I think it’s no secret that, due to immense cultural differences, the Japanese and Western gaming markets operate very differently in both the way their games are made and the actual products that are released to the public. Japanese games tend to be more “out there”, more cartoony and colorful, often being released on handheld systems like the 3DS or Vita (sometimes exclusively, other times alongside a console release). They experiment more, and when you pick up a Japanese game, you know that what you’re getting may not always be good, but it’s certainly going to be interesting and unique in some way. Western games, on the other hand, tend to be a bit more formulaic, focused instead on pushing the envelope of technology. Bigger worlds, more realistic graphics, more weapons and modes and content! Western games tend to be rather similar in nature (for example, “Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare”, “Call of Duty: Black Ops III” and “Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare” are so similar that they’re almost indistinguishable), but each one is bigger and more advanced than the last.

Up until now, the question of whether Western or Japanese games were better was purely a matter of preference. Some people enjoy brand new experiences – they like the quirky world, battle system and music of “The World Ends With You”, or the complete mindf*ckery of something like “Katamari Damacy”. Others prefer a more straightforward experience – a couple of matches of “Fifa” after work, or a new “Assassin’s Creed” game that gives you exactly what you expect from it. Nothing’s wrong with either approach, and over the years we’ve seen countless amazing games coming from both hemispheres. But something changed in 2017. A quick look at the top-rated games of the year shows that quite a few of them came from the East – way more than in previous years. “Breath of the Wild”, “Persona 5”, “Nier: Automata”, “Nioh”, “Resident Evil 7”, “Dragon Quest VIII”, “Yakuza 0” and many, many more games in the top charts came from Japan and not the West. That’s not to say that there weren’t any Western games found at all, with “Horizon: Zero Dawn” and the recently released “Prey” and “What Remains of Edith Finch” both finding a place near the top spot, but they’re definitely in the minority here.

So what’s happening? What changed? I feel like it has a lot to do with development cycles. In the West, games often have a set release date the moment they’re given the budget to start development, even if that release date isn’t always announced that early. Remember when in 2014 Marvel announced release dates for all of their movies going forward 5 years? Something similar happens with games, except it’s a lot less public, as games’ release dates tend to be a lot more finnicky and likely to be pushed back. However, games are also extremely expensive, and if a product is pushed back, it’s going to cause major setbacks to the developers, hitting them with heavy financial losses. The reason why so many games are released completely broken and then get fixed post-launch is precisely because some studios literally can not afford to not release a game when it’s scheduled, even if it doesn’t work. And then there’s the fact that in the West upper management often has more creative control over the games than the developers – they decide what gets released and what gets cut and sold as separate DLC, for example. The constant pressure of working long hours under a strict deadline while constantly taking into account executive meddling AND planning for the sequel all at once tends to drain many Western developers of their creativity.

Japan, on the other hand, does things a bit differently. For one, while in the West crunching for 10-12 hours in order to meet deadlines is considered an anomaly exclusive to game developers which tends to lower morale, in Japan extra long work days are common across the board, and even though they’re not particularly healthy, they’re considered the norm within that culture. In addition to that, while loose release windows are set, most Japanese companies tend to value creativity and a quality product over shipping something out the door as soon as humanly possible. While a Western developer like Activision absolutely needs a “Call of Duty” every single year to maximize profits, even if most of those games aren’t that great, Japanese developers are cool with waiting for an absurdly long time. The gap between “Final Fantasy XIII” and the next main single-player “Final Fantasy” title, XV, was eight years. The gap between “Persona 4” and “Persona 5” – also eight years. The gap between “Metal Gear Solid 4” and “Metal Gear Solid V”? Seven years. And probably the most famous example, the gap between “Shadow of the Colossus” and the studio’s next game, “The Last Guardian”, was eleven years. In the time it took Team ICO to create and release this one game, Ubisoft Montreal (just one of the numerous studios working under French publisher Ubisoft) released 44. And sure, some of these 44 games have been great, and it’s true that the developers have had help from other studios, but we’re lying to ourselves if we believe those games wouldn’t have been improved significantly if they were cut down in half.

But the thing is… Many studios can’t really afford to cut their workload in half. They need the revenue just to exist. Japan has a different standard than the US – if a Japanese game sells one million copies, it’s considered an astounding success, but if a Western game sells the same amount, depending on its budget, it may actually be considered a failure. Western developers need to release games constantly, and they need to be games that make money – even if they’re not necessarily good. If they don’t, they’ll just go the way of THQ and close their doors sooner or later. It’s lamentable, and the sad part is that there’s no real solution to this. Think about it – the best, most innovative Western games of the last few years are either indies with minimal budgets and not too much to lose or console exclusives where the console manufacturer foots the bill and allows the developers to get wild, because quality ships consoles. I don’t really see that changing, and as Western games keep pushing technology forward, game development will become more and more expensive and we’ll see Western games start taking less and less risks, hoping to appeal to the broadest demographic possible in order to sell. And don’t get me wrong, they’re probably still going to sell – by all accounts “Mass Effect Andromeda” is not a good game, released in a shoddy state and plagued by terrible writing and characterization, and yet it still managed to outsell “Nier: Automata”, one of the best action-RPGs ever made. Western games may be doomed to be inferior to their Japanese counterparts, but no matter what they will always sell better.