Backhand of Justice

The games industry is growing faster than almost all other consumer entertainment products. Players are united globally across the internet, and the future looks bright for game sales and publisher profits through digital distribution. Why, then, am I expecting creativity to be constrained by the expansion of a global market?

Innovation flows primarily from smaller developers to the Activisions and Electronic Arts of the world. Can an independent developer with limited resources afford to ignore the opportunities presented by a global audience by failing to cater to all tastes? Mainstream appeal here we come.

Limited Resources

Localization is a significant task. There’s a reason Final Fantasy XIII is releasing in the West months after its  Japanese release date: translation. This isn’t simply a case of using the Altavista translator on all the lines of dialogue. Sometimes changing the entire context is required.

This becomes even more difficult now that games are voiced. You can’t just re-type all the cutscene captions, or even use the same voice actors. This creates a significant additional cost for any game that relies on story and wants to be available to customers in more than just English speaking countries.

Here is a game type we all understand. I speak of gangland violence, of course

Developers in the past have circumvented the censors by changing blood from red to green for example and claiming that players are killing aliens or zombies instead of people, but that’s only going to available for so much longer. Games and their storylines are becoming so integrated now that easy ‘flip a switch’ solutions will not be in easy reach.

Consider also that audience tastes differ greatly region by region: it’s no coincidence that huge Western shooters don’t sell that well in Asia, and likewise why the Dragon Quest series hasn’t cracked the US or Europe like it has in Japan.

I think this is a fair representation of the Japanese videogame market

Time is money

Small developers can only be limited in their ambition. They might have the greatest idea in the world, but if it’s too grandiose then it’s not feasible. There is huge incentive for independent developers to stick with story-light concepts (like the Xbox Live Arcade games we’ve been seeing in the past couple years) and familiar game types.

In Master Chief's next adventure, he single handedly annihilates Asian gamers for 'sucking so hard'

What’s the harm with having a half assed localization effort if everybody knows how to play your game? Even without understanding the language, everybody knows how a top down shooter works, or an arcade-style game.

It seems likely in my mind that independent developers take into account the sales potential of their game in a global market. With relatively limited resources, making a competitive product even at a lower price point requires sacrifices.

If game development costs continue to increase and the majors can’t afford to take risks, then we’ll be depending on the independents to create new genres. If they’re limited by localization costs, then we’re in big trouble. I hope you’re all excited for  Halo 9: Attack of the Clones, by Popcap.