Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune says it's a "shame" that game industry in island nation has fallen further, believes Kickstarter is one "fantastic" option to revive the market.
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
INDIE Live Expo, Japan’s premiere online digital showcase series , will debut never-before-seen games & content updates across more than 100 titles on May 25th.
"The best games of the year and the creative teams behind them were in the spotlight at the grand award ceremony of the German Computer Game Award 2024." - German Computer Game Awards.
Western hasnt exactly been golden either..
Platinum games is putting out some one better games from this gen ( Wonderfull 101 Bayonetta) I'm enjoying this games right now.
The two big problems I see with Japanese games is: (1) trying to appeal to the west (very poorly in some cases) thus losing their identity and (2) never evolving and staying stuck in the past.
Japanese developers should start being more creative and take some risks.
Western industry isn't exactly great either. SE and Namco seem to be getting into gear, but dudes like Crapcom are screwing up continuously. They shouldn't try to appeal to the west, because it's that different feeling that attracts me and a lot of others to the genre. It's like anime. That's why going mainstream isn't that good. Sure more money comes in but gaming sticks out like a sore thumb. Now, to look for anything apart from the same war shooter every year, you have to look to the smaller guys aka indies and if you're lucky you'll find some big studios who actually come up with good concepts and innovative ideas.
Maybe if I could BUY THEIR GAMES then maybe they'd have more appeal. I mean it can't have worldwide appeal if it never leaves Japan. And the ones that do are poorly marketed with a few exceptions.