Japanese indie gaming scene?

Okay, what's your opinion of the Japanese indie gaming scene? I'm trying to do some market research on this subject, but I haven't seen quite as much as I'd like just yet. Someone asked me this on gamedev.net today, and I had minimal information to respond with, after the conversation went into the direction about Nintento denying Japanese indie devs access to the Wii U. I do have a game that I am working on (and many say it is quite polished and innovative), and I'd also like to see how well it fares among Asians. So far, my Asian co-workers like it, and everyone else, except one highly opinionated Australian didn't so far.

I still have much to learn on marketing (especially from an international perspective; I'm 'murican), but I honestly believe I'm better off than many others due to my experience level in the industry. Last time I heard, the Japanese are in favour of mobile titles over consoles. Is that so? I'll be doing my own extensive research, but those of you that actually live over there would probably be able to tell it better then I could after extensive google searching anyway.

What are your opinions, experiences, views on the market and where it's heading? Thanks.

Shogun.

 

What indie game scene are we talking about? The stuff that gets published on newer gen consoles/Steam by just a few people or the doujin scene that's somewhat exclusive to Japan? I mean, would you consider Touhou to be indie? Doujin? Both? There are also some clear differences between the indie stuff that Nintendo/Microsoft/Sony/Steam lets through vs the truly independent games you see over at Comiket, so it's worth making the distinction.

 

Either one. I guess Touhou would be considered indie.

EDIT: What's a Doujin?

 

Doujin is basically indie before indie was a "thing."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dōjin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dōjin_soft

The doujin scene is still huge in Japan, and it has been for ages. Comiket is where all of this stuff gets released, too. Touhou, 07th Expansion stuff, Kara no Kyoukai (novel that turned into a movie and spawned Tsukihime, Fate/stay night, Melty Blood, etc), basically every eroge/VN ever made... Here's a list of some doujin soft you can search for if you need more info:

Ether Vapor
99 Spirits
Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae
One Way Heroics
Fatal/fake
Koumajou Densetsu
Ougon Musoukyoku
Rosenkreuzstilette

To answer some of your questions - the doujin scene gets bigger ever year, so it's booming. However, promotion and marketing are nothing like what's done in the industry. You make your own software, make your box art/booklet/media, reserve a spot at Comiket, hope a few people walk by and buy it, hope your game gets posted on 2ch so a huge audience can reach it, and then it either becomes a success or a flop. Rinse and repeat every summer/winter Comiket. You generally don't make much money this way. Hell, ZUN works as a software developer for some unknown company because Touhou, the largest and most famous doujin game ever made, cannot generate enough income to support him alone. The actual indie game scene where you get published and promoted by the major players is fairly nonexistent because of this model, though. I mean, just look at how many Japanese indie games there are on Nintendo or Sony consoles... The Japanese mobile market is pretty saturated at the moment, so it might be hard to break into that, but if you do, you'd get a lot more money.

 

x

 

Seems to me that the mobile market is saturated, period. Whether it's in Japan, Europe, or Asia...

I'm not targeting Japan exclusively, but I'd like to see my game played across a wide range of people and receive feedback from all different regions. As far as what indie games are on Sony and Nintento platforms, I haven't searched as of yet.

Lastly, I don't really plan on taking the indie route to everything (at least, not for long). I'd personally prefer taking the professional route to things (i.e. registered business, office space, CPAs/lawyers, contracts/NDAs with publishers and hardware vendors, deadlines, and all that jazz), of course, that won't happen over night, and I only have a fraction of that taken care of so far.

 

Well, even indie devs who publish on consoles have to go through those professional things you listed. You gotta sort out your IP, so that's where the lawyers come in. You are going to be bound by NDAs and contracts regarding certain things pertaining to whichever hardware vendor(s) (Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo) you choose, you'll have deadlines to meet, etc.

 

Kenta Cho is my favorite japanese indie developer: http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/

In addition to shmups, there are a lot of good fighting games in the doujin community. Melty Blood started as doujin & grew to what it is today.

I'm not exactly sure what you're after, but like Code001 said, it makes sense to go down the doujin/comiket route to understand this stuff... If you're into anime, Comic Party explains this on a basic/funny/entertaining level (just replace references to manga with videogames).

 

I am aware of this, but not everyone who goes this route is really an "indie". If a project is large enough, it may still require a publisher or funding from another large company, as well as a larger than average sized team. This is what I prefer to have in the future.

Mine too. Kenta-Cho is very inspirational to me. I'm really into shmups, bullet hell and rail shooters, so his games are right up my alley.

 

I used to really like the Siter Skain shmups. You can still buy those, apparently, as well as download demos of them.

 

Retro Gamer had a nice 4 page article on doujin games for the earlier era, such as when Square made ero PC games in one of the Hardware Handbooks they created. Even mentioned people embedding games into JPG files and saving them that way. I'd love to learn more about older stuff but modern doujin stuff is of very good quality a lot of the time. You'd be surprised how much stuff begins at Comiket, though I'm not sure if there is a gaming market event too? Clamp is one that comes to mind, though that is anime.

 

As someone who knows nothing about Japanese indie games, is there a site where I could download/purchase Japanese indie games?

I remember visiting an indie game shop in Akihabara years ago and regret not picking something up from there. :-(

 

Playism comes to mind, though I don't have any experience with it.... I see a few non-Japanese games, but otherwise seems to have a strong emphasis on Japanese ones. Looks to be a cool, simple store!

 

this is an amazing starting point. Thank you

 

You're not going to find much on this subject in English. The big console companies don't want to touch these guys with a pole because there are so many copyright infringing products as well as just outright porn. The best word for this market is fragmented. There are the traditional distribution routes via known retail fronts and limited digital distribution but PC gaming as a whole is very minor here.

I'm a gaming exec and recommend that you do very extensive research on where each market is at for all formats but if you are focusing on Japan, get ready for a bloodbath.