Why are the Japanese so disinterested in first-person camera persoectives?

[Redmond Barry]

Thread title, basically.

Seeing the relatively muted response the Japanese have had to RE7 just got me thinking about this once again. It is obviously not a recent development, and yes there have been other Japanese games other than RE7 that use such a perspective, but it still leaves me curious after all this time.

Alternatively, feel free to showcase how far first person games have progressed in that industry in recent years.

 

[Deleted member 2474]

Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of VNs are first-person.

 

[Mister Saturn]

With regards to FPS, I think motion-sickness is a common reason.

 

[Astrogamer]

I would imagine it has a bit to do with liking their character designs to be seen beyond the cover and maybe title screen

 

[Deleted member 1413]

I imagine it's that they like showing off their character models. At least that's why OOT is 3rd person

 

[Deleted member 249]

I feel like this isn't necessarily the right takeaway; Nintendo especially has been extremely interested in first person viewpoints, and wanted to make Ocarina of Time first person before settling on making it third person and making Metroid Prime first person instead.

On the whole, the games Japanese developers make rarely jive with the first person viewpoint.

 

[HououinKyouma00]

I may be wrong but I believe they are more prone to motion sickness. I guess a lot of people take pills before doing stuff like VR.

This is just going off of what I've been told. Could be completely wrong.

 

[Avixph]

I feel like this isn't necessarily the right takeaway; Nintendo especially has been extremely interested in first person viewpoints, and wanted to make Ocarina of Time first person before settling on making it third person and making Metroid Prime first person instead.

On the whole, the games Japanese developers make rarely jive with the first person viewpoint.

Click to shrink...

Most JRPGs could easily work in first person.

 

[Deleted member 15326]

RE7 sales seem like an odd thing to base that assumption on, especially since 6 was ass

There does seem to be higher rates of motion sickness though

 

[SolVanderlyn]

This is anecdotal, but as a current teacher in Japan, my students all love Call of Duty and Battlefield

 

[raterpillar]

The history of Japanese development just didn't follow that route, despite Japanese developers making a lot of significant contributions to FPS design (check out Gunbuster for arcade, Jumping Flash, light gun games in general).
Mostly, I think that Japanese developers tended to make games for consoles, which didn't have a solution for first person games until pretty late - by that time other influences and market pressures had taken hold and things just went a different way, whereas western development kind of grew up on PCs which had a mouse.

 

[roguesquirrel]

Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of VNs are first-person.

Click to shrink...

theres plenty of first person dungeon crawlers too

 

[Don Fluffles]

Muted response? In what way? Are the sales lower? Is it less well received over there?

While I understand that FPS games in general pale in popularity in Japan, I doubt that RE7 is suffering for that reason, if at all.

For non-FPS games, however, FPP is going strong, with series like Etrian Odyssey maintaining popularity.

 

[Deleted member 8408]

"the Japanese"

Have more tact.

It's "Japanese people".

Even just saying "why is Japan" would have been better.

 

[Inuhanyou]

A lot of people over there have issues with motion sickness with that kind of perspective, but that isnt to say FPS or first person games in general can't find their niche(many VN's, SMT, light gun games ect) its just not a big deal like it is in the west

 

[Redmond Barry]

RE7 sales seem like an odd thing to base that assumption on, especially since 6 was ass

There does seem to be higher rates of motion sickness though

Click to shrink...

Solely? Yes. But I'm going off years and years of Japanese developers not really making such games and Japanese players not really buying such games. Resident Evil 7 caught my eye simply because it is the most recent and notable example of a first person game being met with a lukewarm response.

Of course, it's not a complete wasteland in this regard, as others have pointed out. There is some interest.

 

[texhnolyze]

They have good taste. First person perspective is horrible.

 

[SapientWolf]

They have good taste. First person perspective is horrible.

Click to shrink...

Too bad our eyes don't float around a few feet behind us.

 

[MusclesAreGirly]

My guess would be partially a disconnect between developers and cultural differences in what people wanted in games.

RPGs seemingly only really took off because someone who was a fan of them and living in Japan, translated and distributed Wizardry and Ultima there. And now Wizardry seems to have more of a following in Japan than it does here. Also there are first person dungeon crawlers/RPGs in Japan, like Etrian Odyssey.

So I would guess that tradition and unfamiliarity play a large part. Japan also doesn't have a history with Point and Click Adventure games. They are few and far between. It seems like a lot of the major developers stuck with what they knew, and didn't move too far outside of them. A lot started with arcade games and stuck to that philosophy. Like Namco. And then many copied the Super Mario Bros. and Dragon Quest formula when they became popular.

 

[passepied joe]

Doesn't Call of Duty sell well over on Japan?

 

[Sub Boss]

RE7

 

[Plumpbiscuit]

We aren't, you're wrong OP. There're lots of first-person Japanese games ranging from visual novels, to horror and mobile games. It's just that most modern 3D AAA games aren't first-person it doesn't mean we're scared to make them or whatever and tbh I'm glad because first-person horror is usually fucking awful. There's no inherit bias against first-person it just happens that the culture of our storytelling thrives from being able to know who you are and your place in the world and it's easier to show that in 3rd person.

 

[Deleted member 3924]

They have good taste. First person perspective is horrible.

Click to shrink...

Its the only way to truly become anime

 

[signal]

The perspective seems used in genres where it is suitable and not used in genres where it isn't the best choice. I don't think there is some generic disinterest in the camera angle.

Incoming cultural expert posts though.

 

[koutoru]

They use it a ton in Visual Novels and First Person Dungeon crawlers. They do not, however, use it in action heavy games.

 

[Hat22]

Japanese audiences seem to like seeing their own characters.

 

[Valkerion]

Solely? Yes. But I'm going off years and years of Japanese developers not really making such games and Japanese players not really buying such games. Resident Evil 7 caught my eye simply because it is the most recent and notable example of a first person game being met with a lukewarm response.

Of course, it's not a complete wasteland in this regard, as others have pointed out. There is some interest.

Click to shrink...

Just curious to where your getting the feeling that RE7 had a lukewarm response. It seems to have been highly praised in all regions from what I've seen. Other than that, FPS in general are popular here too. Can't say why more devs are not using FPS, but RE7 was a success and it's only been a year since its release so I would not expect to see any clones or out pouring of games using its perspective right away. But as others mentioned, there are a TON of first person RPGs and Visual Novels.

FPS sell very well in Japan just like other places. The years of "Japanese people not liking FPS" never made sense to me, particularly when console FPS were not very good until late PS2 era imo.

 

[Twilight Suzuka]

I can only speak for myself and assume they feel the same way.

First person is inherently inferior to me in almost every game aside from maybe VR, which I haven't tried. You're essentially playing as a disembodied, floating camera. It's super disorienting and heavily limits what kind of gameplay you can accomplish. You have a poorer sense of where your character is in relation to the environment. Any kind of platforming, using cover, stealth, seems worse when you can't see where your character really is. Shooting doesn't seem improved either, as precise shooters with a third person camera have been around since Resident Evil 4, all the way up to Vanquish. I can't imagine you could even really play a game like Vanquish in first person all that well, and even if you could, it certainly wouldn't be as satisfying as seeing your character do the moves.

On top of all that, it just seems cheap and lazy in terms of development. No need to really make detailed animations, just stick hands on a floating camera. A huge chunk of your character and art design is basically irrelevant. It continues to surprise me that anyone even cares about skins in Overwatch when you can't even see your character. Imagine how much better the game would be if you saw your character in Overwatch doing all the moves, wearing the outfit you like? There's been literally zero reason to not make it third person since Resident Evil 4 came out.

Other than VR, which I haven't tried, it's a negative for me in every single game. I tried to make an exception for the new Mirror's Edge, and that sucked too. At most, it should be an optional brief viewpoint for looking around a room, like it was in Ocarina of Time.

 

[Argot]

Sakurai had a column where he mentioned one of the big differences between Western and Eastern games is the strong identification of the player AS the character in Western games. First person is obviously one of the most powerful ways of maintaining the fiction that what's happening in the game is happening to you. When that's not as important to you you're no more likely to be drawn to a first-person game than you would be a first-person film. It's just one off-the-cuff theory from a game developer rather than some kind of in-depth sociological study (and as others have mentioned, the premise that Japan is uniquely averse to first person is faulty, especially considering some genres) but I think it helps to at least have some perspective from a Japanese player.

 

[Eila]

They make first person dungeon crawlers, but rarely ever with free camera movement.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

Are the sales lower? Is it less well received over there?

Click to shrink...

Everywhere.

 

[Aters]

First person action game like Skyrim is pure ass. I'm glad Japan don't make shit like that (well, From Software did).

First Person Shooter is quite popular in Japan. It's not a question that why Japan don't like it, it's a question why America like it so much.

Muted response? In what way? Are the sales lower? Is it less well received over there?

While I understand that FPS games in general pale in popularity in Japan, I doubt that RE7 is suffering for that reason, if at all.

For non-FPS games, however, FPP is going strong, with series like Etrian Odyssey maintaining popularity.

Click to shrink...

The sales are not good anywhere, but particularly bad in Japan.

 

[Jom]

I think they dislike shooters more than they dislike first person.

 

[Crossing Eden]

They have good taste. First person perspective is horrible.

Click to shrink...

Nah:

 

[Xenosaga]

Dont more Asian people prone to 3D moition sickness? I am not Japanese but as Asian I have 3D motion sickness often so I can't play many FPS games, and also have Japanese friends who have similar problems. Didn't Hideo Kojima also say he suffers from 3D motion sickness?

 

[ailaeshiz]

There's probably a business perspective at work here too. If Japanese companies don't think they can compete with Western FPS games they're going to stick to what they're good at which is often third person RPGs.

 

[iksenpets]

I'm not sure if the notion that Japanese people have a higher propensity for motion sickness is actually true or not, but it'seven around a pretty long time and it seems like something most Japanese people believe.

Also, when a lot of your games are descended from anime in some way or another, hiding the main character design from the player behind a first-person camera is a pretty big handicap.

 

[Twilight Suzuka]

Nah:

Click to shrink...

This is still far behind what any real third person action game can do since the PS2 era. See Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden Black. Nothing about it is impressive to me or shows what first person is doing better than third person. You can hardly even see where all the enemies even are, he just teleports around to them. And it looks like the whole thing has to be played in slow motion to even come half way close.

 

[Phalk]

I'm glad they don't. I dislike First Person perspective in games.

 

[Tohsaka]

First-person is inferior to third-person, so I don't blame them. I like actually seeing my characters.

 

[Vilix]

They have good taste. First person perspective is horrible.

Click to shrink...

I wouldn't say people who enjoy games that use FPS have bad taste. But, I prefer third person perspective. That's probably why I prefer Japanese games.

 

[hibikase]

Nah:

Click to shrink...

That's just a random load of gore porn, where is your actual argument?

 

[Boiled Goose]

Re7 sold less in the west.

Imo it's just genres. Most fp games are fps.
For other genres fp less necessary

 

[Melody]

Don't CoD and BF games sell pretty decently though? Also, purely anecdotal but most Japanese console gamers that I've seen or talked to do play typical western FPS games and have friends that also do.

 

[Vault]

DQ games still have first person battles

 

[RM8]

You don't work hard on those tit jiggling physics only to put them behind the camera.

 

[Jon Carter]

That breast touching simulation Senran Kagura on Switch is in first person.

 

[Nav]

Dont more Asian people prone to 3D moition sickness? I am not Japanese but as Asian I have 3D motion sickness often so I can't play many FPS games, and also have Japanese friends who have similar problems. Didn't Hideo Kojima also say he suffers from 3D motion sickness?

Click to shrink...

I had no idea about this, but I wonder if my issue is for the same reason? Several posts in the thread suggest it. Asians are more genetically predisposed to this?

I often get motion sickness with FPS games. Specifically, I keep trying to get through Metroid Prime and Portal but never make it very far.

 

[Blabadon]

I imagine it's that they like showing off their character models. At least that's why OOT is 3rd person

Click to shrink...

This is what I would guess.

That and Japanese hardware accounting for most of video game sales not having controls conducive to first person gameplay for a long time (especially handhelds).

 

[Crossing Eden]

That's just a random load of gore porn, where is your actual argument?

Click to shrink...

First person perspective can provide unparalleled control over a character's actions compared to 3rd.

This is still far behind what any real third person action game can do since the PS2 era. See Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden Black. Nothing about it is impressive to me or shows what first person is doing better than third person. You can hardly even see where all the enemies even are, he just teleports around to them. And it looks like the whole thing has to be played in slow motion to even come half way close.

Click to shrink...

Guaranteed you have more control over your actions than in DMC or Ninja Gaiden, even more so when you take into account the lack of sandbox elements in those titles. And yea, he can certainly see where each enemy is, nothing in that clip is random for the hell of it I assure you. For context, this is what the enemies are seeing: