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FIFA in Japan

Posted Nov 03 2009, 04:11 PM

While at Microsoft, one of my responsibilities was oversight of the Japanese market. A fascinating country and culture, I thoroughly enjoyed my time over there. It is the cradle of our industry, and despite some recent ups and downs in the fortunes of Japanese developers and publishers, some of the most creative content in games still emanates from Tokyo and Kyoto.

Having said that, one of the frustrations of being an American company attempting to do business in Japan is the insularity of the industry that defends locally-made content and looks down on games from abroad. I appreciate this is a unique culture that has very different tastes in entertainment.  But while western movies and music can be extremely popular with younger consumers, foreign-developed games (or yoge, as they are called) have an extremely difficult time breaking through with Japanese gamers.  This has frustrated American and European publishers for decades.

In the past, we've pointed to things like genre preferences, game play mechanics and character art as issues in breaking through in this culture. But with simulation sports games, these issues would seem much less relevant - it's typically about the gameplay.  So you can imagine my disappointment every year as we struggle to break through in Japan with our outstanding FIFA franchise (which, I should point out, is a game made by developers from more than 20 different countries, including Japan). This year's tour de force has been universally-acclaimed as the best iteration ever in the long history of the franchise, garnering a number of perfect scores from reviewers and averaging a metacritic score of 91. So imagine my delight to see Famitsu award the game a platinum rating (36/40), a score only enjoyed by the cream of the crop of games released in Japan. That score obviously caught soccer gamers eyes over there, as the game debuted in the top 10 this week, much to our delight.

Having said all of that, it is clear we still have work to do in Japan to more fully understand what drives that gamers attraction to sports titles. Let me be clear on this. I recognize that there are many factors that contribute to a gamer's decision to purchase (or not) a particular game, I'd just hate for the gamers in Japan to not get as much enjoyment as the rest of the world out of the best sports game of this console generation.  Also, we'll continue to do our part to try to better understand the Japanese consumer - with market research, focus groups with gamers of all ages, and feedback sessions with journalists - and continue to improve on the best soccer game in the world.

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2 comment(s)

Comments

FIFAcommunity said:

November 8, 2009 1:48 AM

Is there  a slight difference on how to promote the game in for example Europe, and Japan?

RetriSearain said:

November 12, 2009 6:44 AM

English isn't exactly my first language so forgive me if my way of wording things might sound a little abrupt however Mr.Moore I would expect such an experienced businessmann to be a little less naive when it comes to singling out which elements make a game a killer app.

The answer you've been looking for is in fact rather apparent to the eyes of those who've been enjoying the japanese football games production since the Super Famicom days (do KCET's Perfect/Fighting Eleven, Epoch's Excite Stage, Sega's Victory Goal, KCEO/Major A's Perfect Striker and Konami's Winning Eleven ring a bell?); what sells socc...er, football games in japans are the following features:

- J.League license (which should entail J1, J2 and possibly the Emperor's Cup);

- JFA (Japan Football Association) license

- lifelike players' characterization (which includes their physical and facial features, customized animations for the most famous players - "Bomber" Matsuda, Okano "Yajin" Masayuki, Miura "the King" Kazu, Ogasawara Mitsuo, Yasuhito Endo, Takahara Naohiro, Juninho, Edmilson, Naohiro Ishikawa, Kawaguchi Yoshikatsu and so forth - and strong individuality), something in which FIFA has been lacking as of late, no matter how you slice it, look at Konami's J.League Winning Eleven 2009 Club Championship on PS2 (yep, Playstation 2) for reference;

- Broadcast-style Presentation (FIFA 10 cutscenes are awkward to say the least and the highlights direction clumsy as heck);

- a Japanese commentator who knows what he's doing (hire NHK's Jon Kabira already);

- J.pop. Make the whole soundtrack just J.Pop.

- japanese football fans are fond of their football-related memories: put some historical teams and competitions inside your game (the "98 and 2002 national teams, Ruy Ramos and Kazu's Yomiuri Verdy Kawasaki, the legendary Yokohama Flugels, Fukuda's Mitsubishi FC, "Shuske" Nakamura's Yokohama Marinos', the 1968 NT that won the bronze medal at the olympics, etc.);

- J-spirit: the way japanese fans and gamers perceive football is peculiar, it involves feelings such as passion, camaraderie and heroism in a way foreigners could hardly grasp even if they lived there for an extended period of time: you need someone who's in the know to handle the art-direction (yes, "art direction") of your game to make it look and feel like the "300" soldiers have been put inside a football simulation.

The title logo, the intro, the menus, everything has to scream "we love football, we will support our team til the dawn of time even if we're losing each and every match 0-5 and this isn't just a match, it's an epic clash of pretty-looking demi-gods who remind me of Tsubasa Ozohra, Wakabayashi Genzo and Hyuga Makoto, wearing colourful, high-tech uniforms"

Again for references, check on Youtube the Winning Eleven 10 and J.League Winning Eleven 2009 Club Championship intros.