Game Girls Go!

[HCK]

Hey everyone, HCK here...

Maybe you've read my coverage of modern and retro Japanese gaming in the pages of GameFan, or perhaps you've seen some of my guest articles over at Kotaku; probably, though, you have no idea who I am, and that's OK.

What's important is that I'm a hardcore retro gamer, in every sense of the word. I spend my free time digging through back alley used games stores in Japan and fishing for retro game deals at Hard Off and Book Off stores around Tokyo. But my day job is running the only Japanese idol studio that releases DVDs and Blu-rays in both Japan and America: Studio Happy Chicken.

Now I'm trying to bring my love of Japanese hardcore and retro gaming to the world through Game Girls Go!, a professionally produced show where we take famous Japanese idols and pit them against the very best, and worst, retro gaming Japan has to offer.

The majority of the funding for this project has come from my own pockets. I've also been working tirelessly for the past 2 years to bring Japanese game companies such as Konami and Sega together with idol studios to make this happen. Now all we need is for hardcore gamers from around the world to show their support. You see, the companies I've been working with aren't convinced that the west is even interested in retro Japanese games- that's why you're seeing fewer and fewer Japanese releases in general in the west.

We're trying to prove them wrong.

Please take a moment and stop by the Game Girls Go! Kickestarter page and take a look at what this awesome show has to offer. I honestly believe that this is a project that people who love games and gaming can get behind.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/124 ... ideo-games

If you have any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them; and not just about Game Girls, but about retro gaming and Japanese games in general.

[Menegrothx]

What's important is that I'm a hardcore retro gamer

You're not allowed to use that word here.

Now I'm trying to bring my love of Japanese hardcore and retro gaming to the world through Game Girls Go!, a professionally produced show where we take famous Japanese idols and pit them against the very best, and worst, retro gaming Japan has to offer.

Now all we need is for hardcore gamers from around the world to show their support. You see, the companies I've been working with aren't convinced that the west is even interested in retro Japanese games- that's why you're seeing fewer and fewer Japanese releases in general in the west.

I don't see the connection between the two. How is watching Japanese women most people here have probably never heard about playing games going to help us get more Japanese games in the West? Why do they have to be Japanese idols in the first place? Wouldn't it be more cheap to find ordinary people to play the games? Or more interesting to find game developers to play the games to hear some insightful comments?

The Girls

There are three major components to Game Girls Go!, the first being the contestants, the girls. Each contestant is carefully selected from a Japanese idol agency. She may be well known... she may be a rising star; but she’ll bring the looks and attitude it takes to make every second of Game Girls Go! an enjoyable, exciting experience

If the point of the show is to show Japanese developers that Westerners are interested in Japanese retro gaming, the idols will more likely help to distract them from the point: oh, they're only watching it because they're famous or because they're pretty.

Keiji Inafune's campaign already showed that Westerners have an interest. Publishers have "mistreated" Western gamers a long time by not releasing games here, and I see that's where kickstarter campaigns like this come in: Japanese developers can connect with the Western crowd with out any expensive middle men, and help produce and deliver them the kind of content they want. That's the step that Valve took with their approach and that's where the industry should be heading in my opinnion: get rid of unnecessary expenses and have a direct relationship between the consumers&fanbase and the developers.

[HCK]

Thanks for your feedback!

Let me try and address what you had to say one by one...

I don't see the connection between the two. How is watching Japanese women most people here have probably never heard about playing games going to help us get more Japanese games in the West? Why do they have to be Japanese idols in the first place? Wouldn't it be more cheap to find ordinary people to play the games? Or more interesting to find game developers to play the games to hear some insightful comments?

People have never heard of someone until they've heard of them. It may sound dumb, but it's true. They could be any form of "celebrity"; but they really need to be someone with on-camera experience. I love your idea about having ordinary people play the games... LOVE IT. I think it would be great to pull them off the street and pit them against Glaylancer or Cosmic Race, but I know from 8 years television broadcast experience that the moment you take the average joe and put a camera on them, everything goes out the window... and not in a good way. People get nervous, they freeze up. Plus, the average person isn't going to have a spontaneous day to spend playing games.

Developers wouldn't work because they simply don't have the time to be pulled off a project to play games. They might have time for a quick one-on-one interview, but getting them in for a day at the studio would be tough, although it would be a blast to watch them play through their games.

Studio Happy Chicken is an idol production house, so we make idol films. It gives us the easiest and widest selection of talent available. And I hardly think what we're asking, $12,000, is breaking the bank on a professionally produced series.

If the point of the show is to show Japanese developers that Westerners are interested in Japanese retro gaming, the idols will more likely help to distract them from the point: oh, they're only watching it because they're famous or because they're pretty.

The point of the show is to have a fun time and learn about great (and not so great) retro games. My personal goal is to open the eyes of developers to western demand. I have actually been in meetings with developers and have been told, and I'm paraphrasing, "we don't know if this is going to work because Americans don't care for old Japanese games." Additionally we've spent a great deal of pre-production to make sure the idols don't distract from the games, but enhance the experience.

Keiji Inafune's campaign already showed that Westerners have an interest.

I'm going to have to disagree with you here. Mr. Inafune could have make a campaign where he took a dump on a piece of toast and it would have gotten funded. All people had to here was "Keiji Inafune" and "Mega Man" and it was a done deal. Same thing would have happened if it was Miyamoto. Some people's names sell the product, regardless of what it is. I'm not disparaging the man or his game; but think about it. If it had been the same exact thing EXCEPT that it was some Japanese guy you had never heard of, would it have gotten then same response? I seriously doubt it. Good or bad, when was the last time you heard of a famous, well-to-do person NOT getting their Kickstarter funded? Mr. Inafune could have made this game regardless of how it did on Kickstarter.

Plus, Mr. Inafun's end goal is to get the game on the mainstream game systems... that's hardly a new route. What's new is that he's asking game fans to give him the money to make games. I sincerely hope that this isn't the start of a trend where Nintendo comes out and says "Want a new 2D Mario? Just give us the money to fund it!" etc etc. That leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Money acquired from game sales is suppose to be re-invested on future game development, thus making a better game results in the ability to make even better games. But that's just my opinion. Of course I hope Mighty Number 9 is great! And, best case, we get more Mega Man from Capcom.

But my hope for Game Girls is that it's able to introduce people who normally don't play in the retro pool to the great games that have been made over the last 30+ years and exposes some obscure gems to those who already enjoy retro gaming!

[Menegrothx]

Plus, Mr. Inafun's end goal is to get the game on the mainstream game systems... that's hardly a new route. What's new is that he's asking game fans to give him the money to make games. I sincerely hope that this isn't the start of a trend where Nintendo comes out and says "Want a new 2D Mario? Just give us the money to fund it!" etc etc. That leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Money acquired from game sales is suppose to be re-invested on future game development, thus making a better game results in the ability to make even better games.

I agree with you there. That IS the job of these big time developers and publishers. But the problem is that they've been increasingly unwilling to give fans what they want. So many developer legends have started campaigns to fund oldschool WRPGs, space sims, adventure games and other games that they cant make despite the fan demand, as publishers deem those genres as something that is too risky or too antiquated. At best, kickstarter takes out the unproductive middle man, and gives the fans what they want, with out any publisher telling the developers how to do their job (no censorship and so on).

And it's not just the big names that can succeed at it either. A number of first time studios have already created good games using this medium. Take Expeditions: Conquistador for example. It's a turn based RPG with a historical setting. Something that many people have wanted to see for ages but that would never be made for the mainstream market. The studio that developed it didn't have any industry veterans to my knowledge, it's their first game as far as I know. They asked for money on kickstarter and delivered. As long as your presentation is good and you offer people something they want, people will back up kickstarter projects even if they aren't made by big name developers legends. It offer us a way to get niche games that would never get funded&published in today's gaming market.

But it certainly isn't the job of wealthy studios who could afford funding games (cough cough Obsidian) to ask money on kickstarter. But as a tool of removing publishers and funders so game developers can create the game they&their fanbase wants, it's excellent.

Gabe Newell, the founder of Steam whose net worth is 1.1 billion dollars, has said that the way he sees things, corporations as we know them today are a pre-internet way of thinking, an inefficient and outdated method. It's the internet age, and solutions like Kickstarter are simply more efficient and customer friendly, and because of that will become increasingly popular.

Anyway I don't want to derail this thread into a conversation about kickstarter,.

[HCK]

I do think it's a conversation that needs to be had, though.

[Xeogred]

I don't think the issue is as crazy as some of the topic claims, but I wish some Japanese devs would stop trying to be something they aren't. A bit of an identity crisis going on with some of them. They worry too much about catering to "everyone else"? The Western market is bigger than ever before and I can see how it's important to consider, but yeah this and that happen, etc. Hopefully they have a change of attitude this gen with the backfiring on outsourcing and the inevitable takeoff of kickstarter and the likes.

[noiseredux]

didn't you guys make the Catherine um... movie that I saw listed on Best Buy's site a few years ago?

[dsheinem]

Even after reading all that, I don't think I understand the argument of the project or the logic of your strategy, but I wish you the best of luck.

[HCK]

didn't you guys make the Catherine um... movie that I saw listed on Best Buy's site a few years ago?

Yes, it is one of Happy Chicken's library of films.

[HCK]

Even after reading all that, I don't think I understand the argument of the project or the logic of your strategy, but I wish you the best of luck.

Thanks!

It's actually really simple: Japanese Idols play Retro Games and either win a prize or get punished.

The logic of having an idol play a game is the same as having a TV show that's been on for 10 years where a comedian plays a game (Game Center CX). Because it will be entertaining to watch.

BUT maybe you really have to get Japanese TV and entertainment in general to understand the appeal.