Name: Anonymous 2006-04-21 14:35
Copypasted from /v/. I hope this provokes some discussion.
Someone on /v/ wanted to know why Japan "busts a nut" over both the ultrasimple, ultratraditional Dragon Quest series and the highly technical SaGa and Megami Tensei series. The appeal of both of these styles of RPG evidently eludes him completely.
My answer is that the Japanese game market is at least as big and diverse as the Western market, and these RPG subgenres appeal to different people. Dragon Quest is the everyman's RPG. SaGa and Megami Tensei are for "hardcore RPGers". Lunar, Xeno*, and other anime-FMV-heavy, fanservice-heavy, gameplay-light RPGs are for otaku (I mean that in a nonjudgemental way, so don't flame me)
In the West, the "everyman" does not play RPGs, and the "hardcore RPGer" plays Western-made PC RPGs, not Japanese RPGs. Hence the core audience of Japanese RPGs in the West consists of... otaku.
This explains the relative popularity of different Japanese RPGs in the West--why games like Xenosaga are hailed as the second coming of Christ, and why the pundits of JRPG fandom (who are otaku who *think* they are "hardcore RPGers" because they don't know any other kind of JRPG player) genuinely puzzle over how "boring RPGs with no plot and unappealing characters" (read: no anime-like melodrama and no fanservice) are so successful in Japan.
Someone on /v/ wanted to know why Japan "busts a nut" over both the ultrasimple, ultratraditional Dragon Quest series and the highly technical SaGa and Megami Tensei series. The appeal of both of these styles of RPG evidently eludes him completely.
My answer is that the Japanese game market is at least as big and diverse as the Western market, and these RPG subgenres appeal to different people. Dragon Quest is the everyman's RPG. SaGa and Megami Tensei are for "hardcore RPGers". Lunar, Xeno*, and other anime-FMV-heavy, fanservice-heavy, gameplay-light RPGs are for otaku (I mean that in a nonjudgemental way, so don't flame me)
In the West, the "everyman" does not play RPGs, and the "hardcore RPGer" plays Western-made PC RPGs, not Japanese RPGs. Hence the core audience of Japanese RPGs in the West consists of... otaku.
This explains the relative popularity of different Japanese RPGs in the West--why games like Xenosaga are hailed as the second coming of Christ, and why the pundits of JRPG fandom (who are otaku who *think* they are "hardcore RPGers" because they don't know any other kind of JRPG player) genuinely puzzle over how "boring RPGs with no plot and unappealing characters" (read: no anime-like melodrama and no fanservice) are so successful in Japan.