Japanese games need to reduce friction - Platinum writer

WHO CARE!! THEIR GAME AWESOME AS ALWAYS

On disc DLC? Rootkit (Namco Bandai forcing CDProjeckt to include rootit for piracy)? PC games with no keyboard and mouse support...(Dark SOul)?

Yeah, they should stop screwing around, especially Capcom lately that simply disgust me to the point of boycotting any purchase with their logo on.

Didn't know western games were always good enough not to have "friction" in them.

I think I felt friction reading that. Or not. I'm not sure wtf I read or felt, but someone probably owes me a couple minutes of my not so precious time.

The word friction has been thrown around a lot lately~

You know what I consider "friction"? The constant scripted events that seem to make up about 90% of every game released these days. It just feels like the design team is taking control away from me to shout "HEY, LOOK WHAT WE MADE!" 

... What the hell's he talking about?

Right... 2 line paragraphs for writing....uhg...stop watering down things already...........

This....is one silly..thing.

O_o?

A multi-tweet rant about confirmation screens..... get mad about it.

Hey Kellams, too many tweets - all this information is bogging me down! See how that works?

The problem Japanese developers have isn't just friction, it's the larger Japanese cultural problem of being too ridgid.  Great for making efficient reliable cars, or iterating on a well-established formula (like Final Fantasy 19-B2 Super Turbo Edition), but not very good in general for a quickly changing, creative field like game design.

And that's not really something that's going to change any time soon.

Could be considered friction too, like unwanted ,useless or annoying info like youtube site , like suddenly be distracted by a trolling ,disturbing or simply dummie video, dumbly suggested(not mean to pun) by the site and to make you forget your main objective of search, just to it be more unlikely to visit more and more for you , finally trying to avoid it the highest possible you can? Whoa, such a long question.

I kind of get what he says culturally regarding Japan, I thinking he is getting at the point they may be more formal rather than the more casual style of the US; but I dont think this is really an issue in games.

Well, my favourite japanese games were Zelda and Final Fantasy VI for the SNES and then Final Fantasy Tactics for the Playstation.  I still play them to this day, ~15 years later.  Make more like that !   Friction? That may have something to do with it but I can't think of any japanese game I've played recently save for Dead Rising 2 / Resident Evil 5 where this doesn't seem to apply

Um, does anyone have any idea what this guy is talking about? :S

This is simply nothing more than an excuse not to blame the real issues facing gaming as a whole, and instead of making comments like this to attempt to ingratiate gamers he should be including them as part of the problem.

Things have changed over the years. Gamers like me back in the 80's and 90's used to go down the the (insert store that sells games) and simply buy them for either the fun or entertainment value they give. Oh, yes.....i don't remember the region of the game playing a part in the purchasing of it.

Nowadays we have people making a big deal about every little thing in every game from wheat region the games are developed to how the game looks graphically to even complaining about specific voice actors being used for certain characters. In order to dislike what's IN the game, one must actually purchase said game and play it to find out how "inclusive" it is.

I don't look for exceptional games. I look for games that i know i will like and have fun playing, and i surely don't appreciate having a developer tell me what i look for in games....especially when they generalize it.

That's right, reduce friction... then increase gravity.

Actually I think it's risky to strive for that effort even with massive budgets in western publishers.  The biggest problem in video games today is mirrored in the movie industry, which is that for big sales you can't spend any less than too much money on a title.  No more will I consider dropping $60 on a game that *might* suck, or a game that looks neat but only plays for 5.5 hours.  Nobody wants to buy a Lamborghini if it's going to handle poorly and break down - doesn't matter how good it looks, or how fun it is for those few hours. 

Games didn't use to boil their priorities down to franchise hype > graphics > multiplayer > fun.  I think some Western publishers started getting it backwards, and it became the above over time.

Once they can prioritize fun again, THEN we can talk about whether friction is detrimental to the play experience of Japanese published games.

Gamespot forgot to include the part where he says, "He likes Nintendo games becuase they are the most friction free games in a long time"

Which is half true in my opinion.

Sometimes, people such as myself like "friction." Details and more insight on a game adds to the context of its content. There are only a few games were I really enjoy that are simple in context (LittleBigPlanet and Mario), but only because they offer detailed design. Japanese game devs should just do what they want and hope the masses like it, rather than gathering to a popular light like moths.

Friction? WTF?

Kellam's example is an example of "exposition".

How many times have you sat there listening to a wordy "infodump" or "idiot lecture" in a game? Thats exposition. "Infodumps" and "idiot lectures" are terrible at driving the plot forward. And it isn't confined to Japanese games like what Kellam's would like you to believe.

Bethesda games are nothing more than a string of expositions. Blizzard's antoganists all suffer from the "idiot lecture". BioWare and Obsidian aren't immune to wordy expositions either.

I see where hes comming from and i agree a lot of japanese games do feel unessesary in that regard. its actaully a pretty valid point but it does suck that the attention span for games has shortened to so little.

Yea they should add friction, I've always thought the ground on Ridge Racer was too slippery.

Basically he wants them to cut down on the slightly dry and mechanical way they explain the game as it goes along; it's a very cultural thing - it's extremely Japanese to give a lot of information and get caught up in lengthy explanation - almost because they'd feel rude not to.

I don't think there is any one problem you can pin down with regards to Japanese games. They have their strengths and weaknesses like any oher game out there. There are just as many great Japanese games as there are western games. I think what's really going on here is Japanese studios are in a slump while western studios are on a hotstreak. Sort of. Lots of industry vets in Japan are leaving their bloated masters and opening their own studios while making way for new talent. It should sort itself out soon enough.

I don't mean to be a critic but he says "Culturally, Japanese design is about being inclusive. They don't want anyone left behind...", I have a hard time believing it  because a lot of the games that I see that look cool that are coming out of Japan only are released there and in Europe on occasions. Very few of it comes out in the US, and when it does finally get here, they release a special edition version for Japan exclusively. Two examples being the Kingdom Hearts Final mixes, or Way of the Samurai 4.

I'm not saying that they have it all great over there. It just makes me feel like I'm missing out on things I shouldn't be. Even if the games turn out not to be as great.

I don't know what japanese games need, but it's more than friction. 

And by friction, he means that they pollute the game with too much information and try to force context, instead of letting the player take the reigns and drive the story through gameplay.

What I've gathered from this news piece is that one time this Kellams fellow had trouble ordering a hamburger from a Japanese restaurant?

I still don't understand what the hell friction means in this context.

I miss the unique/crazy Japanese games. The westernization of Japanese games hasn't been going to well. But that's just my opinion. Maybe they could stick to smaller releases and do more games like they used to. More whacky off the wall games like previous generations.

What? Friction? I see "friction" in western games too.

Friction? They're supposed to be playing the games, not rubbing their bums on them.

I'm the only one in this thread...

So cold....so lonely...