On 9 March, independent game developers from across Japan decamped to the historic city of Kyoto for BitSummit, a conference designed to unite the scattered indie scene and present options for small devs to get their software into the hands of gamers across the world.
One of the highlights for most of the developers I spoke to was a presentation by Al Farnsworth and Dan Berger from Valve on the merits of the Steam platform. While Steam is ubiquitous in Europe and North America, it has yet to catch on in Japan, where PC gaming is niche and the language barrier a formidable hurdle.
But even if no gamer in Japan touches Steam, the opportunity it presents Japanese developers to take their games overseas – without any publisher to kowtow to – is obvious.
“I’m considering Steam for my next game,” said Yohei Kataoka of Crispy’s, the young loon behind PS3 cult hit Tokyo Jungle. “I was delighted Steam came to present at BitSummit. I felt like I was at E3 or Gamescom.”
“I think it’s interesting,” said Masaya Matsuura, creator of PaRappa The Rapper and top dog at NanaOn-Sha. “A lot of people are using a platform like Steam to play games – but not many Japanese people yet. Watching that presentation, I thought it might hold some possibilities for (independent developers) like us.
“Steam is more indie-friendly than the big console makers. Also, the PC environment is changing, with Windows 8 on Intel’s Ultrabook, lots of new products like that. It’s somewhere between an iPad and an Alienware-style graphics-heavy computer, and it looks like a gamer-friendly setup.”
PaRappa The Rapper creator and NanaOn-Sha boss Masaya Matsuura.
One developer at BitSummit who has firsthand experience of Steam was Takumi Naramura of Nigori, whose game La-Mulana did the rounds on Windows and WiiWare for a few years before Japanese game aggregator Playism helped to get it onto Greenlight, where Steam users vote on which games will be allowed to be sold on Steam. Developers cannot put their game on Steam without first clearing Greenlight; with Playism’s help, La-Mulana got through and is now being prepared for sale.
“Now Playism is able to offer that route for Japanese developers onto Steam, and if things go well then it could mean access to the West for Japanese developers,” said Naramura. “But the problem is that it’s very difficult to get Japanese gamers to support a campaign on Greenlight, as Steam is still not that popular among those who don’t speak English.”
Indeed, the Greenlight system is not ideal for Japanese devs: There is a risk of public failure, and Japanese companies and individuals are generally averse to losing face. Also, getting one game past Greenlight does not give a developer a fastrack route with their next game – each title must be voted through on its own merits, which makes it difficult to plan ahead.
“It would be a lot easier if Japanese publishers could make a deal to sell on Steam directly,” said Naramura. “Greenlight is problematic. La-Mulana already had a fan base overseas, and that helped us to progress to Steam. But I don’t think it’s the case that all the games that get past Greenlight are necessarily the most interesting ones.”
The post Something About Japan: the indie verdict after Valve pitches Steam at BitSummit appeared first on Edge Online.
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