The life and history of a gaming culture: DDR in Japan

[Erik_Twice]

From the day Dance Dance Revolution was released to our very own times this article follows the evolution of the Japanese community of the game, how it reacted to each new feature and version. How the competitive community was shaped and what the casual games thinks.

I have to say, I'm incredibly impressed with this article. If you have read the history of Twin Galaxies and was fascinated by the arcade culture of the 80s you will see that this is a similar topic. It may be a different game, a different age and a different culture but it's still there.

Check it out:
http://aaronin.jp/JDDR.pdf


One of the great things of the article is how it points the difference between casual and competitive players and how their differences shape the future of the game. A community can't survive without a healthy influx of casual players, no matter how dedicated the hardcore gamers are.

[CRTGAMER]

A great Read, saved the PDF to the hard drive. Thankyou!

Got a kick about the support bar accepted as part of the game for fast paced moves in Japan, mostly shunned by U.S. gamers.

[D.D.D.]

"video game dancing down to a science" Yeah, way to take the fun right out of it.

[Bradtemple87]

Wow, epic article

I saved it for later

[Erik_Twice]

Got a kick about the support bar accepted as part of the game for fast paced moves in Japan, mostly shunned by U.S. gamers.

Haha, not only fast paced songs, they use the bar for everything!

For some reason asians love the bar as much as playing the same song over and over again. In certain arcades you can always see 20 different asian girls playing Buterfly 5 times in a row, on the easiest with bar

It's something very asian because everywhere else using the bar is seen as using easy mode.

[DaGamingMonkey]

wow going to have to sit down and read this bad boy.

On a related note
I went down to an Arcade today and tried DDR for the first time in 4 years. I did alright but my legs were done after 2 songs. I can't play it anymore to tiring.

[noiseredux]

I suggest reading Arcade Mania -- the book is all about gaming in Japan.

[DaGamingMonkey]

Finished it, good read. Interesting to see the differences in gaming culture.

[seishinbyou]

Hi, sorry for bumping an 11 day old topic but thanks for the attention to the "essay" (for lack of a better word).

I am the author of it and have been revising it from time to time (mostly minor things). If there is anything unclear or any blatant errors in my English or content, feel free to let me know.

I'd love to put this in print since that might be easier than reading a large PDF on your PC, but I fear Konami would find a way to sue the pants off me somehow (I am also in that Arcade Mania book mentioned a couple posts back and Kodansha had a heck of a time with Konami just trying to use the names of the games and photos of the machines (minus screen)). Fortunately Namco, Capcom and Nintendo were far more generous in terms of images for the book.

[Erik_Twice]

Thanks you a lot for posting here!

If you ever release it in print I would but a copy as soon as it were availble. It is a very good essay, I didn't notice it was almost a hundred pages long until now, when I read it in your journal

Too bad Konami acts that way, if anything, it helps them sell more games. Even if they can't win being sued is no fun at all. I don't know if I should surprise myself knowing the meme tough.

How some things happened in Japan too surprised me. I thought that the DDR-Hating manager that "accidentally" lowers the volume and "forgets" to turn on the machine was a local thing.

Something I wonder, how happy are Japanese players about the difficulty? Around here while DDR is popular most good players eventually moved to play Pump it Up because it was harder because once you can pass, say, Fascination Maxx there's little incentive to keep playing other than score attacking. It happened to me and it's a shame because I wanted to keep playing.

Anyways thanks you a lot for showing up here, I'm really grateful for it.

PD: I was thinking about commenting about the essay in my blog, do I have your permission?