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Video Games and the Games Industry in Japan: a Preliminary Overview

William H. Kelly
Europe-Japan Research Centre, Oxford Brookes University, UK

Keywords: Games Industry, Japan, Production, Consumption

Japanese popular culture and leisure activities are becoming increasingly ubiquitous in the arena of global consumption. Long-established as a producer of high-quality consumer durables - televisions, stereos, automobiles and the like - for globe-spanning markets, Japan is becoming increasingly known for its imaginative contributions to global popular culture, leisure and entertainment such as karaoke, animation and robotic toys such as tamagochi.

Nowhere is the influence of Japan's contribution to global popular culture so prominent and pervasive as in the videogame industry. Whereas global markets for game consuls continue to be dominated by Japanese companies Sony and Nintendo, despite the recent entrance of Microsoft's X-box into the fray, Japanese games software makers have claimed a significant share of major consumer markets in North America, the United Kingdom and Europe and an astounding 98% of the Japanese domestic market (DTI 2002).

As popular culture, games in Japan not only serve as vehicles for new narrative structures (Juul 2001, Ryan 2001) and casts of characters, but also for the recycling or reinvention of well-known myths and legends, and the characters that populate them, including other forms of popular culture - film, manga (comics) and anime (animation) - in a process that has been dubbed 'media convergence' (Jenkins).

In anticipation of a long-term research project focusing on, (1) the production and consumption of video games within the context of the Japanese domestic market, and (2) the adaptation or 'localisation' of Japan-produced games as they move across markets, the aims of this paper are as follows:

(1) To provide an overview of video games and the games industry in Japan

• Mapping of the Japanese video games industry in contemporary Japan > Interfirm interactions and strategic or 'image' alliances (Shiraishi 1997)
• Historical development
• Japan within the context of the global games industry

(2) To examine particularities of production, distribution and consumption within the Japanese domestic market

• Organisation of games production
  • Recruitment of expertise
  • Co-ordination of production
  • In-house vs. contracted labour
• Some aspects of consumption/ consumer dynamics
  • Measuring consumer taste
  • Scale of consumption; popular games releases as consumer 'events'
  • Gender dynamics (Cassell and Jenkins 1998)
  • Game genre

Based on a preliminary round of interviews with Japanese companies involved in the production and distribution of video games in Japan and drawing from published material, including government reports, articles in the popular press and academic research, the paper represents a first attempt to summarise some of the distinguishing features of the video game industry in Japan, to consider the 'cultural framing' (Squire) for games and gaming within the Japanese context and thus to construct a national case study.

Citations

Cassell, J. and Jenkins (eds.), From Barbie to Mortal Combat: Gender and Compture Games. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Department of Trade and Industry. 2002. From exuberant youth to sustainable maturity: Comptetitiveness analysis of the UK games software sector.

Jenkins, Henry. "Media Convergence". http://web.mit.edu/21fms/www/faculty/henry3/converge.html

Juul, Jesper. 2001. "Games Telling Stories? A brief note on games and narratives". Games Studies 1(1), July 2001.

Ryan, Marie-Laure. 2001. Beyond Myth and Metaphor : The case of narrative in digital media. Games Studies 1(1), July 2001.

Shiraishi, S. 1997. "Japan's Soft Power: Doraemon Goes Overseas". In P.J. and T.S. Katsenstein (eds.), Network Power: Japan and Asia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Squire, Kurt. "Cultural Framing of Computer/ Video Games". International Journal of Computer game research.

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