess I can't really generalize, but our lead, Tsutomo Kouno-san, often designs with children in mind, whereas I design for me mostly. I'm not sure many American designers directly consider kids in their design, unless their game is directly targeted at kids.
I'm curious about gaming's impact on society. I saw that Advent Children was the #1 DVD sale in the country for a while. Is gaming something that brings people together? A shared experience? It's just now becoming a social thing in the U.S., along with the geek fad. For example, water cooler discussions: Instead of discussing sports, a discussion could revolve around a game of Madden, or a map in Halo, or whatever.
Hmmm, well, video games are 25 years old? So, there's lots of adults who grew up with games. I haven't really noticed that in general company. Of course, at a game company, that kind of discussion happens all the time. What I have noticed is either the Japanese have slightly less stigma toward games or the people who run the media have more respect or rather more interest in games than the same people in the U.S.
What I mean by that, is that there are lots of TV programs on TV that use music and sound effects from famous video games - mostly quizshows or gameshows.
And in the same way that, say, the Atari symbol is a popular cultural icon in the West, the Famicon, Mario, Pacman, Space Invaders, and many other games (and old Anime) are huge cultural icons here. More so than in America, I think. Here, new Mario goods come out like every month or two. You've probably seen the Pepsi bottle caps, the gachapon old-game systems, etc.
They are hugely popular campaigns. As another example, the Japanese actually have the slang "ping pong" and "boo boo." "Boo boo" is the exact sound of trying to do something you can't do in Zelda SNES. "Ping pong" is the sound of doing something correct in a gameshow or a video game. That type of influence from games and gameshows is all thoughout Japanese modern culture.
Other than RPGs, which genres are popular?
Like the U.S.A., licenses and sequels are popular. One Piece games, Dragon Ball Z games and Gundam Games always sell. Also DQ, FF, The Dragon Warrior Series (sangokumuusou), Winning 11 and Gran Turismo are popular. There are no FPSs on their charts. No basketball, no football and only sometimes a baseball game appears.
There are several (probably Japanese-only) games that have done well. First off, there are the turn-based, strategy games. The most popular one in America is Advance Wars, but that wasn't even released here in Japan until two to three years later, because there are so many of those types of games here. Others are games like My Summer Vacation, which is a very casual game about spending time, as an 8-year old kid, in a country-like area (non-urban), near the ocean on summer vacation with your family. It sold over 1 million units. I would never have expected that. Ka, a game about mosquitoes, also sold a ton - partly because of a great ad campaign, but also partly because mosquitoes are part of the national ... tradition. Or rather not mosquitoes directly, but dealing with them in the summer is almost like something you expect to do ... like even though you might hate shoveling snow, the memory of it is kind of comforting.
