Thank you for your previous response with its info on Japan and the ill-effects of anime. I do wish that more people would wake up to what it does to them.

When I was young Speed Racer was the only anime that we really watched (we called it Japanimation), it stood out because the art and animation were much better than American stuff of its time. Much later I’d learn that James Bond and an Elvis movie were big influences.

I can safely say that any good bit of media that Japan ever made, was copied from the West but with some “craftsmanship” added…usually. I think they picked up on that and this whole otaku nonsense is a way to spread “Japanese culture”, which ironically isn’t all that original when everyone draws the same and writes the same “high schooler dies then learns he has secret hidden arts and must train for 500 episode” plots. Either that or its some kind of “kit” designed to make it easier to create their media.

When they came up with “original” stuff it was videogames like Choro Q/Penny Racers, which was fine initially but when the cars started talking (thus the cuteness curse) the series was axed in the West. Im sure that many gamers were put off when they brought “Seek and Destroy” only to have an Abrams start talking to them.

With the Activision buyout, we’re no longer in a ‘no news’ cycle so I want to put a pin on this subject so I can move onto that.

I was one of the first Western customers of anime. I watched Robotech and Akira. I think anime can be really cool. I don’t think anime is ‘cool’ simply because it is ‘anime’ though. There’s good anime and there is bad anime the same with everything else in the world.

I liked anime better when they drew noses on the characters. Much of the recent anime I’ve seen makes me feel uncomfortable. I cannot explain it better than that except to give some words as to hypothesize why it makes me uncomfortable.

I totally get the adoption of anime (or anything else) over WOKE COMICS or WOKE HOLLYWOOD. I despise that crap. I’m a huge fan of Star Trek. But I HATE Kurtzman Trek. I loathe it. It is Anti-Trek to me. I don’t sense the wokeness shift in comics because I had never been a comics fan. As far as comics go, there are a couple of comic strips I really like. Specifically, those comic strips are Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes. I think the quality of Calvin and Hobbes completely trounced everything around it. But that is my opinion and tastes.

I like Japan doing its own thing. But some of this Otaku stuff makes me cringe. It’s not coming from a value judgement or an ideology. It’s gut reaction. It’s like seeing puke on the floor, and it makes you want to puke too. I’m not comfortable with a dungeon explorer game where your party is a harem full of barely clothed lolitas. I never said that it shouldn’t be made or that no one in the West should buy it. I simply don’t understand its appeal because I have that gut cringe reaction to it. I wonder why everyone doesn’t have that gut cringe reaction too. However, I suspect the number of people that do is far higher than known. Disinterest is hard to measure.

I am tired, though, of every video game Japanese story being seemingly about a ‘coming of age’ of a high schooler.

A ditzy blonde presenting the ‘successor to Master of Magic? 2022 does not look well to me.

This is something entirely personal to me, but I really ‘notice’ and want to understand these developers who get in front of the cameras. What I mean by this is that her presence doesn’t make me think this is a serious venture. Master of Magic was early 1990s. “There are no girls on the Internet!” That was true. And they certainly didn’t play 4X PC games. The people who played Master of Magic back in the day are at least 40 years age today. This blonde chick (she even uses that term on her shirt) is NOT 40 years old. So WTF!?

Folks, this is a huge money grab. A real indie studio would want to make a spiritual successor, not re-use the same title and units and mages.

Folks, Master of Magic sold VERY WELL back during its day. THIS is why Stardock made its own ‘spiritual sequel’ to it.

What they’ve ‘modernized’ with it is so predictable: hexagons! Because squares are so 1990s! Everything has to be fucking hexagons.

I don’t trust the blonde chick. And I don’t trust this obscene money grab. Why should I pay $40-60 for a game that you can buy for under a dollar (on sale) at GOG? Did you know that DLC has been released for the ORIGINAL Master of Magic? I bought it. It’s hilarious that someone is selling DLC for a 1990s PC game. Why? Because people are still playing it. There’s a market for it. There has to be market data out there that shows people still playing Master of Magic which is why they want to sell to them.

People tried to re-capture the glory of Master of Orion… including EA. They all failed. The only successor was the free indie game called ‘Remnants of the Precursors’ that literally mirrored everything of MOO and gave it some more grand scale with modern computing (e.g. more stars).

“I have faith in the blonde chick.” Oh, I’m sure you do, reader. The teaser video they showed of the remade intro was TERRIBLE. The original at least had the charm of primitive 1990s, but 2022 needs better than that shit.

I’m convinced this is just a cash grab as in ‘make popular old game with modernized system’ which for some reason keeps meaning “Hexagons!” At this rate, I’m sure they’ll be adding “Hexagons!” to Tetris or Advanced Wars soon. Might as well add “Hexagons!” to Dr. Mario as well. “Hexagons!” apparently make everything better.

Let me make this post better.

Above: This post is now awesome because “Hexagons!”

Microsoft bought Activision. It all seems like deja vu to me.

Can someone tell me where these ‘great quality games’ come from these studio buyouts? I simply don’t see them.

Did Rare’s output match what was before after Microsoft bought it out?

How is Age of Empires 4, btw? Good luck with that Warcraft or Starcraft RTS sequel.

As for World of Warcaft? That game has been essentially dead. Final Fantasy XIV is the new king.

Is Call of Duty still a thing?

Is Minecraft actually growing? I know their revenue grew, but that isn’t the same as consumers.

It looks like Microsoft has to absorb all these IPs in order to keep their shitty streaming service going. This is so Xbox Deja Vu.

I don’t think games as a streaming service will ever work because of the TIME. You can binge watch movies and TV shows or music. You can’t do that with video games.. at least not with modern games. I think services were tried during the 8-bit and 16-bit era too. Games just take up too much of a time investment. Further, this doesn’t solve the issue that Xbox (and PlayStation have) of their games’ value dropping off a cliff a few months after release.

Microsoft didn’t buy Activision. Microsoft bought a graveyard. We don’t need Zombie IPs running around. I’m looking at you, Age of Empires IV.

The recent email with the kids’ drag queen show made me laugh.  You are correct, that does not represent what the American public wants or even consumes.

There is a reason people now say “get woke, go broke.”  It’s because it is business suicide in America to “go woke” with your products.  The Ghostbusters feminazi remake bombed.  Gillette paid a massive price by attacking all men as walking sexual assault machines with their commercials.  Star Wars is effectively dead.

Simply because businesses are putting out certain products does not mean the public is actively consuming them.  The tranny/drag queen nonsense has no real audience.  It is politically motivated.  Parents are pushing back against school boards that are shoving this sexual content down their children’s throats.

One of my favorite examples is how even in this terrible economy with empty shelves, no one wants fake meat.

Sakamoto Metroid is fake meat.

[Picture of bare shelves]

Seeing Dragon Quest XII change its ‘aesthetics’ to ‘dark and grim’ despite the big success of of Dragon Quest XI is smoke indicating something in Japan is on fire. The board for Dragon Quest might have concluded that all they can do is sell to an ever shrinking market unless they sell to the West. Otherwise, why not make it more in the style of XI which did fine in the West anyway? Probably because ‘fine’ isn’t good enough anymore to offset the projected Japanese decline.

The ‘crazy anime craziness’ of certain Japanese games certainly is a Japanese thing and isn’t something they’d do if they wanted to sell more to the West. Either there is Japanese market demand for it, or the developers are ‘expressing themselves’. In any shape, it is an expression of the Japanese mind.

The Japanese mind is being influenced by the Japanese population crash. It’s not the only influence, but it is one of them. The sour economy has to be another. I don’t live in Japan so I can’t say.

It’s like Japanese wondering why American games have lots of guns in them and bang, bang, bang. Guns are very much a cultural norm in America as is the military in American entertainment.

I want to know what is going on in Japan that is creating these… crazy…. games. Japan wasn’t this cringeworthy before. There appears to be a trend.

Hi Malstrom – A new trailer has dropped for the upcoming Kirby game, set to release in a couple of months. While I’m a proponent of IP’s evolving as more impressive hardware becomes available (ie NES Kirby vs SNES Kirby), I really don’t see this 3D iteration of Kirby selling hardware, not to mention software. Who is this game for? It looks too complex for first time video game players (which the original Kirby games were meant for), and the game lacks really any familiarity with previous titles in the series, except for the eating and copying the enemy abilities. This leads me to believe your point that Nintendo is at that point of the cycle where they are putting little effort in their games again. Maybe Nintendo is banking on BotW 2 to be their whale this year, and therefore isn’t going to put much effort toward their developing games this year.

I’m hoping to get some perspective from you on this Kirby release, as Nintendo’s business choices have me stumped.

Thanks!

Oh and PS: Looks like Nintendo disabled comments and has hidden their dislike numbers on their YouTube videos related to this game. It appears fans have voiced their disinterest in this game already.

I don’t think Youtube allows disliking videos. Comments are enabled for this video. Why do you guys tell me wrong stuff? I’m leaning to more and more ignoring my email completely.

I wonder how long this game has been done. I’d much prefer a 2d version. At least port the other Kirby games over.

I think this 3d Kirby is going to be very… very… slow. Especially compared to his 2d outings.

But you guys enjoy those 3d fog effects. That’s what gaming is about, you know.

I agree with every of your points on anime, but I have never been able to put
into words why something feels lame. It just smells wrong, if that makes
sense. It’s like looking as a Disney Saturday AM cartoon like Rescue Rangers,
and then looking at a furry drawing; one is clearly just a cartoon, the other
is fetish fuel, yet I cannot articulate what the criteria are.

For example, I love Dragon’s Crown as a game, and I find the bouncy big tiddy
sorceress a funny joke. Yet the idea of owning a figure of the character feels
just wrong. Sometime’s it’s a matter of individual elements clashing: in
Monster Hunter you have all these cool dragons to fight, but then you have the
little cats or the anime grunts and emotes; it’s like coating a steak with
chocolate.

In particular, how do you draw the line between cute and lame cute, or between
though and lame tough? We all laugh at Bomberman Act Zero for trying too hard,
but someone must have though it was a good idea.

The same way as with movies, plays, or books. If you notice it, it’s bad.

Take programming. The gamer should never notice the programming. If the gamer does so, then the programming is bad.

You no longer hear the music but only the notes. The ‘in the zone’ feeling is shattered.

Imagine watching Batman.

“Yeah!” squeals the reader. “Batman!”

Above: Batman

And as you watch the film, a scene similar below appears.

Above: Also Batman

With Aonuma Zelda, I kept thinking I was going to get something like The Dark Rises but I kept getting 1960s Batman.

“This is because,” spews the reader, “your tastes don’t make sense.”

No. It was a total bait and switch. Here is the proof:

Nintendo teases the next Zelda at Spaceworld 2000

Here is what Nintendo actually made instead:

Above: Voice over the epic theme. Anime graphics.

“But it’s aged extremely well.”

No. It sucks just as bad today as it did then.

But the point is that you have a classic bait and switch. They KNOW what we want. It isn’t anime garbage. When it comes time to TEASE Zelda, they give what you want. But for the full game, they do something completely different instead. By Skyward Sword, everyone had stopped trusting Nintendo with Zelda.

Then Nintendo does the bait and switch AGAIN.

Above: Zelda teased for Wii U.

Actual Wii U Zelda was anime style BOTW. It wasn’t as bad as Wind Waker, but it doesn’t resemble the above teaser AT ALL.

I know I see anime when it takes me out of the game. It is *noise* to the player experience. It is like 1960s Batman running into a ‘serious toned’ game or vice versa. Aonuma Zelda is full of them. The ‘mail man’ in Twilight Princess is a good example.

This motherfucker is the prime example of it. You’re in the game and then BAM, this piece of shit appears. It’s the Jar Jar of the Zelda franchise.

I suspect the reason for all this… anime crap… is because the developers are trying to be ‘clever’, to be validated. The developer experience is prioritized over the player experience.

Shigeru Miyamoto has a degree in industrial design. THAT is what is needed. Industrial Design. Not this shitty anime crap.

I bought the game based on your recommendations. I trusted you Malstrom, and
you let me down. Puyo Puyo Tetris is pure anime cringe. See, I can get over
the silly single player campaign, I don’t care, it’s just an extra. But they
completely fucked up the multiplayer, the mode I actually bought the game for.
First you have to pick one of several cringy anime characters, and then that
character is on screen all the time and has to make an anime grunt every
single time you clear a row. Has anyone in the history of ever said “you know,
this Tetris game is nice and all, but what it really needs is an anime
character yelling ‘Yeah!’ every time I clear a row”?

And of course you cannot turn it off. Well, kinda, you can turn sound effect of
in general, but then the game feels like I have gone deaf. In the end I
couldn’t take the cringe anymore I sold the game again. Thank God for physical
releases. I tried playing it in multiplayer with my siblings and we all had
the same reaction. Even anime cringe aside, why do I need any character
getting excited when I clear a row? That’s why the player is supposed to do,
not the virtual character on the screen. It feels like a laugh track in a
sitcom: “here is the joke, laugh now”.

So the question is, why does Puyo Puyo Tetris get a free pass on anime
lameness? Why did no reviewer ever mention it? Am I weird? Are anime grunts
the hot new thing that everyone likes now?

It’s like Street Fighter 2’s yells and shouts. Think of Puyo puyo Tetris more as a Street Fighter 2 game with Tetris as opposed to being a Tetris game.

Puyo Puyo Tetris is a fighting game, not a puzzle game.

I don’t think it has the charm as the Russian originals, but they definitely ham it up. Hearing the characters yell attacks to me is the same as hearing “Hadouken!” or Chun-Li’s squeals.

Anime games are style over substance. Puyo Puyo Tetris has substance and little (and optional) styles. What I want to know is why didn’t you check out the free demo?

Master Malstrom,
I disagree with meme 100%. Japanese men realize how fucked they are and turn to anime as a cope. It’s a symptom, not the cause. I agree part of it is the money situation you brought up. Who wants to raise a family in a country with real estate so insane that coffin apartments are a trend? On top of that, the world shutting down caused most countries to have a baby bust despite all the initial jokes about being trapped inside. No one wanted to take a chance when going to work was outlawed.

With younger generations in the US getting into anime, I’d blame modern entertainment for being so bad that normal people have nowhere else to go. I dare you to post the attached picture on your blog. Pic related has infested every facet of western culture and you cannot go one day without experiencing it in some form. As lame and cringe as it gets, anime is a paradise compared to the alternative.

I agree games shouldn’t be covered in anime anything. What I balk at is the moral panicking tangent. It infuriates me because wasting time bitching about inconsequential shit like this back in the day, like Harry Potter being the devil allowed truly menacing material to society a blank check to sneak in. Wasting time now on this is beyond crazy, especially since Japan is starting to get the same treatment. Everyone seems to forget back when the Switch launched, Nintendo was changing its localization standards. https://nintendoeverything.com/monolith-soft-on-xenoblade-x-western-changes-nintendo-europe-handling-xenoblade-2-nintendos-localization-process/

At first glance, you would say this is good because it keeps Japan from going too anime. I don’t think this, because I’ve seen enough of these localization companies to know they’re deadbeats that alter the works of others as they could never be in the driver’s seat. They might remove the anime, but that cost is not worth it. I’m really expecting Nintendo to really start pulling Sony stunts with the Switch successor on the level of Last of Us 2. As bad as it gets, I’d rather take anime over brainwashing, but it looks like none of us will get a choice. Realizing that and getting mad at the wrong target is what got me to write this email. I’d rather be too busy like watching a new Bond film that kicks ass (I ignored NTTD). But because stuff like pic related was left to fester while anime, gaming, or rock n’ roll were focused on is why I can’t do that.

I enjoy 90% of what you write and think highly of you. Because of that, I feel it’s more important when someone like me says your shit stinks than ilk like Other M apologists. Stuff like that Blues Clues picture makes me not want to have a kid, because the fear of fighting that shit from cradle to 18 on top of financial Armageddon is nightmare fuel.

Anime cannot compete on that front, not in the slightest.

Sincerely,

One reader of many

I get annoyed with Western fans of ‘Japanese culture’. They’re shockingly ignorant of Japanese history and culture. They seem to forget that Japan was part of the Axis Powers, embraced Facism, were staunch allies of the Nazis, and committed such war atrocities that I can’t even print here.

After World War 2, the United States rebuilt their country and gave them their Constitution. Much of what is called ‘Japanese Culture’ isn’t even Japanese. It is a mish-mash of different things, but there is so much American in so-called Japanese culture.

Anime, itself, was modeled after Disney’s style of animation.

Shows like Macross were heavily influenced by the West. The director of Macross was a huge fan of Shakespeare and wanted to call Macross as Macbeth.

Sega actually came from America, not Japan.

All of Nintendo’s big IPs such as Mario, Zelda, and Metroid are Western concepts. By ‘Western’ I mean ‘Alice in Wonderland’ for Mario (who is from Brooklyn), ‘Lord of the Rings’ for Zelda (sword in the stone? King Arthur there), and Metroid (which is from the Ridley Scott movie Alien).

Dragon Quest is a simplified RPG series for those who lack the means to play Wizardry/ Ultima [or other CRPGs]. Dragon Quest is the ‘McDonald’ style hamburger of RPGs.

Final Fantasy is a black hole of various cultures that mishmashes all of them to form something exotic.

Japanese products were so western, many people in the 1980s didn’t even realize Nintendo games came from Japan. They thought they were being made in America!

I thought everyone already knew this. I remember when Zelda II came out, a newspaper described it as ‘Nintendo’s take on Sleeping Beauty’.

All of the Japanese stuff the West loves isn’t Japanese at all but ‘re-processed Western culture’. It’d be like Japan wanting to buy American games about samurais.

A game series like Bayonetta is all about angels. But angels do not exist in Eastern religions. With Ying and Yang, there is no need for a heavenly messenger, no need for an angel. Angels are entirely Western in concept… and I suspect maybe entirely Christian. But it would also explain why what Bayonetta does with the angels feels so *off* too. The developers don’t understand the concept.

There’s also the inconvenient fact that there isn’t any Japanese big game ip that sells to the West without it being westernized. I certainly can’t think of any.

The riddle is why does the West not want to buy “Japanese culture” or those products that only sell in Japan?

I suspect that a part of the reason is the differing culture due to fertility rates. The otaku stuff that sells in Japan falls flat here because the higher fertility rate. The otaku stuff is a result of the low fertility rate, not a cause of it. I don’t believe the games create the otaku. I believe the otaku are creating the games.

Most so-called ‘creativity’ is profoundly sexual transmutation.

And no, the ‘Japanese culture is now accepted’ isn’t true. We have the numbers. They’re not selling unless they are highly westernized.

Anyway…

The entire essence of Nintendo going into the ‘expanded market’ with the DS/Wii Era was not just about ‘growing their market’ as everyone said. Why doesn’t Nintendo just keep making games for children as they’ve always done? The reason was because the pipeline of children kept getting smaller and smaller. This is the horrifying backdrop behind the seventh generation.

We have population declines in Japan as well as throughout Europe and Russia. Countries are aging incredibly fast. United States is still relatively stable population wise.

My question is does ‘art’ or ‘culture’ come from declining populations? I haven’t seen any evidence that it does. When Europe lost a third of its population during the Dark Age, it was not an era of art and culture. That is why they call it a ‘Dark Age’.

There’s a reason why you don’t hear about the ‘great Russian cultural influence’ because Russia is depopulating fast! They won’t be able to get the young bodies they need to run their military too much longer.

You think I’m saying Japanese ‘culture’ is bad. I’m not. I think it is as warped and twisted as American ‘culture’. I also don’t believe it’s as ‘authentic’ as many people believe. American ‘entertainment’ is nowhere near what most Americans believe or think.

I am curious as to what is causing Japan’s ‘entertainment exports’ to be so warped, to be so… anime, I think the infertility is a big silent factor that is behind the ‘warp’.

Above: Emailer dared me to post the image. Here it is.

I don’t think that image is a reflection of what American society believes. I don’t think American media remotely represents American society.

Someone might say, “But why do you think crazy Otaku games represent Japanese society?” Well, the otaku ‘games’ weren’t around until recently. Something changed to give these games market demand there in Japan.

I think the collapse of the Japanese economy is a big factor. And I think a big reason why the Japanese economy cannot recover is due to the population decline.

Hello again Malstrom
I have expressed myself a bit incorrectly, maybe I was a bit distracted or in a rush, but what I mean is that I intend on making smaller games at first to get more the hang of platformers/Metroidvanias, as I already got good experience making (J)RPGs. Then later I can make something bigger.
But other than that, you mentioned you want your next game to be in an open source engine, correct?Well, there’s an engine I’ve been eyeing for a while, named Godot (its logo is a blue robot face) that is open source and freeware, MIT license (and the coding of your game in it belongs to you):
https://godotengine.org/

It can be used for both 2D and 3D games, but I have no interest in the 3D part (maybe if I can make simple 3D effects as some Sega Genesis or Snes games had, but that’s it)
The very good Mega Man fangame titled MegaMan Rock n Roll was made with it.Maybe you already have some good paid engine in mind, but hey, you never know. In my case I want to save money on an engine for the musician, since I can’t for the life of me understand musical theory.

Other than that, I’m curious about something. You complain about “anime” in some articles, but is your dislike already by a game having anime designs? Or is your (and others) issue with anime when we go into graphical style and/or plots and characters like what we see in Aonuma’s Wind Waker and Skyward Sword, respectively?

I am engine agnostic. Who cares what engine it is so long as you can sell what you make. Thus, making a mod in an existing game would be a bad idea since you can’t sell it.

You also want the engine best suited for your game.

If your game is successful, you’ll find it easy to be able to port to another engine if need be. The true challenge is making the game, not ‘dealing with engine’.

By ‘anime style’, I mean the Japanese style.

Mid-1980s were a very interesting cultural exchange between the West and Japan. The 1980 video games were MADE in Japan, by Japanese hands, but the culture was western. Donkey Kong from King Kong. Mario is a plumber from Brooklyn / Alice in Wonderland type mushroom land. Zelda is Lord of the Rings. Metroid is the movie Alien. Contra is Rambo/Alien. Double Dragon was definitely skinned for the West. Castlevania is definitely Western in culture. The list goes on and on.

Another interesting case are the toys. There was line of toy vehicles from Japan that could transform into giant robots! In the West, Marvel turned them into the Transformers. The West created the lore, gave them all personalities, and made a cartoon and movie. All this content got re-absorbed into Japan. To this day, all that Transformers stuff is still going on.

I DO NOT CONNECT TO JAPANESE CULTURE.

I know it is the fashion of the nerds to study Japanese language, to go to Japan and smell cherry blossoms, to squeal over samurais, and so on.

I don’t give a shit about Japanese ‘culture’. It’s not ‘entertaining’ to me. I don’t care about their shrines. I don’t care about their customs. It just isn’t interesting.

That said, I’m a big fan of the Japanese craftsmanship. The craftsmanship of the Japanese is stunning to behold. Why do you think Christopher Columbus was trying to sail to Japan?

Metroid’s audience is Western. When they change Metroid to an anime style, that is a Japanese style. They lose many people.

“But Malstrom,” says a reader. “Younger generations like the anime style today.”

And they will not mate and reproduce.

“LOL at the meme!” goes the reader. But reader needs to stop LOLLING and wake up. Japanese Culture is TOXIC and is in a DEATH SPIRAL.

The meme is accurate. No one is making babies in Japan. They are suffering severe demographic issues.

A big cause of this could be due to Japan’s own financial issues.

But getting away from that subject, video game developers in Japan definitely are aware that Japanese culture can run off the Western market. As some franchises get big, they forget these lessons or they simply don’t care.

Above: Breath of the Wild Dragon

Above: Dragon from Twilight Princess

Which dragon would you rather fight? I’d rather take the Twilight Princess dragon any day over the lame snake-like Japanese dragons.

Above are some Final Fantasy VI monsters. They are not cute. You see, Japanese like cute. Everything has to be cute in Japan including their monsters.

And here are some Dragon Quest monsters. All *cute*.

There’s a reason why Final Fantasy took off in the West and Dragon Quest never did.

It might be the reason why Dragon Quest XII is going *dark* because they know making cute ‘anime style’ isn’t going to sell to the West. And the market for Japan keeps getting smaller and smaller. It’s only logical to sell overseas.

“I see your point, Malstrom. But what about this?”

This is someone who doesn’t get it. Japanese culture isn’t rejected because it is ‘pretty’, but because it is LAME. This is ugly AND lame!

It’s too ‘anime’ means it is repulsive and cringe-worthy.

“Why do you bring up demographics in a discussion about art-style? OMG!”

What are the Otaku all about? Certainly not about finding girls and making babies. Grass-eaters need not apply in selling to the West.

Here is an example of this crap. Only a population with a negative birth rate could generate such garbage.

No, I’m quite serious. We know that the game developers are essential to the game making process. They cannot be ‘assembly lined’. But the developers, themselves, are affected by what they grew up with and what they are around. What type of entertainment would someone in a demographic death spiral make versus someone in a demographic rise would make?

Great Roman art didn’t come when the empire was falling apart. When a country keeps shrinking, what art can we expect from it?

Contrast that to nations growing and rising. What art happened in England after the fall of the Spanish Armada? You got Shakespeare. Japanese gaming, itself, has not been what it was after the financial crash of Japan. There’s still some good stuff that comes out of Japan, but you’re not seeing the world shattering stuff like Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and the other famous IPs. How popular is Dark Souls and Monster Hunter in the West anyway?

I really do think these population directions are tectonic plates affecting the art output of the regions. The otaku ‘anime’ style would never be accepted in Japan decades ago. I remember when anime characters had noses. And Akira and Macross had distinct masculine presences.

『#ゼルダ無双 厄災の黙示録』の全世界累計出荷本数が400万本を突破しました。プレイしていただいた皆さま、誠にありがとうございます。

1月10日(月)までセールも開催中ですので、この機会にぜひお楽しみください。
■購入はこちらhttps://t.co/VV14JMDMeV#ゼルダの伝説 #Zelda

— 『ゼルダ無双 厄災の黙示録』公式アカウント (@zelda_musou) January 5, 2022

It SHIPS that many.

Next question is are the sales (which are less than 4 million) actually at the full price of the game? Maybe. [I actually expect in the future for companies to fudge their sales numbers by saying streaming services like ‘Game Pass’ are a ‘sale’.]

Much of this is part of the macro trend of the gaming market: lack of competition. Sales are going up across the board.

The lack of competition is coming from two fronts due to the pandemic. First, outside is banned or made much more expensive or less accessible. Second, less game competition. What was the other game from Nintendo that came out with Calamity? It was pretty much all alone.

The game was also marketed as a sequel to Breath of the Wild. Breath of the Wild has grown the Zelda fanbase considerably. Calamity is not a Zelda game, Calamity is a Breath of the Wild game. People who liked Breath of the Wild are going to check out Calamity where those consumers were non-existent when Hyrule Warriors 1 appeared.

Nintendo is milking Breath of the Wild for all it can. They used that game to push other Zelda games that wouldn’t have been popular. Link’s Awakening Remake. Skyward Sword Remake. Age of Calamity. My instinct is that Breath of the Wild fans are probably getting tired of this and are going to disappear soon.

Breath of the Wild 2 will make or break that Breath of the Wild fanbase.

Stop thinking of ‘Zelda Franchise’. There is now a ‘Breath of the Wild Franchise’ and Calamity falls underneath that umbrella.

But the ‘Breath of the Wild Franchise’ can be snuffed out like smoke should Breath of the Wild 2 disappoint.

If Nintendo doesn’t realize that people don’t view Breath of the Wild as a ‘Zelda game’ (e.g. Aonuma-Style) but as a ‘Breath of the Wild game’, and they make Breath of the Wild 2 as ‘Aonuma-Style’, you’re going to see crashing disappointment. Sales will be there. But excitement going forward won’t be.

Covid has made video game sales very boring. Removal of outside entertainment, forcing everyone inside, has given a floor increase to all video game sales. Mediocre products are now declared ‘good’ because competition is down across the board. Since games don’t have to compete against Outside as much anymore, I believe the quality of games is going to go down across the board.