Japanese devs/publishers - why no Steam?

C

Chairmanchuck

Member
I know in the last year, there were a lot of Games from japanese devs/publishers that were released on Steam.
Dark Souls, Naruto, Crimzon Clover. Just to name a few.
I mean japanese indie-publishers like Nyumedia, Playism seem to bring the most obscure games with less mass-market appeal than, lets say, a DoA to the PC.

But why havent big publishers thought of bringing all their multiplattform Games from consoles to the PC/Steam?
I mean, why is there no Soul Calibur, Tekken or DoA on Steam?
Or the FF13 trilogy?
I mean they are already multiplattform and I think porting wouldnt be that expensive and they would still make money with a port of those Games.

I was just wondering if the devs/publishers even know the importance of Steam in the West. It seems some devs havent even heard of it before like Kamiya.
Or might it be, because they arent used developing for the PC, like we see in some ports (FPS-locking, resolution, bugs).
 
There's a lack of support on Steam from Japanese developers because PC gaming in general just isn't popular in Japan as it is in the west.
 
Right when they started coming in, it became a Babylon of spam and shovelware. Probably not in much of a rush anymore because of that, since everyone has decreased visibility and gets bumped down the page as soon as they release now... and maybe they find the greenlight process difficult. It apparently was for Treasure and Ikaruga due to language barriers in Valve's legalese.

For the big publishers, I dunno. The above comment is probably right.
 
Chairmanchuck said:
But why havent big publishers thought of bringing all their multiplattform Games from consoles to the PC/Steam?
I mean, why is there no Soul Calibur, Tekken or DoA on Steam?
Or the FF13 trilogy?
I mean they are already multiplattform and I think porting wouldnt be that expensive and they would still make money with a port of those Games.

I was just wondering if the devs/publishers even know the importance of Steam in the West. It seems some devs havent even heard of it before like Kamiya.
Or might it be, because they arent used developing for the PC, like we see in some ports (FPS-locking, resolution, bugs).
Click to expand...
It's pretty much a combination of Japan having near zero PC market for non-indie titles and most Japanese publishers/developers don't care about PC gaming or have experience with PC development.
 
Most are still only just becoming aware of Steam and really western PC gaming in general. Namco still isn't convinced of the popularity of 3D fighters on PC.
 
Kazoo pls said:
There's a lack of support on Steam from Japanese developers because PC gaming in general just isn't popular in Japan as it is in the west.
Click to expand...

Yeah. But I mean DoA, Tekken, FF are still big franchises in the West. I guess they are even selling more copies in the west than just in Japan.

Or do you mean, because they think "No one in Japan is playing PC, so I guess in the west thats true too!"-kind of thinking?
 
Chairmanchuck said:
Or do you mean, because they think "No one in Japan is playing PC, so I guess in the west thats true too!"-kind of thinking?
Click to expand...
Japanese executives have a lot of that kind of thinking, along with "we don't get non-Japanese markets, so we shouldn't bother trying to understand them," and "we shouldn't bother listening to our employees/advisers in our western subsidiaries when it comes to the markets they come from."
 
Well, outside of visual novels and doujin games ("indie" stuff) the PC market just isn't really that big in Japan.

I don't think they'd ever embrace it to be honest... and if they did start bringing things over to the PC without experience, you'd end up with that Dark Souls port or whatever that they rushed out.

The reason why you see niche games from Nyu Media and other companies that bring over Japanese PC games is because those are all the Japanese 'indie' PC games from the doujin scene (games that tend to be released at Comiket) that are already on PC.
 
Because even though japan is a technically advanced society, apparently this only applies to cellphones and social services.

I.e. apparently most japanese find PCs too cumbersome and annoying to learn. So having a PC is mostly for work or social media. that's it.
 
"What is Steam?" is a question I've heard way too many times when asking with different people from the industry here in Japan.


And I'm not even joking.
 
Seems to me that a lot of Japanese developers need to see at least some commitment from a platform holder before jumping on board. This is part of why Xbox consoles are still being released in Japan despite their abysmal sales numbers - it shows Japanese devs that Microsoft cares about their home country and encourages them to develop multiplats, even though the Xbox brand is hardly more widespread than PC gaming in Japan.

Valve didn't even announce plans to introduce the Yen as an official Steam currency until earlier this year.
 
mesmerMAN said:
So having a PC is mostly for work or social media. that's it.
Click to expand...

I don't think many of them even have that. Do most Japanese people even own PCs-that-aren't-laptops? I believe it's more of a room issue and not that it's 'hard to learn'.

Mik2121 said:
"What is Steam?" is a question I've heard way too many times when asking with different people from the industry here in Japan.

And I'm not even joking.
Click to expand...

I don't think that's all too surprising that they wouldn't know what it is really. I wonder if Steam has much of a Chinese/Korean presence though since out of the three big ones... I know that they are big on PC gaming there but it might not necessarily be through Steam or anything.
 
PC gaming is non-existant in japan (Except for some MMO's and ero-games)

Japanese small indie development doesn't have the same means of exposure like the west making it harder for it to grow also.
 
Same reason western developers have abandoned handhelds. The people making the games don't know and don't care. No amount of sale data will change complete and utter apathy.

Delta Assault said:
"That thing you have to install to play Half-Life 2" should be your response.
Click to expand...
"I played Half Life 2 at the arcade already and it wasn't all that fun" will be their response.
 
Steam is surprisingly unknown here in Japan. I've heard executives say "What is Steam?" before. No kidding.

Steam's market penetration in Japan is also miniscule, so it becomes hard to convince people in Japan that it's worth bothering with.

Many times, you just have to say "We need to do Steam. Trust us."

Mik2121 said:
"What is Steam?" is a question I've heard way too many times when asking with different people from the industry here in Japan.


And I'm not even joking.
Click to expand...

Yep. It's happened to us as well.
 
tokkun said:
Final Fantasy III was just released on Steam last month.
Click to expand...

Yeah. But it was a port of the mobile Game. I mean why not the recent titles like FF13?
Why no Tekken (though Harada tweeted something a month ago, that it might happen)?
Why no Ni no Kuni?

I am quite sure there is a big market for those titles on the PC.

thetrin said:
Many times, you just have to say "We need to do Steam. Trust us."
Click to expand...

I am just wondering how come you guys can convince them and then release far more obscure/niché indie-titles, while the big publishers can almost earn "free" money with a quick port wont understand that.
 
Chairmanchuck said:
I know in the last year, there were a lot of Games from japanese devs/publishers that were released on Steam.
Dark Souls, Naruto, Crimzon Clover. Just to name a few.
I mean japanese indie-publishers like Nyumedia, Playism seem to bring the most obscure games with less mass-market appeal than, lets say, a DoA to the PC.

But why havent big publishers thought of bringing all their multiplattform Games from consoles to the PC/Steam?
I mean, why is there no Soul Calibur, Tekken or DoA on Steam?
Or the FF13 trilogy?
I mean they are already multiplattform and I think porting wouldnt be that expensive and they would still make money with a port of those Games.

I was just wondering if the devs/publishers even know the importance of Steam in the West. It seems some devs havent even heard of it before like Kamiya.
Or might it be, because they arent used developing for the PC, like we see in some ports (FPS-locking, resolution, bugs).
Click to expand...

People constantly underestimate the importance of comfort and familiarity. Is the relative lack of interest in handhelds from major Western developers the result of reasonable market analysis? To some extent, yes, just as to some extent it's reasonable for the Japanese developers to have little interest in a platform that's so weak in their region.

But it's also a consequence of familiarity and comfort; most of the big developers in the West just aren't comfortable with handheld development.
 
Japanese devs are completely isolated from the rest-of-the-world PC scene and always have been. They have no idea what to do in that environment.
 
TC McQueen said:
Japanese executives have a lot of that kind of thinking, along with "we don't get non-Japanese markets, so we shouldn't bother trying to understand them," and "we shouldn't bother listening to our employees/advisers in our western subsidiaries when it comes to the markets they come from."
Click to expand...

I wonder how much the "no PC gaming in Japan" hinders this too, even if it's one of the real escape routes the industry there has.

thetrin said:
Steam is surprisingly unknown here in Japan. I've heard executives say "What is Steam?" before. No kidding.

Steam's market penetration in Japan is also miniscule, so it becomes hard to convince people in Japan that it's worth bothering with.

Many times, you just have to say "We need to do Steam. Trust us."



Yep. It's happened to us as well.
Click to expand...

Have you tried that Attack on Titan Steam Sale gif?
 
t26 said:
Falcom used to be a PC developer, but their games sold a lot better on PSP that they gave up on PC.
Click to expand...

Because Falcom released their Games almost japan-exclusive on the PC in the past. As far as I know Xseed was quite pleased with the sales of the Ys Games on Steam.

Steam changed the whole PC-Gaming landscape in the west in the last few years.
 
I'd argue that major strides have been made here in the last few years. Look at Capcom for example.

Still you have a point. There is no reason a game like MGS5 should not be on PC. It's exactly what the audience gobbles up.

To be honest though with games like Final Fantasy or Tekken I wouldn't be surprised if they don't sell that well on PC. I say this as a major PC player who would never get them. And I know a lot of other people with similar tastes.

Not saying no one would of course just that fighting games and anime JRPGs aren't typically popular on the platform and they never really have been.

To be honest they are not nearly as popular on consoles even as they once were.
 
SatelliteOfLove said:
I wonder how much the "no PC gaming in Japan" hinders this too, even if it's one of the real escape routes the industry there has.
Click to expand...
People keep repeating this as if it was some sort of revelation, but the point should be precisely that it doesn't even matter "how it performs in Japan" when you can release worldwide with virtually no upfront cost (for distribution; they obviously still need to pay for the port).


Mik2121 said:
"What is Steam?" is a question I've heard way too many times when asking with different people from the industry here in Japan.


And I'm not even joking.
Click to expand...

thetrin said:
Steam is surprisingly unknown here in Japan. I've heard executives say "What is Steam?" before. No kidding.

Steam's market penetration in Japan is also miniscule, so it becomes hard to convince people in Japan that it's worth bothering with.

Many times, you just have to say "We need to do Steam. Trust us."


Yep. It's happened to us as well.
Click to expand...

I'm feeling somewhat confident that things will (slowly) change over time.
 
God dammit Capcom I will literally. literally throw money at my screen if you give me Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen for PC. Fucking the best game you've made in ages and you fucking refuse to let me play it (again) and give you my god damn money. How many Street Fighters Ultra Ubers do you need to make? Give me this one thing and I'll forgive you for MML3.
 
TucoBenedictoPacifico said:
People keep repeating this as if it was some sort of revelation, but the point should be precisely that it doesn't even matter "how it performs in Japan" when you can release worldwide with virtually no upfront cost (for distribution; they obviously still need to pay for the port).
Click to expand...
Don't forget the costs of the localization, which is probably as much or more than the port cost, given the need for translators, programmers, and tons of QA testing.
 
Chairmanchuck said:
I know in the last year, there were a lot of Games from japanese devs/publishers that were released on Steam.
Dark Souls, Naruto, Crimzon Clover. Just to name a few.
I mean japanese indie-publishers like Nyumedia, Playism seem to bring the most obscure games with less mass-market appeal than, lets say, a DoA to the PC.

But why havent big publishers thought of bringing all their multiplattform Games from consoles to the PC/Steam?
I mean, why is there no Soul Calibur, Tekken or DoA on Steam?
Or the FF13 trilogy?
I mean they are already multiplattform and I think porting wouldnt be that expensive and they would still make money with a port of those Games.

I was just wondering if the devs/publishers even know the importance of Steam in the West. It seems some devs havent even heard of it before like Kamiya.
Or might it be, because they arent used developing for the PC, like we see in some ports (FPS-locking, resolution, bugs).
Click to expand...

I'm sure for a lot of studios/ publishers that have their own systems for distributing their software to customers, NOT taking a 30% hit on each sale sounds like a good deal.
 
If Japan dosnt bring stuff to PC because its not a popular platform in Japan then why are there so many Japanese games on Xbox consoles?

/rimshot
 
TucoBenedictoPacifico said:
I would actually expect games like a (NEW) Final Fantasy or Persona to sell like a shitload on Steam.
Click to expand...

I think they would still sell well over time. I mean I can still see people buying like 2-3 year old Games during a Steamsale for 10$.

TC McQueen said:
Don't forget the costs of the localization, which is probably as much or more than the port cost, given the need for translators, programmers, and tons of QA testing.
Click to expand...

But with already multiplattform titles you already spent the money for that. I mean not japan-exclusive titles of course.
 
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Renekton said:
because we clearly understand the market and software development/localization better than them
Click to expand...
Well...
Mik2121 said:
"What is Steam?" is a question I've heard way too many times when asking with different people from the industry here in Japan.

And I'm not even joking.
Click to expand...

thetrin said:
Steam is surprisingly unknown here in Japan. I've heard executives say "What is Steam?" before. No kidding.

Steam's market penetration in Japan is also miniscule, so it becomes hard to convince people in Japan that it's worth bothering with.

Many times, you just have to say "We need to do Steam. Trust us."

Yep. It's happened to us as well.
Click to expand...
It doesn't really seem to take a great level of "understanding" to "understand better than them".
 
I imagine VR headsets could be very popular in Japan due to the small space used. They just need an appropriately small and powerful PC or other device to drive it. Steambox, maybe?
 
Chairmanchuck said:
Yeah. But I mean DoA, Tekken, FF are still big franchises in the West. I guess they are even selling more copies in the west than just in Japan.

Or do you mean, because they think "No one in Japan is playing PC, so I guess in the west thats true too!"-kind of thinking?
Click to expand...

No. A lot of them flat-out aren't aware people play games on computers other than doujin and eroge games, much less are aware of this thing called "Steam."
 
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