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https://freedium-mirror.cfd/https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/what-makes-japanese-video-games-so-good-5c9bc376b046>
"In the summer of 1978, Japan appeared to run out of 100 yen coins.
Space Invaders had just launched, and it took over the country almost
overnight. Cafes and tea rooms gutted their furniture and lined the walls with
cabinets. By some accounts, the coin the machines ate for breakfast got so
scarce that the Bank of Japan had to triple production just to keep the economy
in change.
It's a wonderful story, and according to the historians who've gone digging
through actual mint records, probably not quite true. The coin shortage was
real enough, but the cause was more likely silver hoarding and inflation than a
nation of teenagers feeding a shooting gallery. Taito, the company behind the
game, was probably happy to let the legend spread anyway. A national coin
shortage is free advertising.
I love this story because it's a myth that survived for decades on the strength
of something true underneath it. Whatever actually happened to the coins,
something undeniable happened to Japan's game industry in the years that
followed, and it kept happening for the next four decades.
Mario.
Zelda.
Dragon Quest.
Metal Gear.
Street Fighter.
Resident Evil. Eventually
Dark Souls and
Elden Ring. One country, working under constraints nobody
would choose on purpose, produced an outsized share of the medium's best work,
and it never really stopped.
I teach game design for a living, and some version of "why are Japanese games
so good" comes up from time to time. Students want a single cause: something in
the culture, something in the founders, something in the water. I understand
the impulse. But lasting strength rarely comes from just one source. In this
case, though, you could be forgiven for believing it is the work of one man: a
maintenance engineer who spent his whole career making a virtue out of what he
didn't have."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
