Aion's third podcast takes on the east vs. west gaming approaches

Sorry, but you're completely and utterly wrong. Yes, some games bridge the East-West barrier, but they're few and far between, at least who actually have meaningful subscriber numbers.
Lineage 1-2 for example, or Ragnarok Online: hugely popular in the East, far less so here. A lot of F2P MMOs as well have a bizarre habit of doing well. For some bizarre reason, tastes are pretty hugely different. JRPG for instance, are always massively successful in Japan, but are generally miserable failures here.
Frankly, I've always been of the opinion that the Japanese are satisfied with sub-par games as long as it makes them feel heroic and anime like...I've never understood it frankly. As far as I'm concerned, grind-filled MMOs and J-rpgs are absolutely pathetic in this day and age, but for some reason the Eastern market gobbles them up..Lineage 2 still has million's of subscribers (i think?) but it's a disgrace to game design everywhere).

I on the other hand, agree with you, Myria.

While I do see some games falling distinctly on one side or another, if it's a good game, then it's a good game. And that will sell regardless. IE, Guild Wars.

I don't know where Tyranor gets off on JRPG's don't do well in the west.
My ass they don't do well. Sure, maybe not quite AS well as in the east, but the good JRPG's, like any genre of games, will also do well in almost any market it's exposed to.

That statement is effectively like saying 'westerners don't watch anime', which couldn't be any further from the truth. While you could make the argument that not as many people per capita do so (play JRPG's/watch anime), in comparison from east to west, to which I would agree.

However, I will give you that in terms of MMO's design, games like Lineage 1-2, and Ragnarok Online do tend to do far better in the east then the west for some reason. Although, last time I checked, didn't Lineage do tremendously well in Russia?

I don't remember Russia being part of the east. Huh?


Although in saying all that, I'm from New Zealand, so I don't know whether you would call that east or west, but I really don't give a f**k.

~Yoh

There's a reason the term "asian grinder" exists when referring to MMOs, and it's not a term coined by eastern gamers. Many asian MMOs are extremely grind heavy, and while that's a huge turnoff for most western gamers it is seen as a challenge by many eastern gamers. One of the things Aion did was tune down the grind for the western version. If you played the Korean version of the game you'd spend a LOT more time leveling, and a lot more of it would be spent endlessly grinding mobs rather than doing quests. For eastern gamers this is perfectly acceptable, for western gamers it is not. "Asian grinders" don't sell well in the west.

L2 didn't do well in the west more due to lack of GM policing. The botting horror stories are why I never picked it up, anyway. And other than that and the moderate success of FFXI, we haven't really had many huge games attempt to jump from east to west. A lot of small microtransaction-based games yes, but nothing else. And I don't know what Tyranor's smoking, but JRPGs (which should be completely irrelevant anyway) generally do very well in the west. Hello Final Fantasy and Pokemon, to just name the biggest two.

It's really fairly new territory though, when you think about it. How many games marketed to be large-scale have jumped the ocean in our direction? Not very many.

Sorry, I didn't make myself completely clear. Yes, a very good game can cross the East-West barrier, and a few games have: WoW, Starcraft, FFVII, to name a few.
HOWEVER, overall, they just don't. PeterD is completely right. Playing lineage 2 was completely horrible: it just dumped you into a big field and told you to go kill stuff. They didn't even bother with the Kill 10 X quest. You just had your XP bar and you went and killed stuff.

That principle also applies with a lot of J-RPGs, which also don't do well in the west, sorry to burst your bubble. Taking a look at the Japanese charts this month, Dragon Quest IX is first with over 3 million sales. Monster Hunter is just after it in second with a little of 500k sales.
This is exactly what I meant. Both those games are grind heavy games focusing on the typical JRPG charms of emotional story, cool character design, and a lot of grind. With Monster Hunter of course, it's also keying into the Japanese love of coop adhoc play. These games always do, at best, averagely well when transferred over here, despite being the best of their kind. A few freak children exist, like the FF series, but that's about it.

Yes, some western gamers like JRPGs, and some watch anime, but usually barely enough to justify a real investment: that's why anime is fansubbed and not for sale down at your local blockbuster next to the latest hit movie. Sure, you can find it if you look hard enough, but I'm pretty sure that's not what Aeon is looking for. Unlike Guild Wars, it's going to need more than just millions of people buying the box: it's going to really need mass market penetration across the board if it's going to achieve the long term goals NCSoft are aiming for I think.

What the hell are you even talking about? Japanese game developers single-handedly revived the entire concept of video-gaming in the West. The reason so called 'asian MMOs' don't do well in the west is because they're tedium-filled *garbage*.