To Japan!

 

  

This is a bit of an old one, but it's stuck in my mind.  Way back in October, a talented gamer doctored a picture of Faith from Mirrors Edge  to appeal to Japanese tastes (It's the one on the right, in case you weren't sure).  A couple of months later, Tom Farrer, the game's producer, was shown the image and had this to say:

“We wanted her to be attractive, but we didn’t want her to be a supermodel. We wanted her to be approachable and far more real. It was just kind of depressing that someone thinks it would be better if Faith was a 12-year-old with a boob job. That was kind of what that image looked to me.”

Now, aside from the fact that Farrer has massively missed the point, it raises an interesting question about the vast cultural differences between 'the West' and Japan. I moderate on the Escapist and often people will comment that the Japanese are 'weird'.

It's clear from the two images that Japanese standards of beauty are significantly different than those in the West, but it belies a difference in attitudes and outlook that means we in the West rarely get to see some of Japan's more interesting games, outside of importing them.

Games like Katamari Damacy, shows us what Japan is up to when they aren't making games specifically for Western audiences.  I think there is a tendency amongst Western developers to think of games as being analogous to movies, which limits their thinking.

Japanese developers, by contrast, seem to be drawing on a much different well of inspiration, often creating games that baffle us gaijin with their quirkiness.

I can't help but feel that we are missing out by not getting to experience these games.  We're getting to a stage in the West where only sequels to proven franchises can make any real money, and a shot of weirdness (and apparently, a lot of boobs), might just be what we need to inspire us to make more interesting games.

Who knows, perhaps it's time to start learning Japanese?