The Secret Reason Some Games Reward You Early | Extra Credits Gaming
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- čas přidán 8. 07. 2024
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Let's explore the cultural nuances shaping game design and gaming experiences. From the tradition of lavish gift-giving in Asia to the tolerance for complexity in Eastern Europe. Cultural perspectives are ever-present and influence a game's mechanics in ways you've never thought of before, and understanding these cultural differences is essential for creating an inclusive gaming experience people can enjoy around the world.
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You know a had this moment when trying out from the depths! I turned on the game, loaded a campaign, and died! I did not follow the tutorials because I’ve played games like it before and ehh how hard can it be? I believe after half a year I am going to try to play the game again!
Buen video, me recordó al caso de sonic aceptado en occidente creado por Oriente y crash bandicut que fue aceptado en Oriente creado en occidente de plano de juego.
This is an interesting perspective. It also makes me wonder if people in Japan think Tom Nook from Animal Crossings is a greedy con man who traps you into paying ridiculous amounts of money, or someone who gave you a generous gift and theres more kindness to his character
OHHH... I didn't even think of this but yes that makes a lot of sense.
Honestly I'd wager probably not, especially since Animal Crossing already has a shady conman in the form of Redd.
I've never really got that perspective myself even as someone who does live in the west, though. I mean he builds you a house up front, no interest, no questions asked, and doesn't even bother you about the loan until you want to expand. I'd get it if there was interest or he was banging down your door, but he never has as far as I can remember.
It might be a cultural thing in its own way in that to simply put a goal before the player like "Get 1 million moneys" but the average item sells for 5 moneys to make that goal seem intentionally unachievable or at least unencouraged to pursue, such a goal being considered abhorrent in one culture where more achievable goals are desired due to real life ones being so difficult, while in another culture slow but steady progress towards a goal is more normalized and considered preferred to earning after ten minutes of doing other stuff.
He doesn't evict you if you take too long to pay him back. The meme of Tom Nook being basically furry Mr. Krabs is funny and all but in "reality" he's actually the ideal landlord.
I feel kind of disgusting typing those words together like that.
He's a tanuki, usually seen as a type of trickster. He tricks you with the debt but helps you out with the home.
I'm currently studying video game sound design, and one of the things our teacher remarked was how different mixing was between different cultures. He never understood why a lot of games from japan had "unrealistic" urban soundscapes, until he went there. Turns out there's less traffic noise and honking, but a lot more jingles clashing against one another, which was reflected in how a lot of Japanese games would emphasize those aspects in the mixing.
One thing that stood out to me about Japanese video games is that they would often have very loud, very repetitive footstep sounds for the player character. Western games sometimes did as well (Deus Ex is a good/bad example), but they stopped at least a decade earlier than Japanese ones. I always wondered if there was some specific reason that Japanese players tolerated it, because to me it sounded like nails on a chalkboard after 5 minutes.
There's a saying related to that. *CITIES* aren't loud, *CARS* are loud. You can get a real peaceful and quiet experience, even in a seemingly busy part of a city with a lot of people moving around, if it's a part that doesn't have as much car traffic, or is in a pedestrian-only area.
I imagine Japanese cities have a lot fewer cars than American cities, all else being equal. I could be wrong, but it sounds like that might be the case.
@@hypotheticalaxolotl based and orange pilled response!
@@hypotheticalaxolotl I've been to japan their is just significantly less cars as the cities are designed around people rather than just vehicles like in America
Being in Japan definitely feels like a video game at times, with even ATMs having sound effects that could come straight from a JRPG
Suddenly, a lot of little things in some of the games I've played from other parts of the world make sense...This is a really fascinating topic that I would love to see expounded by someone into a long form video lol
We've certainly been thinking about longer form videos. It's hard to fit everything we want to say in.
This would be an awesome topic for Gaigin Goombah to tackle!
@extracredits yes!!! This!!!Extracredits deep dives! I'm here for it.
One of the things about the Quirky vs Broken game discussion is that an American dev who makes something of that sort probably DID just leave it broken, whereas a Euro dev has likely made something interesting-but-hidden.
The trouble is, there can be no way to tell which kind of game you're playing. So even if it leaves us missing out on some gems, I don't think Americans are wrong for refusing to dig through layer after layer of grit. This kind of thing is where word-of-mouth becomes CRITICAL; having a friend you can trust who tells you, "This is going somewhere. Stick with it" or, "Yeah, as far as I know that one just kind of peters out and doesn't have an ending."
This can extend beyond national culture. Arcade players for instance are more tolerable of repetitive tasks where the goal is to go for a high score, and casual players are more likely to play one game a couple hours a week over the course of months. A successful game has to appeal to all types of players.
While on the surface I get that, I think games appealing to very specific audiences is charming and has a fantastic niche in the industry. Trying to do everything can kind of ruin the flavor oftentimes
@@jjmc00 that is how we endup with bloated games that have lots of content for people who like exploring , but make it a pain to complete for the complecionists
having to finish arkhan city on normal again just to unlock the new game plus again removed all the fun of replaying it
@@devforfun5618 And that are a nightmare for people that just want to beat the game.
This kind of game that you call successful sound like a jack of all trade master of none. A game that do a little of everything but nothing great enough to really hook me.
@@CatherinePuce depends on the game. Smash Bros is a great example of a game popular among a hardcore and a casual audience
Oh my god, an explanation of why Finnish people keeps making these weird games. You're EXPECTED to suffer trying to make it work. Truly, this answer so much for me.
Honestly, there _is_ a certain satisfaction of figuring something out yourself that you just don't get from games that "properly" tutorialize the same thing for new players.
A third of the year, there's twelve to sixteen hours of darkness. Might as well do something puzzling!
cruelty squad I think
as an indie dev, this made me think long and hard but my game(s)
...Wait, is this also why (often 'isekai') stories where the MC gets (absurdly strong) powers given to them are so popular in Japan?
Correct!
Interesting. It seems like a Japanese correlate to the Sword in the Stone. Where Westerners fantasize about seizing their destiny and making the world respect them, in the East, respect is meaningless if it isn't given freely. So instead of taking everything, they fantasize about being given everything.
well that & escapism is just very popular
"Welcome to my world, Here's your gift of Powers" makes sense to me.
The idea of being serviced and catered to is so strong that people are willing to accept dying as a primary premise for the prestige of having god (often literally) bow down and worship your feet.
This was incredibly informative for me. Not just because I too dislike the "God from the start" hook that many gacha games use, but because one of the main games I play is Elite Dangerous, which is from a UK based dev team. As an American, my experience with Elite pretty closely resembles every part of how you described the Euro games; I had no clue what I was doing at start up, the controls were awful and the game gives you no direction. Now, 7300 hours later, I have a fleet of highly optimized ships that all fill one or two niche roles, my own custom control layout that makes sense to me, and a deep understanding of the unwritten mechanics that drive the game and how to exploit them as well as where the bugs are and how to fix or avoid most of them.
It is 100% my Soviet tractor that I've poured tons of time into fixing and learning and I won't get rid of it unless they make it completely unusable again (Odyssey was a rough launch).
The Topic of my master thesis was (short) "Influence of cultural heritage on decisions in games". And oooh boi, there is sooo much to tell and to know. I was just researching Japan - Germany, and already had not enough time to describe all differences between these two cultures.
It's funny because there was once upon a time in America when computer games didn't always "work out of the box". So it was not uncommon for computer gamers back then to have to go through the effort of making the game function. Compatibility issues were just part of the experience.
The 90s were wild times in PC gaming, and not always in a good way.
Did you misconfigure one (of six) settings for your audio card? Game crash.
Did you forget to unplug your mouse? System freeze.
Standardized (code-facing) interfaces to hardware basically weren't even a thing yet. And at least in the US, the baseline system capabilities of a PC weren't suitable (much less optimized) for gaming generally. Arcade hardware was the gold standard of videogames for a long time _for a reason._
Not quite id say, not really. Games still had extensive manuals in a time/era where the culture for home games was to have manuals that you HAD to read, just like instructions in boardgames. The 90s got trickier not by design, wasnt a choice by the devs- it was just a very shitty time for hardware/software compatibility etc. Even things like directx werent standard, nothing was standard and we even had all sorts of libraries and tech for things like audio and physics, each with their logo and whatnot. There spots in time where things like ripples in water or hair with physics needed specific hardware and specific chips for those even... we have decades of optimization, standartization even how cpus, rams and motherboards manage things across the board is 10 times better now.
And heck even with all that optmization pc is still a bit of a wild jungle because we have variety of setups anyway.
For gods sake even drivers for basic pc usage were a hell to make work. You can say PC was like that as a whole. It went from terminals only the tech savvy could use and had to troubleshoot and program thenselves to individual preprogramed software and so on... Heck even when the world was praising windows and its popularization of home pcs you could delete system 32 folder and brick your machine. 2 mismatches in the bios setting and the motherboard or cpu could literally die... wild times.
Thinking of early PC games like LucasArts' LOOM or the Indiana Jones games, or Zork? There were a LOT of 'fumble til you get it' type puzzles.
@@Laeiryn But that was pretty much the entire genre. The challenge was figuring out and trial and error one way to do it
I think this adds a interest layer to the role of the game critic. How much should a responsible reviewer take the cultural origins of a game's development into account? Yes, reviews are just someone else's opinion, but we generally expect critics to be a bit more thoughtful than the average player.
I think they shouldn't consider that, in the slightest. They should just take a look at the gameplay in a vacuum, as if there were literally nothing else like it in the current market, and say if it's good or not.
The context can help explain things but it's ultimately a pointless factor.
I think they should acknowledge this cultural difference, if they know about it, but not let it influence their critic by much and they shouldn't be required to specifically look for it either. After all, critique is always a personal opinion. Sure, you can try to keep it a bit more objective or consider different points of view, but it will fundamentally always stay your own subjective experience and opinion on something.
One person likes long grindy games, the other doesn't. One likes bright. comic-like visuals, the other prefers grity realistic ones. So, much in the same way, the critics should just honestly say how they felt about something, so the developer can get accurate feedback. To them, it's more important to learn about a cultural pitfall than stay oblivious to it out of politness from the critic.
But of course, you should stay civil and polite when voicing critique. "It sucks!" is just no form of critique anybody wants to read.
I think the internet may have diluted what it means to be a critic. they don't just deal out their opinions, anyone can do that. what they do is exactly what you're asking about; they take into account all sorts of context; cultural, production, history of the mediums and genres, where and when it's being released, who it's made for and by etc etc. it's an incredibly complicated job and I find the best critics are those who are most aware of their own cultural context and acknowledge where their bias and understanding limits them. if you can find a good critic that can do that who also matches your own cultural context and understanding then you'll have a really good point of reference for things. honestly finding a good critic is no small feat, and finding one that also matches your own cultural context and interests can feel almost impossible, but boy is it a treat when you do.
I think to ignore context is to not critique at all but to simply say whether or not you liked something, which is all well and good, but it's no critique. critique is different to feedback, and is different to an opinion, it's about showing an understanding of a medium, being able to relate that to your own cultural contexts and explain it all in a way that makes sense to the reader/audience and allows them to further their own understanding and/or potentially give them insight into what they may or may not enjoy/connect with personally.
when we ask 'critics' to ignore context and just tell us whether it's 'good or not' all we're really doing is asking for an empty opinion that carries literally zero weight or meaning. I understand the inclination though. especially in the gaming world we don't see a lot of good critics work, most of what we get is churned out garbage from IGN and the likes, though that is and isn't changing. a lot of the more indie 'critics' are just social media (yes that includes youtube) personalities doing the same thing with a bit more flair and powered by an algorithm more likely to serve you people and ideas that already match with your own (or directly clash, but two sides of the same coin). that's almost really good but I think a lot of them lack the industry awareness (something I will say extra credits don't lack which is awesome), wider historical knowledge of videogames, multicultural awareness and the ability to communicate all of that in a way that's meaningfully digestible.
again, I want to make clear that is a lot of different skills, but these are the skills that are really expected from critics of other mediums like movies, literature, art and food. if you look up the most accomplished critics of each of those fields you will find people who have done extensive research, often worked in those fields for decades, tried pieces from all sorts of cultures and contexts and then become very good at writing to their specific audiences. frankly it's pretty niche stuff, hence why when we're bombarded with the most run of the mill mass appeal bs we just want to shrug off all of this stuff that distinguishes real critique from mere opinions or feedback.
The problem with a lot of reviews is that they try to review the game for the average player even when a game isn't for the average player
@@superzigzagoon When every game should be.
This reminds me of the time a friend of mine, who back then pretty much exclusively played Japanese console games, got stuck on Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines.
In the "asylum" level there's a room with a basic switch puzzle (you know, multiple levers that each toggle a different group of doors, and you have to pull them in the right order to get all doors open). In front of one of the levers is an inmate who pulls it over and over, laughing maniacally.
My friend interpreted this as the game telling him to keep pulling that one lever until something happened. He'd never seen a switch puzzle before and didn't even register it. He stood there for like 15 minutes repeatedly pulling the same lever until he asked me (because I'd recommended him the game) what the deal was.
This seemed crazy to me at the time -- why would you even think that a game might ask you to push the same button a hundred times before you get feedback? But then I thought about the Japanese games he played, and how many of them had secrets and challenges that worked exactly like this. He'd just been raised different by those games.
That's weird. A number of Japanese games have puzzles like that. Just off the top of my head, I remember there was one of the lever variety in Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal that led through the area as well as different combinations giving access to extra items.
Nooo.. that's not a cultural thing, that's someone just not being very bright.
@@KryyssTV Nah, he's a perfectly intelligent person.
@@HeadsFullOfEyeballs ... who spent 15 minutes pushing the same lever without ever considering the fact it wasn't working.
This is interesting because the way I (and I assume most players) interpreted the inmate pulling the lever and getting no response as the game telegraphing that action was specifically not the solution. It goes to show how difficult clear communication can be between the designer and player.
Recently Pokemon Sleep had a pretty major bug that made the game basically unplayable for almost the entire day. I was shocked when, after the fix, the dev team gave everyone a bunch of free stuff to make up for it. Even minor bugs are made up for with small apology gifts, which I feel like you don't get in the West anymore. There was a time when Blizzard gave out free WoW time when servers were critically unstable to make up for the time people couldn't play. These days, it's a "thanks for your patience, you can play again now. Have you checked our in-game store today?"
This is so true and I honestly hadn’t thought of it from a mechanics perspective. It’d be interesting to see more on this topic, especially if you guys could interview devs from other cultures.
While watching this episode, I got an ad for 1000 free pulls in Monster Never Cry, and it really made me think.
So an interesting reminder that this works both ways. Once upon a time there was a game bound for Japan from the US that was Fantasy themed. This game had been enjoyed by a huge chunk of the PC gamers at the time for being a decent Fantasy setting. those that played it on Pc in Japan also thoroughly found it fun to play and that the setting was a breath of fresh air. Now the thing was while in the West the original intent with some satire thrown in is there in the text of the manual, giving it a lighter tone, Japan took it to be a serious game with dark elements. The strangest part is the effect it had on the games of the two regions. The game in question is Wizardry by Sir-tech, and is one of the earliest examples of a digital RPG. Enix's Yuji Horii asked himself how he could make a game similar to Wizardry work on the Famicom and that tinkering gave us Dragon Quest. In the west, there were no direct implementations of the rule set outside of the Wizardry Franchise, but some of the other elements did have lasting effects on other games like the D&D Eye of the Beholder trilogy, and Elder Scrolls Arena both being first person dungeon crawlers.
Wizardry is probably the most influential game that has been lost to history. It is absurd how little know it's influence is, even if most of those games are about as accessible as Fort Knox for the average modern player.
Culture actually explains my experience with some games. I keep running into "game mechanics" that turn out to be bugs. Sometimes, I get stuck and google the solution only to find bug reports describing my experience.
Sometimes I manage to grind my way to the finish line, and google out of curiosity if there's a better solution. Only to find the above mentioned bug reports.
Words to live by. Many of the frustrations I've experienced with games were caused by cultural dissonance, and while it may not make the game more fun for you when you take that into consideration, it can at least help you forgive and move on.
I've also noticed a lot of games out of Asia seem to dislike having an easy mode? I'm not sure if its cultural or just the school of game design that has taken off over that side of the globe, but I've noticed a LOT of JRPGs and other games out of Japan, China and Korea that avoid having an easy mode by simply front-loading the player with game breaking gear and tools early on, to a certain degree I've come to see those early game super items as a dificulty slider, a way for younger siblings and worse gamers to experiance the story of the games without having to ask for an easier experience. IDK, might just be something I've noticed, idk.
You might be onto something; it reminds me of the common trope in anime of willingly handicapping oneself to increase the challenge. "I beat the game without using the powerful starter item" does kind of rhyme with "I defeated you with only 10% of my power."
Reminds me of 5th Generation Monster Hunter (MH: World and MH: Rise) -- both games added an OP set of equipment that you can either start with for free, or craft for ridiculously low cost and materials. Now they don't upgrade as high as "normal" weapons and armor do, but they _do_ make the early game significantly easier for a player who uses them.
@@Stratelier Though in those games case, they exist as catchup mechanics, and weren't in the game at launch. They're there so that people who bought the game on console can quickly grind their way back up to where they used to be if they switched over to PC
I've heard that in Japan at least there is an attitude that anything worth doing is worth doing really well. I heard as an explanation for Japanese work culture, but I would imagine it applies to hobbies and even video games. If you made a video game meant for gamers with the attitude that you either totally master the activity or don't bother at all, no in between, would it be an easy game?
@@MrQuantumInc And then also Japan releases Bayonetta, with maddening combat mechanics and challenge- but also a mode to just press one button for everything and the game pretty much play itself. But yeah, thats an rare outlier and even in that case it wasnt called easy
4:35 Imagine a game that you are supposed to progress, but you get an intro at a start?
This video talking about jank with depth in Eastern European games made me immediately think of the Ukrainian-made STALKER series, which I have been getting back into since it launched on Playstation.
They are not fancy or polished games but a lot of that jank I think is a byproduct not just of the age of the games but the fact that the games have very little interest in making you feel like a super-powered badass, but instead someone who is just scraping by in a world that will barely even notice if the Zone squashes them like an ant. So instead of having heaps of dramatic scripted moments there was a focus on interlocking and mutually interacting systems which makes it harder to keep bug-free but makes the game world feel incredibly dynamic and alive, like you are just a small part of a world that is doing it's own thing. That was incredibly refreshing to me and an experience I rarely find from games made in the U.S. or similar countries. Not saying either approach is better or worse, it's just interesting.
It makes me wander whether that approach is in some way informed by the historical experiences of their country and former Soviet states more generally, perhaps with less of a focus on individual glory and more of a collectivist culture or something like that.
Similarly, I wouldn't be surprised if the horrors Ukraine is going through now will, over time, inform game creation endeavours from that country (including possibly STALKER 2), just as it will doubtless find expression in other art forms, sometimes perhaps without the creators even consciously doing it. Their experiences just become part of who they are, and that finds it's way out in their art.
Thanks for the interesting insight. Trying to view media from the angle that I might not be the target audience makes life a lot less stressful.
4:30 That explains games like Shadow Empire instantly.
East Asian (Chinese or Korean or both?) MMOs are abominably grindy and naked about it.
Cultivation manga/novels always start of with this "there are n tiers of power" setup, but the further the characters get the more previously unmentioned sub-tiers just materialize. "Oh you made it to tier 1 of 9? Now you have three more stages to get to tier 2." "I'm at the 2nd half of the 2nd hurdle of the 2nd stage of the 3rd Tier." and so on and so forth.
I guess there is an audience for moving goalposts out there, where that would feel like a betrayal over here.
I think I spotted The Box from Hellraiser at around 5:50. Nice reference, especially to have it during the "you need to tinker with the game to make it work" part.
If a game promises to arbitrarily start me off with a large sum of rewards, I can assume either that the game will be too easy for a very long time, or that the game has a terribly grindy pace and they need to get me hooked before I hit a wall. Usually it’s both.
I'm not so sure about the bit on eastern Europe : it looks more like the difference between big projects having to be "for everyone" and smaller being more niche.
Take Witcher 3 : it's much closer to most big US games than to e.g. the Thamaturge in presentation, gameplay and accessibility, because AAA budget needs AAA sales. Or even the 1st Witcher which is very much "eurojank" and much less handholdy.
From my experience, games from eastern Europe tend to have a pretty dark tone though.
Yeah, I'd second this. "Eurogames" are, I think, less a result of european cultures being more willing to accept the jank - And more a result of the industry there being more focused on smaller, cheaper, niche products that know they don't have the budget to compete with AAA games directly. And if you can't compete for the broad market, well, you go for a niche one that wants more unique experiences instead. Combine that with the complexity addiction of european board games many of these designers are inspired by, and you get a clear focus on mechanically complicated but janky games made on a budget.
"Just tinker around until parts of it work" isn't that the entire grand strategy genre?
Not really
This is fascinating. Thanks for the info.
Turn 25 today! You guys made it better! 🎂🎂🎂❤️❤️❤️
Happy birthday! 🎂🎂🎂❤❤❤
Happy Birthday!
@@extracredits thanks
Happy birthday
Now im wondering about some of those eastern european games
i played a lot of crossout that is made by developers Targem Games in Siberia. and it really a a figure it out game. sicen there is not handholding at all they trow you into pvp and you figure what is decent build strategy by being blown up by others. is a game where you make your own fight vehicles like lego pieces , just with rusty metal parts.
"Voices of the void" and "Noita" both are puzzeling but rewarding examples of games that require you to fiddle around with them before you start getting somewhere
When a game gives me a lot of items that once gone will cost real money to replace I just feel like those items are mandatory to enjoy the game so it'll cost whatever buying those items in the quantity needed to progress.
And like...I never had money for arcade games some I'm not into that.
I would check the coin returns for lost quarters. I don't think I ever brought money *in*.
Could stand to have some examples of the complex but rough-around-the-edges games from Eastern Europe. I'm not sure if that's meant to be games like Pathologic? Or Jalopy? Or both? Maybe Paradox's entire catalog?
STALKER, Technomancer (or any other SPIDERS game, technically), Gothic series, Witcher 1, E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy (especially if you know it's meant to be replayed a couple times to get the true ending), and... anything by a Playway company. Also, in double-checking, I find that Playway has something I can't believe I've never seen another publisher do. On its home page, there's links to all the games, right? They include links to the steam page, or relevant mobile app store. Like, that seems like an obvious thing to have at minimum, ya?
Some consider "eurojank" to be less of a "you must beat this game into submission" and more of a B- delivery on a grand scope notion that definitely, technically works. As you could look at a lot of these and see something with some heart to it, but also some quirks. Hell, the first Thief Simulator, cops didn't have pathing (at first). They'd teleport on you if you were in range of their car. It got patched later, but they really launched it with the main enemy AI basically missing. But it was playable. Just... made hiding spots magical.
Anything that appears on DoshDoshington's youtube channel fits the description
Fantastic topic. I would have never thought about looking at game design from the perspective of different cultures.
This episode was minorly lifechanging for me. Like, it made me sit and question what the source of my reticence was to spend money on my hobbies, but also be more conscientious of how companies are trying to show respect for my time as a player (one of the biggest things I've struggled with in this hobby). I don't know if I'll spend more money on games but I now am at least able to be more understanding and less resentful of games based on _how_ they ask me for money. That alone will likely make gaming a lot easier to enjoy in the future.
In terms of impact this episode has had on me I'd put it right up there with the Skinner Box episode, the Maslow's Hierarchy episode, and the Bartle's Taxonomy episodes. Big important stuff!
Love this perspective, I'd love to take a class on the cultural differences in game design trends.
This makes an insane amount of sense for a game like Oxygen Not Included.
Any examples of those incredibly complex cames that come out of eastern europe because I'm kind of drawing a blank and want a look.....
I gotta say the "but what do they want from me" reaction sounds incredibly American to me. Can't relate to that part, but do for it breaking the level curve. I felt this way about Frederick in Fire Emblem: Awakening too, I just wanted that dude to die. I wanted at most an OPTION to enable the crutch character.
I usually have some knowledge and understanding of most of the subjects for these pieces. But this one I had zero clue of this was going on. Always good to learn something new. sm
Not gonna lie, probably this is the Extra Credits video that enlightened me the most
The very few games ive played that did that, it felt more like getting you up to a base power level while not making it seem like it is actually easy. The games im talking about are the hoyoverse games. They give you a couple free 5* but also effectively tell you that it is a one time thing and you are going to have to work for the rest. The 5*s are where the fun actually is in those games, so it makes sense
Mm. I find it really odd that EC interprets this kind of thing as a power boost. Everything less than the best is literally useless in gacha games, and I know that even having never played one. Its not a power boost, the game just treats the bare minimum as if its powerful, and drowns it in garbage. The lower tiers may as well not exist.
0:02 so they can make it so you have nothing later.
This is what my family did to me.
This is before watching the video.
I didnt see it yet.
This is why Localization exist and why the Backlash to Localizers is very Western Centric.
The Eastern European games you described sound like an interesting experience. Do you have any specific recommendations for that style? It sounds like looking at user reviews wouldn't be very helpful
Fascinating work!
Really interesting, reminds me of when i tried stalker and had a lot of difficulty with getting to understand it. i'll give it another shot soon
this is very interesting, it'd be cool if you did more videos highlighting culturally different expectations or experiences!
I think it's important to note in the case of a lot of gacha games, that scarcity is much more of a mechanic. Part of the fun of the game is figuring out a strategy that works with whatever characters you did pull. The free gift character, even if they are very good, is just one part of a larger puzzle. I play a lot of Goddess of Victory: NIKKE and that game gives a single copy of the character Privaty pretty early on for doing some pretty easy challenges. She may seem to trivialize a lot of content given she's got a really good mapwipe on Burst, lots of team damage in her skill 1, and good single target damage against anything that survives her Burst via her skill 2, but that's a really shortsighted look at the game. Every team is made up of 5 units, so even with Privaty the team still has lots of room for improvement, most of the endgame content is boss killing where her skill 2 literally doesn't work and her burst is way less valuable, and you need up to 25 unique characters to form 5 separate teams anyways. Privaty is really good because of the large buff her skill 1 gives and because it lowers ammo maximum for the team which synergizes with a few other characters, but fundamentally she's one tool of many a player needs to solve any given problem.
awesome episode!
Let me give my perspective. I am not a fan of visual novel games on the Playstation 4/5. I used to read a lot of Choose Your Own Adventure books in my youth and those books were fun to me because they let me change the fate of the characters by skipping to different parts of the book. Of course, the problem with this kind of game-book is that one ending might be on the left page and the part you skip to in the beginning of the book might be on the right page, so you might end up accidentally reading the ending and spoil what happens if you chose a different path. It's not the book's fault, it's just how books work. Books technically go from page 1 to Page X left to right.
Visual novels usually are like Choose Your Own Adventure books but in digital form, meaning it avoids the pitfall of someone accidentally getting one of the other endings by playing the game. The issue of these titles is not that they are not very interactive, just asking you to choose a dialogue option. Choose your Own Adventure books did the same thing and were made by Americans.
However, the issue is that when I was raised on Choose Your Own Adventures, I had to read the book. I didn't have the option to skip text. These games let you skip all the cool transition effects and press a button to skip all the dialogue. With a guide to the right choices to make to get to every ending and earn the trophies for those endings, you can get a platinum off a visual novel in less than an hour. Hell, one visual novel about lesbian adventurers I will not name doesn't have choices, it's just a literal novel... and with the skip options turned on, it's one to done in FIFTEEN SECONDS!
However, if you notice, most of these titles are set in a fictional Japan. This means the developers pulled from Japanese culture, which is heavily based on respecting the player. These indie companies cranking out the Japanese novels are doing so to respect a player who doesn't have all the time in the world and just wants a platinum trophy to fill out their roster.
I actually did not skip the first playthrough I did of Starlight Shores, a visual novel about some graduates from college getting together at a beach house to have a beach party and watch a rare meteor shower. It devolves into a situation where a surprise guest and his newest girlfriend end up ruining the party because the girlfriend did a bunch of liquor dares and she got OD'd on booze. That is, if you didn't take the jello shot. ;)
But most people just don't care about the story. We filthy American want immediate returns so the devs made the entire story skippable, hoping that you'll play more of their fast novels and, when they got your money, use it to make a decent game. Maybe.
Great episode! Thanks 🥰
Hmm and here's me... the Gatcha game honeymoon phase (ie all those spammed gifts) are just to get player investment for them to spend money. Never registered the culture aspect thou knowing it exists for how common the style of game is there vs in the West. Hmm the Tunic ref is makes sense here but i always felt when i watched, that some of the game was learning the obtuseness of the puzzle.
great episode!
That's why I don't switch difficulties when I get more skilled in Jedi Fallen Order in a playthrough.
Shoutout to the sweet Lament Configuration cameo!
This needs a follow-up in greater depth, because I have encountered this, but I have no idea what to do about it.
You don't really need to "do" anything about it.
LOVED this episode. I like to think I have a good grasp on foreign cultures, but, well, if I knew how many blind spots I still have, they wouldn't be blind spots!
Not just other cultures; I'm excited for people of the future, getting to play games of the distant past and learning how differently their ancestors interpreted the world through both technical and cultural context.
The legend is back
I never really thought about it in the way. Me and a buddy is working on a game and the only thing we have in mind is we want to make a Weird and fun world
I always thought the "extra gifts for new players" was a way to get new users to a stablished go so they don't feel like they'll never reach the early adopters.
"Ok, I'm going in trough the TURBO LANE!"
Even cultures that seem pretty similar. Like European and American cultures, often have a fair bit of difference that often goes unnoticed.
I mean I know that's one way it can be *interpreted*, but I'm in Sweden, and our homegrown, uniquely swedish, Marketed very specifically to swedish people, Online Casinos can't go at all without offering several hundred free slot machine spins and free make believe money for both registering, as daily rewards, and as rewards for inserting money into your casino account. I promise you, those games know 100% that it makes them look sleezy and manipulative, and those ads are probably very specifically targeted at people who are already addicted or running the risk of getting addicted to gambling.
Interesting to look at different culture's approach to game design, however this video made me realize the games that load you up with tons starting gifts are way more manipulative than I'd initially thought.
Can someone give exemples of those Eastern Europe Games that they were refering to?
Noita
Extra Walks: It's just an animated update on the crew's various furbabies they work on as a destress project
Some of that Eastern European complexity stuff is how computer games used to be built here. Like the UFO:AfterX games are not all that different in complexity to the original X-Com. We used to have stuff that was niche or unneeded in a game and it was up to you to read the manual and also to figure out what was effective and what wasn't.
Ah. This would be why most Danish games seem to involve rain and depression.
PANR has tuned in.
I love Japan. But I know as an American consumer, I don’t enjoy Japanese-style games. They have a cultural dedication and focus to repeating a task and becoming better at it which I think is admirable, but doesn’t jive with me as a gamer. I don’t want to grind.
Thanks again
here is a few examples of this effect
1) Playing a game in another Language, this means you either have to deduce how everything works from trail and error. or manually Screen shot things to put into an image translator, and then figure out if it translated it correctly
2) Playing a game where 60+% of the game is traps or filler. an example of this would be "Noita", alot weapons in that game, are either bad, or dangerous to your self. Bosses often have so many gimmicks in their favor, the only consistent way to beat them is by out gimmicking them.
3) i'm sure we have all played some game in Beta or Early Access... that is very ambitious, and has tripped every step of the way. example that comes to mind is "Sands of Salzaar" it's a Sandbox War game, with quite a bit of openness. the issues being that each individual mechanic isn't as fleshed out as you would like. Generals will passively interact with each other, but only gain opinion of you via direct interaction. you also can't really help solve inner turmoil. 2ndly, the AI kinda cheats, they have basically infinite resources, so they will throw fodder after fodder at you just to annoy and keep you busy, as for some reason. your army is alot weaker then not commanded by you. 5 Generals and 30 troops.. is like 60% weaker just because you're not there...
Well now I want steam to have a setting to help sort reviews by region
My anecdote: Usability is in fact the reason I walked away from _Earthbound_ after just an hour or two trying to play it: its lack of a general-purpose "interact" button (a la Zeldas or Final Fantasies _in the same generation)_ was a dealbreaker.
Maybe there's an culture factor to the kind of people who embrace things like Betas too. Does testing work differently where players are expected to work more to play?
I have to admit, I've never really put those pieces together either. Though this does better explain why JRPG is different than a western RPG.
I understood everything until saw cat on a leash, then my brain fried. Even cartoon, can't understand a cat on a leash.
7:02 ... ... ...
I need to research symbols for each person too now... ...
I see this in my relationships.
Whether or not it's because of my autism or not, I tell a lot of fun facts as a gift to people I like.
Most people think I think they're stupid. And that I am an arrogant Know-it-all. Maybe we should learn to internalise the existence of different perspectives in school
5:34 average linux experience (i love linux with all my heart)
We need Extra Walks as a new show
What would that show be about?
yeah, no that individual was right
over here in EU, it's not "doesn't work = useless"
nah!
over here, it's "doesn't work? Sigh! Okay, where did I leave that hammer?"
Either Japanese companies make games or American companies do. And the ganes mostly revolve around USA/Europe or Japan. They even fear exploring other cultures to make a game.
I always considered those free gifts as a desparate attempt to pull me into spending money. Besides, what's so special about those gifts if EVERYONE gets them?
TLDW: the reason profit-seeking game studios try to lure you in and get you hooked ultimately comes down to differences in cultural corporate buzzspeak. These are the ways different cultures try to justify bilking players.
Can you give some examples of the Eastern European games?
It reminds me a bit of Paradox grand strategies but they're Swedish not Eastern Europe, so I don't know if it's the same thing you're talking about.
Gothic, a lot of the 'job simulators' from before Euro Truck Sim 2 blew up
3:55 i didnt know that.
Wow 😳
I suppose they would find the American idea of a game that is a power fantasy, but you start off weak and have to earn that power, but earning that power is relatively easy but you still have to really earn it but easily...a little confusing too.
Really good video guys ❤ reminds me of some of moon channel’s content
Talk about Helldivers 2?
Interesting, I originally thought that it was to make players feel like they are good at the game.
I'd be curious to see a "control" example for this kind of game from an american developer, and how it plays or doesn't in other reigons.
Nice
I had the excet same europian regin in mind. Most games from there are made for our culture (mom is ukranian), while CDPR and Larian make them for The West.
Is this somehow related to AFK Journey?
I had thought that they were willing to give all that stuff because there either isn’t much worth getting in the game, you need that much stuff to even get in, or they want to pump up their clickrate stats for other advertisements. They seem to be mostly mobile shovelware games and it just speaks poorly to their quality that they advertise that way.