Survey Says Japanese Dislike Shooters

Famitsu has catalogued a few reasons for the poor reception shooters receive in Japan.

The latest issue of Japanese gaming periodical Famitsu features an eight-page examination of the lackluster sales of first-person and third-person shooters in Japan.

Only 74.8 percent of readers surveyed stated they had experienced an FPS or TPS, and only 51 percent of that group demographic said they wanted to play shooters. Only 38.1 percent of the Japanese gaming market enjoys one of the most profitable genres in North America.

User submitted reasons read:

• "I'm not interested"
• "The games seem difficult"
• "I don't know what the point of these games is"
• "I'm worried about playing them because I'm a beginner."

Not a single submitter stated that nausea or sickness, an inaccurate yet widespread explanation for the low penetration of FPS games in Asia, was a turn off from shooters.

Source: Famitsu via Next-Gen

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why didn't they include the options: "I'm a xenophobic asshole who won't touch anything designed outside of my tiny island nation" or "I'm too busy watching a cartoon octopus fornicate with a captive young girl"?

UpInSmoke:
why didn't they include the options: "I'm a xenophobic asshole who won't touch anything designed outside of my tiny island nation" or "I'm too busy watching a cartoon octopus fornicate with a captive young girl"?

I love irony.

While many Americans are xenophobic, but it's considered a negative/low-class/uneducated trait in our society. Japanese proudly and openly mistrust and refuse to buy anything non-Japanese. It's a cultural norm that we don't share.

So where is the irony?

I'm guessing it's because of the lack of exposure to guns (both cultural and legally) combined with the decades of exposure to rpg's.

Compared to the American Idolization of guns (Cowboy movies, Right to Bear arms, Hunting, Ect.)

But I guess blaming any difference in cultural attitude is just the better way to go about it, after all, judging a culture inferior to yours is SO much easier than actually trying to understand, right?

Japanese like the incumbant hero, and they are definitely not interested in a Western aesthetics. So to breakthrough with a FPS, all a developer needs to do is include a boyish faced protagonist, robot, or work within a cultural institution, like Gundam.

I honestly think the aesthetic is the major sticking point. Japanese can't see themselves in Marcus Phoenix; that's not their idealized vision of themselves. Dante of DMC is. I lost my desire to play JRPGs sometime in my late teens for the same reason.

Brognus:
I'm guessing it's because of the lack of exposure to guns (both cultural and legally) combined with the decades of exposure to rpg's.

Compared to the American Idolization of guns (Cowboy movies, Right to Bear arms, Hunting, Ect.)

But I guess blaming any difference in cultural attitude is just the better way to go about it, after all, judging a culture inferior to yours is SO much easier than actually trying to understand, right?

I was pretty much thinking something along the lines of that, and what tendo82 was saying.

sooo thats why the xbox failed in Japan

Heck the only guns a Japanese person can even THINK about acquiring a gun in Japan are shotguns and even then they have to go through extensive licensing procedures, combined with a cultural attitude that frowns on guns and a remarkably low gun-crime rate makes it obvious as to why FPS games aren't popular in Japan. Makes you wonder why American Developers didn't do through market research.

Also consider how Yahtzee (British) hates Jrpg's and loves FPS games, wouldn't it make sense for Japanese People to Love Jrpg's and hate FPS?

I'm worried about playing them because i am a beginner

fail. i know they have a different culture and all but still....

Brognus:
Heck the only guns a Japanese person can even THINK about acquiring a gun in Japan are shotguns and even then they have to go through extensive licensing procedures, combined with a cultural attitude that frowns on guns and a remarkably low gun-crime rate makes it obvious as to why FPS games aren't popular in Japan. Makes you wonder why American Developers didn't do through market research.

FPS's are plenty popular in Canada though, and we don't REALLY have access to handguns or assault weapons.

WW2 scared them silly in regards to anything involving realistic combat. Giant robots are OK though.

Yes but what we DO have is a large amount of American Cultural influence. Consider how many American T.V. shows and movies, and games we have in Canada, and it's really not surprising.

PedroSteckecilo:

Brognus:
Heck the only guns a Japanese person can even THINK about acquiring a gun in Japan are shotguns and even then they have to go through extensive licensing procedures, combined with a cultural attitude that frowns on guns and a remarkably low gun-crime rate makes it obvious as to why FPS games aren't popular in Japan. Makes you wonder why American Developers didn't do through market research.

FPS's are plenty popular in Canada though, and we don't REALLY have access to handguns or assault weapons.

He's making a garbage point. The Japanese don't have access to giant enchanted swords and magical spells either, but those games seem to flourish over there.

I didn't even consider the gun fetish angle. Excellent point Brognus.

UpInSmoke:
WW2 scared them silly in regards to anything involving realistic combat. Giant robots are OK though.

This sentiment worries me as to what they're gonna do in World War 3.

Yeah and all Americans are Gun-Toting freaks who get off from violence.

Isn't Stereotyping other cultures fun, kids?!

You're assumption that they don't have a love of guns is false.

I will direct you to some of the Artwork of Masamune Shirow, which consists mostly of Gun-trabation. For a non-anime entertainment culture example, I will direct you to a movie called Versus. Lots of silly gun stuff there.

I will also direct you to the very very large Airsoft community there.

UpInSmoke:
WW2 scared them silly in regards to anything involving realistic combat. Giant robots are OK though.

Yes because we all know that they're secretively making one to overthrow the world. *cough*codegeasspropaganda*cough*

Cultural influence doesn't explain the amount of western RPG players. There's nothing stopping a good JFPS except the Japanese designers don't want to make one.

Compare 'No-one shall possess a fire-arm or fire-arms or a sword or swords' to "the right of the people to keep and bear arms." and it's pretty obvious which culture is more gun-inclined.

Oh, I'd it's safe to say the amount of Illegal American guns outstrips Japanese guns.

and I said they don't have a lot of guns, not that they have 0 guns.

Per capita gun ownership in the US is FAR larger than japan.

(Oh, and I'm pretty sure Yu Aida doesn't own a FN P-90 just because he draws one.)

Oh and the western RPG, May I direct you to D&D, Gurps, Shadowrun, Warhammer, ect, ect, ect.

I'll be the first acknowledge that Americans love their guns. I went to junior high in a fairly rural area and had two classmates who shot themselves by accident because they were 13 and didn't have proper supervision.

But really, we should be talking about the Swiss and Swedes. They should be making incredible FPS's assuming rates of gun ownership somehow correlated to quality in FPS's.

Brognus:
Yeah and all Americans are Gun-Toting freaks who get off from violence.

Isn't Stereotyping other cultures fun, kids?!

On the Escapist, it's absolutely OK to stereotype Americans while at the same time condemning Americans for stereotyping others. If you can do both in one sentence, you get a gold star and a seat in the parliament of whatever silly little country you're stuck in.

I think you need to replace your sarcasm detector, because yours is obviously broken.

This explains why I see so few Halo 3 players from Japan.

Brognus:
I think you need to replace your sarcasm detector, because yours is obviously broken.

i was agreeing with your sarcastic remark and adding one of my own. Now who's got a broken detector?

Although I hate to say it I have to agree with UpInSmoke that japanese people are xenophobic dicks. They say they dislike shooters, but resident evil and metal gear solid are consider shooters as well. Aren't they selling well in japan? Sure american shooters are more violent and have stories that are bs, but does that really prevent you from actually liking it?

Really? Because I found it to be inline with your previous posts.

Metal Gear is more stealth than shooter, and I'd argue that resident evil is more horror, but alas, I've never played the franchise.

Oh and just because a couple games from a particular have been successful does not make the entire genre popular, if anything it highlights how little games from the FPS genre there are in Japan.

whether resident evil is horror or shooter, you still spend the entire game running around and shooting people/things in the face with guns. The reason they accept RE is because it is Japanese. If Resident Evil 4 was designed by valve, they would not buy it. period. It's not about gun culture, it's about automatically dismissing anything non-Japanese.

A couple of exceptions does not make the shooter genre mainstream.

Let's get realistic, it's a culture that revolves around the group and fitting in, not the individual and standing out. It's called Gesellshaft vs Gemeinshaft. I don't think FPS's are the problem, just they way they are designed. Make something along the lines of Ratchet and Clank with Hello Kitty Characters or cars and see how it measures up.

No, it's more like western companies automatically assuming a game will do well in Japan just because it sells well state-side, likewise certain Japanese genre's fail to make headway into us mainstream. (Dating Sims spring to mind.)