“Western” or “Eastern Market” Means Nothing to Square Enix

A producer from Square Enix said that they don’t think of the American and Japanese markets as two different entities.

Many Japanese gamemakers have spoken about “going west” to try to draw in a bigger chunk of the international market, such as the VP of Sony’s Japan Studio, Yasuhide Kobayashi, claiming that The Last Guardian was named specifically for Western gamers. Akitoshi Kawazu, a game designer who’s worked on tiny little games like Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II, said that is not true for Square Enix and that the company doesn’t think in terms like “going west.”

“The presence of Japanese games is not as strong within the international market these days, and as a business that creates and sells games, the reception in the Western market is naturally a point of interest to us,” he said. “However, when developing a game we do not separate our target audience into categories like ‘Japanese’ or ‘Western.’

He went on:

We look more to player preferences, such as those who like higher difficulty levels, those who enjoy more of a collection element, those who look for more freedom in a game, those who like to have set objectives, and so forth. I do feel that one major difference in the Japanese and Western gamers’ preferences lies in the art style.

What do you think? Are Japanese developers “dumbing down” their games to try to garner more of the market?

Source: Destructoid