If you have experience in the video game industry, then I think you get my point but I also enjoy arguing about metrics.
In this case the "actor" was referring as a role in the industry so more about an aggregation of metrics I guess.
Counting Minecraft and Tetris as American games? I suppose Microsoft bought Minecraft and EA licensed Tetris, but that seems to speak more to the business sense of American publishers than quality of American software development.
Eleven out of the twenty best-selling games are Japanese, and 28 out of the top 50.
The top 3 games by units sold were made respectively in Stockholm, Edinburgh and Moscow. How exactly do you figure that makes them "american"?
Also none of those are Japan.
No, but if someone e.g. dubs (and perhaps even recuts) a film for the local market, we would generally still consider it to be "from" the place it was originally made.
> Also none of those are Japan.
Sure, just trying to puncture the americocentrism a little.
And would it not be just as weird to say “designed in California” in the title of this webpage?
I don’t think anyone is questioning Japan having residents that can…fork Firefox. GP was questioning Japan as a mark of software quality, in an attempt to determine the intent behind the messaging.
It’a valid question. It’s a valid critique, even. There really is no need to get so defensive.
Maybe I'm just in the wrong bubble, but I've never seen that.
> And meanwhile, Japan has been the biggest video games actor in the industry for the latest 50 years
Japanese games are often notorious bad on the technical details. Their focus is on the gaming part. Though, it has become a bit better in the last years, but usually because Japanese Companies have diversified into international teams.
Maybe not everybody is flexing but at least people are not complaining about that, like for this web browser.
> Japanese games are often notorious bad on the technical details. Their focus is on the gaming part. Though, it has become a bit better in the last years, but usually because Japanese Companies have diversified into international teams.
So when it's technically bad, it's because the company doesn't have foreigners, when it's good it's because non-Japanese people are working there. Noted.
You have to be from a parallel planet or a limited bubble to not notice that Japanese games have always generally had fewer bugs than Western games, and much less need for patches, ever since arcades and the NES.
Elden Ring
Demon's Souls Remake
Death Stranding
Resident Evil 4 Remake
Street Fighter 6
Final Fantasy 16
Armored Core 6...
Every major PS5 game in the last couple years, was virtually flawless on release day.
And of course Nintendo is still scoring hits with almost everything.
Meanwhile on Reddit everyone is crying about the PC versions, of even PC-only games!
Starfield has been a bug ridden joke, typical of Bethesda, one of the flagship Western studios, still unable to improve their janky physics and cringey NPCs.
Diablo 4 gave me the only crashes I have ever seen on the PS5.
Harry Potter, Redfall, Immortals of Aveum... overhyped flops. Baldur's Gate 3 has been the only saving grace from the Western gaming industry that I can think of.
Devil May Cry 3 and Dark Souls 1 jumped to my mind immediately as notoriously bad ports. Even DMC4 and DMC5 have some problems. FromSoft games improved the quality of their ports on the other hand.
I do understand that Japanese mostly play on consoles but nowadays it's not an excuse anymore.
Pretty much every PS5 game on the other hand has been basically flawless on release day.
>WHICH PC game has been free of bugs in recent times anyway? Most indie games that I played. AAA-games are bug fests not because of the platform but because of the negligence by the developers.
Fewer features, fewer bugs.
> AAA-games are bug fests not because of the platform but because of the negligence by the developers.
Meanwhile most AAAs in the last couple years from Japan have been flawless on consoles since launch day.
>most AAAs in the last couple years from Japan Fewer games, fewer opportunities for messing up. On PC FromSoft games had problems with optimization (Elden Ring).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983
Guess which hemisphere was responsible for the Video Game Crash and which one helped the industry recover from it. :)
Stop over thinking and just appreciate people work.
And meanwhile, Japan has been the biggest video games actor in the industry for the latest 50 years, so I guess there are some engineers over there.