11.28.05
What games?
Haven’t yet heard of a release date for WoW in Japan, so I’ve decided to type in ‘Warcraft’ in Japanese and click ’search’. It’s amazing how well Warcraft III did over there, but no mention of the current game that’s got me and many others hopelessly addicted. Thanks to Wikipedia Japan – Online games – , I now have a bigger list of what’s out there. There’s more out seemingly every month, so there’s always a beta or two in action. Whether you get to play it is another matter however when most of these game sites aren’t exactly the most user-friendly.
I blame the lack of living space, and the almost national desire to make everything smaller. They do it with words too. So the disturbing word I came across today – ネットゲーム (netgame, aka online game) becomes ネトゲ (netoge). Ugh! My delicate asthetics concerning words has now been wrecked again, as regards Japanese.
As much of a social disturbance online games may be, I did have a problem reading that MMORPGs can lead to the ひきこもり (hikikomori) phenomenon… especially considering that wiki entry didn’t even bother explaining the social benefits of such games. (Don’t look at me – I don’t like typing in Japanese thank you very much – it’s RS material.)
As long as I was on the topic of games in general, I did take a good look around several games news sites. Seriously, gamers outside Japan shouldn’t complain too much about the lack of games making it over here. For example, we wouldn’t really find a ‘teach yourself English’ type of DS game for adults inspiring would we? And I wouldn’t have thought a game (not exactly the most context sensitive of mediums) could teach anyone a language that way… but there it is. For some unknown reason, golf is one of the most popular games amongst the middle-aged (and generally middle-classed), so there’s a multitude of golfing games available too – and that’s not just Mario and Monkey Ball versions! Various quiz-based games from TV shows to cute little Hamtaro versions… I just can’t see us understanding the cultural divides with them.
Yep, looks as if Japan’s already swamped by games in every aspect of daily life. Especially when you add 通勤ヒトフデ (puzzle based game for commuters), you just can’t get away from them. Maybe game-makers will soon devise a way for you to play a game or two on the bog too.