Was it the success of the Dark Souls PC port that convinced Japanese publishers to start release on PC/Steam?

[Samiya]

I don't know if you recall, but there was a "dark" time where it was unthinkable to see any Japanese games on Steam or PC. Square Enix' portfolio was notoriously absent, Capcom didn't release any of their games on Steam except for RE5 on GFWL, Sega's Japanese games neither, no Konami games either, etc. I remember that there was a pretty big wave of gamers and media journalists who were pining for a Dark Souls PC port and after a while got Bandai Namco to release the poor PC port of Dark Souls (that some modders luckily fixed). Even though it has technical issues, the Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition still sold hundreds of thousands of copies (I can't remember the exact number) and afterwards, we saw more and more Japanese publishers to release PC versions of their games on Steam. Square Enix started releasing their Japanese games and Capcom began with their Resident Evil games, Sega released Valkyria Chronicles that was so successful that it convinced Sega to make a sequel in the same vein almost a decade later. Now there are so many Japanese games on Steam and every Japanese publisher have some excellent PC ports with tons of options and support. It's really wild to think back to how things were almost 10 years ago.

Am I misremembering or was it the Dark Souls PC port that was the first one to "break the dam", so to speak? And then followed by Sega's Valkyria Chronicles port? Or what was it only a matter of time before Japanese publishers would no longer neglect the huge market that was PC and the Steam platform?

(I know that some of these publishers did PC versions of their games earlier in the late 90s and early 2000s, e.g. Konami with MGS2 and Silent Hill 2/3/4, and Square Enix with FF7, but it was definitely not as prevalent or high quality as it has become these days.)

 

[Dest]

Probably, yeah. I recall after Dark Souls that there was a lot more that started to hit the PC from the Japanese market.

I feel there was a second big push after Yakuza 0 hit Steam.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

This is also how I remember it (specifically Dark Souls to Valkyria Chronicles) - it feels like these were the two games that solidified the contemporary viability of Japanese titles on PC and inspired confidence in the practice.

 

[Parsnip]

I imagine it was only a matter of time, but the success of Dark Souls hastened it.

Bless Durante.

 

[Duffking]

PC Gamer has an article on this:

How Japan learned to love PC gaming again

Since 2010, Japan has embraced the PC. Developers talk about the challenges they overcame to make it happen.

www.pcgamer.com

I wouldn't say it's single handedly responsible but it's undeniably influential.

 

[BasilZero]

Whatever the reason, I am glad Japanese games are coming to steam.

Most of my Japanese game purchases in the last 10 years have been on PC thanks to Steam releases.

 

[Nzyme32]

I don't think Valve's Steam team get enough credit for the work they do behind the scenes, as they made the push to onboard more Japanese developers / publishers and ensure the right tools / support were in place. I doubt they've stopped in any way. Beyond that, it seems clear a lot of great examples of JP devs having success, has been a significant help to encouraging more content. The audience is quite obviously demonstrably there for JP games so long as the games have the expected quality users anticipate.

 

[Nabs]

It was definitely a huge piece of the puzzle.

 

[dancingphlower]

All roads lead to Dark Souls. It was truly the Dark Souls of PC ports.

 

[Deleted member 18324]

Capcom published most of their multiplatform releases on Steam on or shortly after their launch on consoles well ahead of Dark Souls. Sega had a decent record for stuff that wasn't exclusive to a specific platform at the time of release too. Dark Souls was high profile because by that point there was a critical mass of PC users demanding Japanese games more regularly, and Dark Souls was an incredibly high profile Japanese game at the time, especially given that it also ticked various boxes for even traditional PC users (a hardcore dark fantasy action/RPG with multiplayer that lifted from Western fantasy/D&D tropes).

I remember PC communities telling people again and again that there were large untapped markets for not only more well-known Japanese releases but also translations of visual novels and the like, and others would laugh it off while fixating on Media Create charts.

 

[Mars People]

Now we have the unthinkable with Persona 4 on Steam and I am anxiously waiting for more of Atlus' back catalogue.

 

[JoJo'sDentCo]

Durante is a hero. I remember the moment he released DSFix and how big of a splash it was.

 

[AshenOne]

Its single handidly responsible for different JP devs 'trying out steam or PC' in waves for sure. Its not like bandai were the first JP company to do it. Capcom tried it first as a big JP game company in the mid 2000s. Bandai also used to do it but eventually left PC until they came back with dark souls 1 PTDE. I'd like to mention this also but Durante's DSFIX enabled dark souls 1 to sell millions otherwise it was a bad experience to play the game. Simple.

 

[NeoBob688]

It was truly the figurative riposte of the Japanese PC comeback.

 

[arcadepc]

I think the cross compatibility betweeen some Arcade to Xbox360 and Windows XP/7 games helped too, if not more for good PC ports at least. Eg Capcom and Arcsys arcade games were based on Windows OS arcade boards and they also hired good porting teams. Other games were based on the Xbox360 port. While PS3 ports were harder. In contrast to DS port, they were very good and for SF4, Windows version was regarded as the best, with Xbox and PS3 ranked 2 and 3 respectively.

 

[TaySan]

A huge part of it was thanks to Darks Souls.

 

[mugurumakensei]

I think the biggest factor was the console move to x86 / standard processors. Dark Souls helped but the less work / cost needed to port. The easiest it is to amortize the cost to essentially zero so even modest revenue is good profit.

 

[werezompire]

I feel like Recettear's success on Steam was the catalyst and then Dark Souls showed that Recettear wasn't just an indie fluke.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

Capcom didn't release any of their games on Steam except for RE5 on GFWL

Click to shrink...

that's... Definitely not accurate.

Capcom published most of their multiplatform releases on Steam on or shortly after their launch on consoles well ahead of Dark Souls.

Click to shrink...

Yeh this. Capcom were one of the first and were there long before.

 

[daninthemix]

It was definitely a big deal. But I guess other things too - Steam's ever-increasing userbase, Gen 8 consoles being x86 making porting easier?

I feel like it's a confluence of things.

 

[justiceiro]

Pretty sure it was the reliability of steam as a plattaform that did that. Even rockstar started porting their games because they saw the market there grow.

 

[werezompire]

Capcom had DMC3 on Steam as early as 2006. Square-Enix had Last Remnant on Steam in 2009. But I still feel like Recettear is what really kicked things off. Here was a small Japanese indie game with no pedigree that no one had ever heard of and it became a huge hit on Steam, selling a few hundred thousand copies, and going viral online with numerous memes.

 

[PC-tan]

Capcom had DMC3 on Steam as early as 2006. Square-Enix had Last Remnant on Steam in 2009. But I still feel like Recettear is what really kicked things off. Here was a small Japanese indie game with no pedigree that no one had ever heard of and it became a huge hit on Steam, selling a few hundred thousand copies, and going viral online with numerous memes.

Click to shrink...

I read an interview from the team that localized it.

From what I remember they submitted the game to Steam without telling the devs just to see what would happen. It turned out that the Steam team really liked the demo for the game.




Something else worth noting is that prior to 2012 Steam would flat out reject VNs

 

[Ionic]

I read an interview from the team that localized it.

From what I remember they submitted the game to Steam without telling the devs just to see what would happen. It turned out that the Steam team really liked the demo for the game.




Something else worth noting is that prior to 2012 Steam would flat out reject VNs

Click to shrink...

I also remember Recettear quickly became a part of one of those absolutely insane 5 dollar indie bundles Steam had back when the sales were more aggressive and that got tons more people to try it out.

 

[Ra]

I feel like Recettear's success on Steam was the catalyst and then Dark Souls showed that Recettear wasn't just an indie fluke.

Click to shrink...

I also came to call out Recettear's breakout as the early catalyst that had people rubbernecking on JP games being successful on Steam.

It was the true genesis.

The amazing The Last Remnant port is in there too.

 

[rafiii]

I'm going to say no. Capcom was releasing all their mt framework games before dark souls and they were of great quality.

 

[Igniz12]

I don't think Valve's Steam team get enough credit for the work they do behind the scenes, as they made the push to onboard more Japanese developers / publishers and ensure the right tools / support were in place. I doubt they've stopped in any way. Beyond that, it seems clear a lot of great examples of JP devs having success, has been a significant help to encouraging more content. The audience is quite obviously demonstrably there for JP games so long as the games have the expected quality users anticipate.

Click to shrink...

I remember this being the case as well at that time. But due to Valve's reluctance to talk about much of anything and "OMG Dark Souls saved PC gaming(from Japan)" being the sexier story, it ended up becoming the thing people point to now that nudged everything else.

 

[werezompire]

Here's an excerpt from the email I sent Valve to get our first games on Steam.

To date, our games have been exclusives for the XBox 360, however we
plan to release a collection that includes PC versions of both Cthulhu
Saves the World and Breath of Death VII, most likely with a few extra
enhancements over the XBox 360 versions to encourage repeat sales. We
were wondering if Steam would be interested in carrying this
collection when it comes out later this year. We have seen the success
of games like Recettear and Beat Hazard on Steam and believe our games
would see similar success.

Click to shrink...

So yeah, I specifically mentioned Recettear's success in our argument on why Valve should let us sell our indie JRPGs on their service.

(Our games weren't as successful as Recettear or Beat Hazard, but they've done decently).

 

[Sargerus]

Yeah, Bamco saw potential after a huge number people signed a petition asking for a PC port. And i guess the japanese market followed that.

Dark Souls PC petition gets Namco Bandai's attention

An online petition campaigning for a PC version of Dark Souls has caused enough commotion to be noticed by publisher Na…

www.eurogamer.net