Now reflecting on it. We are a looking at a cynical market that looks at the worst. Sexism, the wrong games localized. If i had to ask why big devs given up on the west i would say the sheer cynicism Eastern devs are unfamiliar with is the reason

True enough — however, for whatever reason, these *are* the games that are getting localised.

Presumably they have been proven to sell well (relatively speaking — Senran Kagura recently celebrated selling a million copies, which is small fry in triple-A terms, but a big deal in the niche sector) and have people who passionately believe in them. Anecdotally speaking, that would certainly be the case; I know plenty of people (including myself) who are more than happy to grab limited edition versions of niche Japanese games while they would baulk at the possibility of spending £250 on a Halo collector's edition. In other words, there's a market there. And it's a market worth supporting; since these titles appear to be the ones that publishers regard as being worth bringing to the West, continuing to support them will (should?) encourage them to broaden their remit and bring other games over.

And it's not as if we don't get *any* "mainstream" (for want of a better word) RPGs, anyhow; the Final Fantasy series says hi as the most obvious example, but there's also Trails in the Sky/Trails of Cold Steel, the Ys series and plenty of others besides.

Part of the issue, though, is that even the more "respectable" (as you see it) games don't get a lot of attention from the press. People who play and love them will talk about them and champion them all day on social media, but so far as many publishers are concerned, if they're not getting column inches, they're not getting awareness, unfortunately. I wish it were different, I really do. But until the games press stops trying to be so generalist and instead embraces specialist writing for specific audiences, we're always going to have this problem because there's simply too much out there for even a big team at a huge site like Gamespot to be able to cover effectively.

But what if we couldn't?

I am talking about the Yakuza, Sengoku Basara, Ace Attorney and Dragon Quest fans who have been denied localization and couldn't afford to buy the game? While these niche fanservice games are getting localized, fans of games that would improve Japan's rep is constantly getting denied the games that would positive attention.

Quite. As an aside, Sigurd, I don't think I've ever said thanks for you reading and commenting on so many of my posts. We seem to have pretty similar views on a lot of things; it's always comforting to know that I'm not standing completely alone with these opinions!

I'm with Pete on this one. Opinions, still not fact, no matter how much the internet age wants them to be. We each come at a game with our own biases and leave with our own opinions. And the same tribalism that existed when you were in high school between the jocks and the nerds can rear it's head even when it's the nerds and the nerds. It's better to just let people enjoy what they enjoy and find something else that you would enjoy more if it bothers you so much.

Matter of taste, not fact. I enjoyed Time and Eternity a great deal. It was flawed, sure, but I wouldn't call it "bad". Likewise for Agarest. They wouldn't have made three of them if there weren't people out there enjoying them and thinking they were worthwhile.

Everyone's tastes are different, so it's not particularly fair to people to say "well, these games are allowed and worth defending, but these ones aren't." I've had some of my favourite gaming experiences of the last few years by taking a chance on titles that popular opinion and the media claimed were "bad", so I don't really buy the "some games are more worthy than others" argument, I'm afraid.

That's just me though, and you're more than welcome to your opinion, since you expressed it without being an arse! 🙂 Just thought I'd clarify why I, personally, take a broad stance on this topic.

I thought the article in question had some good points but they're points that are harder than need be to see in what I feel is a too jumbled collection of thoughts for a professional editorial. This makes discussing the article itself and feedback to the article a bit tricky because you're never really talking about one thing. Japanese games, Japanese culture, consumers of those, sexuality in games, sexism in games, games growing up, moralities, nicheness and even paedophilia; it's all a lot to chew. Trying to talk about any of it, you're going to end up spitting out some of the rest of it on your listener's face.

I don't think the writer was calling for all games cater to one crowd or feels that it's not okay for people to like or dislike different things. I also think there is a valid concern over what is overly represented and underrepresented in games in regards to sex and females and what is acceptable to be the norm rather than niche. That's not directed towards Japanese things specifically but I feel the article and author sort of wibbled and wobbled on this too, so again with the spittle.

I do think a fair amount of criticism he has received, maybe some of it here, is unfair towards him but at the same time, he makes it very hard to agree with him. For every rightful "in my defense" he seems always follow it up with a sneering remark that correlates the the "current climate" (Jared Fogle) with "defending games about Child Molesting" or some snide ironic Twitter remark. He ends up saying the exact things he claims he isn't trying to say. It's really unfortunate, but I do feel he has a history of work and remarks that portrays a remarkably low bar for what he considers to be sleazy* and apparently equatable with real pedo or the defense of. I say apparently genuinely, because I am undecided with how serious he holds these beliefs or if he just subscribes to the culture of "pedo" falling the acceptable name calling category. I really don't know which is worse.

(*Pre-reresponse to those who would care: naming off something he finds too sleazy that really IS too sleazy is not a counter to this, no matter how thick the irony it is delivered with.)

As I said, this is all hard to talk about coherently and I don't feel I'm doing any better. I needed to get this out and for some reason, this seemed like the place. As I mentioned, there's a lot about the article over all that I agreed with and there's a lot of criticism of it that I don't, yet I have no where to speak comfortably in agreement or disagreement when the side I'm mostly on might find me too "creepy" for their circle.

I'm really bummed out over this, as I really like that classic games podcast that the writer and his Job's Lackey work on together. I didn't even get around to mentioning how annoyed I am with THAT guy right now, oddly I think he ticked me off more with a couple of tweets in relation to this incident than the incident itself.