Why Did RPGs Become So Disproportionately Popular In Japan?

Quick Jump Gaming Forum Gaming Hangouts EtcetEra Forum EtcetEra Hangouts Trending Threads Latest threads

Search

Everywhere Threads This forum This thread Search first posts only Search titles only By: Search Advanced search… Everywhere Threads This forum This thread Search first posts only Search titles only By: Search Advanced… Subscribe Log in Register

Search

Everywhere Threads This forum This thread Search first posts only Search titles only By: Search Advanced search… Everywhere Threads This forum This thread Search first posts only Search titles only By: Search Advanced… Top Bottom Menu

• Hide Images

Light/Dark

• Forums
• Gaming Forum
• Gaming Hangouts
• EtcetEra Forum
• EtcetEra Hangouts
• Gaming Headlines
• Trending Threads
• Latest threads
• Tickets Open new ticket

• Hide Images

• Light/Dark

• Want to ask some Rockstar Game Workers Union folks a question? Check out our Rockstar AMA here!
• The ResetEra Games of the Year 2025 Vote is here! Voting will run for 11 days, 18 hours, 7 minutes. Let everyone know about your favorite games this year! In addition, we again have a vote for Games for Impact!
• The 2025 Game Soundtrack of the Year vote thread is live! Voting will remain open for 28 days, 18 hours, 7 minutes, until Feb 1, 2026 at 12:00 AM. Cast your vote for your favorites!

Why did RPGs become so disproportionately popular in Japan?

• Thread starter lazygecko
• Start date Nov 2, 2018

• Discussion
• Gaming Forum

You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.

lazygecko

Member Oct 25, 2017 3,628 This seems to be something that has always just been taken for granted but I don't think I have ever seen any articles or inquiries into just how the genre got as big as it did during the 80s and 90s in the Japanese market. When things really started gaining traction after the mid 80s it quickly got so ubiquitous that sequels to already established series started getting RPG design elements incorporated into them, like Zelda 2. Very much similar to the trend of western mainstream games 2 decades later. When you look at the numbers during that period with several games and series routinely selling millions of copies (at a time when selling over a million was much rarer in the industry at large) it was clearly on the scale of a cultural phenomenon.

Deleted member 12790

User requested account closure

Banned Oct 27, 2017 24,537 RPGs were a cultural phenomenon in the US decodes before they were a cultural phenomenon in Japan. Dungeons & Dragons was legitimately a big thing.

Jayson's Rage

Member Oct 24, 2017 222 Why did FPS games become so disproportionately popular in the US?

Hieroph

Member Oct 28, 2017 8,995 A lot of RPGs are actually similar to a TV series. You go to a new town, talk to people, explore, fight monsters, solve a problem and then go to a new town and the process repeats, more or less. So even though RPGs take a long time to complete, you can play them little by little and feel you make progress in that "episode" or segment.

Manmademan

Election Thread Watcher

Member Aug 6, 2018 17,168

lazygecko said: This seems to be something that has always just been taken for granted but I don't think I have ever seen any articles or inquiries into just how the genre got as big as it did during the 80s and 90s in the Japanese market. When things really started gaining traction after the mid 80s it quickly got so ubiquitous that sequels to already established series started getting RPG design elements incorporated into them, like Zelda 2. Very much similar to the trend of western mainstream games 2 decades later. When you look at the numbers during that period with several games and series routinely selling millions of copies (at a time when selling over a million was much rarer in the industry at large) it was clearly on the scale of a cultural phenomenon. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

The Zelda 2 comparison is pretty off base, imho. It's action adventure just like Zelda 1 was, but Miyamoto is pretty experimental and just likes to try new things. Edit: Castlevania 2 is also REALLY similar to Zelda 2, which is bizarre considering TLOZ and Castlevania are radically different games. The biggest RPG out at the time Zelda 2 was had to be Dragon Quest, and while that game had no shortage of shameless imitators it has virtually nothing in common with Zelda 2 or Simon's Quest.

Deleted member 15538

User requested account closure

Banned Oct 27, 2017 3,387 Escaping their never ending crunch?

MrWindUpBird

Banned Oct 28, 2017 3,686 Because they're the best.

Lant

The SHAWshank Redemption

The Fallen Jul 14, 2018 25,605

Jayson's Rage said: Why did FPS games become so disproportionately popular in the US? Click to expand... Click to shrink...

Well that's an easy one. Gun culture.

Brawly Likes to Brawl

Member Oct 25, 2017 18,126 Ryohei Suzuki's bedroom RPGs are the easiest genre to apply anime tropes and serial writing to.

ResilientBanana

Banned Jun 7, 2018 472

Lant_War said: Well that's an easy one. Gun culture. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

I don't think that's the case. I think it's because they are more fast paced.

caff!!!

Member Oct 29, 2017 3,208 What is interesting is how Wizardry had major legs in Japan, so much so that games made in it's image are still made today

PSqueak

Member Oct 25, 2017 12,464 I think it was the lack of the D&D culture the west had at the time.

Big One

Member Oct 25, 2017 5,444

Krejlooc said: RPGs were a cultural phenomenon in the US decodes before they were a cultural phenomenon in Japan. Dungeons & Dragons was legitimately a big thing. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

Not exactly true, D&D and computer RPGs ala Ultima and Wizardry were pretty popular in Japan too. Those things were worldwide phenomenon. They just took those things in a different direction than we did.

Ratrat

User requested ban

Banned Oct 27, 2017 1,867 Its probably less about rpgs and more of a distaste for fps games. Which has to do with gun culture and motion sickness.

Stuntman

The Fallen Oct 27, 2017 2,670 I think birth control made single player games the defacto games that were played in families with just one child.

Discoalucard

Member Oct 28, 2017 334 NJ Because Dragon Quest was insanely popular. RPGs had been a thing for awhile but Dragon Quest made it easily approachable, and it tied in with the incredible success of the Famicom. It certainly helped that it was tied in with one of the hottest manga illustrators at the time. If it were marketed correctly, something like that could've happened in the US, but things didn't align until Final Fantasy VII a decade later.

Deleted member 5535

User requested account closure

Banned Oct 25, 2017 13,656 dp

Deleted member 5535

User requested account closure

Banned Oct 25, 2017 13,656

Brawly Likes to Brawl said: RPGs are the easiest genre to apply anime tropes and serial writing to. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

Oh jesus, here we got yet again with the bonkers of anime tropes which aren't anime tropes since they were introduced and established in other media.

JetSetRadio said: Escaping their never ending crunch? Click to expand... Click to shrink...

Which kids and teenagers are doing never ending crunch since they were and are the major public of rpgs?

BocoDragon

Banned Oct 26, 2017 5,207 I've also heard it said that the Famicom market had a little more time to mature.... not only a 2 year head start compared to the NES, but in general they paced releases out in the US market. By the late 80s when most western gamers were still kids getting into Mario and and its clones, Famicom gamers had moved from platformers onto RPGs. These were the deeper, meatier experiences 8-bit gaming could provide. And these years were formative for them. When 16-bit and its more twitch gameplay and focus on graphics came along, western console gamers skipped onto more intense action games, missing the whole RPG phase altogether.

Isayas

Banned Jun 10, 2018 2,729

Discoalucard said: Because Dragon Quest was insanely popular. RPGs had been a thing for awhile but Dragon Quest made it easily approachable, and it tied in with the incredible success of the Famicom. It certainly helped that it was tied in with one of the hottest manga illustrators at the time. If it were marketed correctly, something like that could've happened in the US, but things didn't align until Final Fantasy VII a decade later. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

Best post in the thread. Now watch you see people downplay DQ because they are not attached to it.

Aleh

Member Oct 27, 2017 22,661 Japan simply has much better taste than the west! More in line with mine at the very least I guess, lol.

passing breeze

Member Apr 9, 2018 510 -They had a stronger start in the first place due to Dragon Quest releasing at the height of Dragonball's popularity and blowing up -FPS games never swallowed up a big chunk of the teenage gaming audience in Japan like they did in the west -Ideal gameplay for handheld/portable gaming which is a bigger % of the gaming market in Japan

BocoDragon

Banned Oct 26, 2017 5,207

Discoalucard said: Because Dragon Quest was insanely popular. RPGs had been a thing for awhile but Dragon Quest made it easily approachable, and it tied in with the incredible success of the Famicom. It certainly helped that it was tied in with one of the hottest manga illustrators at the time. If it were marketed correctly, something like that could've happened in the US, but things didn't align until Final Fantasy VII a decade later. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

It's probably not just marketing, but timing. As I alluded to in my post earlier, the Famicom market was way ahead of the NES one. 1986 was just way too early to sell a Dragon Quest game to the NES audience, as the console was literally released nationwide that year. The western user base wasn't looking for meaty games yet. And Nintendo agreed, holding off the RPGs like Dragon Quest (and FF1, which they both published) until 1989 and 1990. But by 1989 and 1990... it would have have been too late for 8-bit RPGs to shine, with Genesis and SNES released or immanent. And without that 8-bit RPG bedrock, the western market didn't see RPG DNA as fundamental to gaming as the Japanese did. At least, not until decades later.

Grahf

Member Oct 27, 2017 1,753 My take : because it's the most addictive genre. Add some RPG tropes to almost any genre and you got something even better than the sum of its parts : - Online + RPG > WoW, FFXIV, etc. - RTS + RPG > DotA, Lol, HoN, etc. - FPS + RPG > Destiny, Borderlands - Action/Adventure ((never sure with those) + RPG : Dark Souls, BotW, too much to quote Even the recent FIFAs have some huge RPG components, and especially the grind that comes with it.

Chaos2Frozen

Member Nov 3, 2017 31,153 That's not disproportionately popular. Disproportionately popular is why UFO catchers and Dance Dance Revolution.

Shinzen

Member Jul 1, 2018 189 PC gaming was a thing, and popular games on those were RPGs like Wizardry, Ultima, and Ys. This in turn inspired and led to the creation of RPGs on the Famicon like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy that made RPGs really popular nationwide. In the West, RPGs continued to exist and grow on PCs after the Atari crash.

Discoalucard

Member Oct 28, 2017 334 NJ

BocoDragon said: It's probably not just marketing, but timing. As I alluded to in my post earlier, the Famicom market was way ahead of the NES one. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

I think you're right, but Nintendo was able to sell kids on The Legend of Zelda in 1987, In theory they could've followed that up, but the chip shortage hurt a lot of games that came after (including Zelda II) so maybe releasing something like Dragon Quest would not have been possible. When it did hit the US, it definitely felt dated in spite of the small improvements they made. It would've been a harder sell since it's turn-based too, but again, with proper marketing, I think they could've had some measure of success.

blitzblake

Banned Jan 4, 2018 3,171 In work and gaming, they fucking love to grind over there.

Ichi

Banned Sep 10, 2018 1,997 because they know what the best genres are.

EpsilonEagle

Member May 9, 2018 264 Peachtree City, GA Toriyama's artwork for Dragon Quest.

Syril

Member Oct 26, 2017 5,895

Nemesis162 said: Which kids and teenagers are doing never ending crunch since they were and are the major public of rpgs? Click to expand... Click to shrink...

The ones stressing out about their high school entrance exams?

Deleted member 5535

User requested account closure

Banned Oct 25, 2017 13,656

Syril said: The ones stressing out about their high school entrance exams? Click to expand... Click to shrink...

That can be a good argument but it's something made outside of the school and there's also the option to not go to highschool and instead look for a job. Crunch is really only applicable on working conditions. You must log in or register to reply here. Share: Facebook Twitter Reddit Pinterest Tumblr WhatsApp Email Share Link

• Discussion
• Gaming Forum