Japan's arcade (or "game center," for the culturally initiated) scene is unlike anything else in the word--particularly the American arcade scene. Crowds pack the smoky corridors after working hours to let off steam (you can tell it's steam because of how heavy the air gets in there). Fighting games, particularly, are the altar of choice in this geek mecca. The city of Akihabara, near my old apartment in Tokyo, plays host to the upper one percentile of the upper one percentile of fighting gamers in the world. Tekken, Virtua Fighter, any flavor of Street Fighter. Pick your poison, drop in your coins, and marvel at how quickly the money goes.
A number of theories have been tossed around these humble Internets of ours, of varying validity, as to why the Japanese arcade scene is so lively--and why its members seem to crush ours in virtually any competitive fighting game in international competition. That "they are robots" is, in particular, a strong contender, given the absence of seemingly any capacity for love or, indeed, emotion of any kind--as well as anything resembling a soul. However, I find that there may yet be a better theory: a combination of influencing factors to explain Japan's dominance on the sticks.
1. It costs a buck to play
Quick: when was the last time you got really, really pissed off the last time you burnt toast? Or mac and cheese? Or am I the only asshole that fucks up noodles and yellow powder?
Now how pissed would you be if you fucked up the turkey on Thanksgiving? Or accidentally smashed all your Easter Eggs? Or dropped the dinner you just made for your hot date on the floor, and knew she was only coming as a favor for a friend, and you really liked this girl and this was your one big chance to impress her and now you look like a clumsy idiot and she says she's okay with pizza but you know she's just counting down the minutes until she can say she has to leave and you're stuck sitting in the dark alone at 2 in the morning jerking off to the models on the Home Shopping Network because you forgot to pay your cable bill?
Why the difference in attitudes? In both cases, it's just food, right? But in the latter situation, there's more: the investment of effort and money.
If you've ever been in a Japanese arcade, you know how quickly you can burn through a crisp 1000 yen note (or more). Japanese gamers invest anywhere from two to four times as much cash into a single play at the machine. Meaning half to a quarter of the margin of error. With each game holding considerably higher value than the American equivalent, the incentive to make that value last rises accordingly.
2. Gamer ID cards
While a fairly recent introduction in the American gaming lexicon, the idea of BP (or "battle points") tracking a player's progress is still, in America, restricted to XBox Live or Playstation Network. In Japan, however, players can buy a card for 500 yen that carries their alias and can be inserted into any machine for its respective game. This gives each game an additional intangible value--in addition to a monetary one. With each win, a player's BP climbs--or falls with a loss.
This plays not only on the competitive psyche of the average fighting gamer, but the hoarding and collecting instinct of the nation that gave us "Gotta Catch 'Em All."
3. A
In the US, it's really not that cool to be a gamer. In spite of the strides made by gaming companies and consoles this generation--largely thanks to the Wii--there's still a stigma attached to adult gamers that falls somewhere between "30-year-old bed-wetter" and "registered sex offender." In Japan, the stigma... doesn't exist.
For some reason, it's just not that big a deal
Not that there's a wholesale embracing of obsessive gamers or gaming, but rather a tacit acknowledgement of gaming as an acceptable pastime. And in a country where an hour-long train commute to work is on the lower end of the spectrum, pastimes are at a premium. On any given train ride, you're bound to see a junior high-schooler plugging away at Monster Hunter, flanked by a housewife studying English on her DS and a businessman grinding a few levels in Dragon Quest IX on his.
4. The abundance of novelty
Japan is a nation founded on novelty, or so said the placard at the feet of the 59-foot-tall robot statue in Odaiba.
Suddenly, fessing up to spending last weekend playing Fallout 3 doesn't seem so geeky
The concept of "flavor of the month" is a concept taken to dizzying new heights in the 'Pan (more on that in a later installment), and the arcade is no exception. When you think of the American arcade scene, what do you picture? A couple light-gun shooters, a couple shmups, maybe a racing game. And a whole lot of cobwebs.
In Japan?
A pirate ship shooter--complete with an actual pirate ship you sit in that rocks with the tide and cannon-fire.
A Harley-Davidson racer with a life-size hog rumbling beneath you as you twist the accelerator.
A pogo-stick racer.
A Japanese traditional drum game encircled by a candy-colored halo of guitar, DJ, dance, and rhythm puzzle games.
A game where you climb into a pod and pilot a giant robot.
A game where the sole purpose is to angrily flip a table over and cause as much damage as possible.
A shooter with a built-in elevator door used not only to escape bad guys, but as a framing device for the dialog scenes. And also the greatest name for a video game ever.
And enough claw games to shrivel Inspector Gadget's robo-ween.
All of these things have nothing to do with Japan's dominance in fighting games. So why mention them? Because they're fucking awesome.
And.
They serve one very distinct, valuable purpose that no arcade in the US (that I'm aware of) fills: they get people to come inside.
And that's the thing. As we in America are seeing with the new wave of Wii-grannies (gran-wiis?), a lot of people aren't initially interested in sitting down and playing a heavily obnoxious button masher technical fighter like Tekken Street Fighter or Blazblue. They need a hook. They need to be sold on games as a source of entertainment, and not just entertainment but lasting entertainment, before being enticed into committing the necessary time and money into becoming a competitive player.
Sure, the guys in Japan who consistently win tournaments probably didn't need any encouragement to decide to grind out thousands of hours on Street Fighter, but of the tens of thousands of good-to-great players they had to practice on to become the best, yeah, I'm willing to bet more than a few were just guys looking for a cheap alternative to pachinko that wouldn't cost them their hearing years down the road.
I have to be honest: for everywhere else where novelty falls flat, disappoints, or flat-out pisses me off in Japan--whether it be from the corn and mayonnaise pizza, the mayonnaise-themed cocktail bars, or other, non-mayonnaise themed bullshit
You know what I mean
but the arcade is one place where it really works. Corn and mayonnaise pizza is still food; it has to at least be palatable to be a success (it isn't). But games are entertainment. A distraction from the ordinary.
A novelty.
That's all they ever have to be.
And so, Japanese arcades: good job. You made my three years in Japan a better experience.
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