Platinum says most Japanese games ‘aren’t very good’

Jean Kellams, writer and International Coordinator for Platinum Games, has shared his view on what's "wrong" with Japanese games today.

"The problems with Japanese games aren’t that they are JPN games or that they are Westernized games," he said on his Twitter account. "The problems with JPN games are simple: Most of them aren’t very good games."

According to Kellams, most Japanese publishers and developers can't financially compete with "exceptional" Western production values.

"Games today sell on spectacle," he said. "Spectacle is also easy to market. So it makes me mad to see people diss 'AAA' games like they are all rote executions on some tired formula. They sell because they are good."

Kellams didn't count out Japanese games entirely.

"It is about picking ideas and themes that you can execute exceptionally on," he said. "Then you have to communicate that exceptionalism in a way that people understand that your game is exceptional. You have to do both, and you have to do both at a high level, or you will fail."

He also said that to make Japanese games better, companies need to focus on "reducing friction" — making characters more identifiable culturally. Kellams said that Nintendo's successes have resulted because so many of their games are friction-free.

Do you agree with Kellams? Do you find Platinum's titles low on the friction he's described? The developer is responsible for Bayonetta and the upcoming Anarchy Reigns, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, and Project P-100 games.

Follow @wita on Twitter for tales of superheroes, plumbers in overalls, and literary adventures.

[Siliconera]