User:PhoinixUU/sandbox/Japanese popular culture

Video games
Main articles: Video gaming in Japan, Arcade game, List of Japanese games, and History of Eastern role-playing video games

Introduction
Video gaming is a major industry all across the world, so much so that in 2012, global revenues were an estimated $67 billion for console and portable hardware and software, as well as games for mobile devices (e.g., tablets and smartphones)[72]. The presence and popularity of gaming in daily life in Japan in particular has been present for quite some time, with the earliest examples of this being well known game titles like Pac-Man first appearing in arcades [70]. The beginning of the growth of Japanese game development is often identified with the golden age of video games, a period that is often accredited with saving the industry from what could have been its downfall[70]. This time brought about many highly prominent developer studios in Japan, some of the first include Nintendo under Shigeru Miyamoto and Hiroshi Yamauchi, Sega during the same time period, and other companies such as Taito, Capcom, and Square Enix.

Arcade Era
See also: Golden age of video games

Video games when they first appeared in Japan were during the Arcade Era, which centers on the 1970-1980's. Lists of the most popular and well known arcade games include, but are not limited to, Defender and Galaga, Pac-Man, Frogger,  Q*bert, Street Fighter, Donkey Kong, Mario, and many others.  Many of these became popular enough that they influenced other industries, such as the film industry when many theaters started installing various arcade cabinets in their lobbies. These also were exported to other countries such as the United States, becoming similar cultural focal points in those regions as well and inspiring the creation of new companies and developers who would be dedicated to making games to try and claim part of this new market.

Console and Computer Games
Later in the 1980's, specifically in 1985, Nintendo released the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) home gaming console. Nintendo wasn't the first, Atari released a console earlier in 1977, but because of the video game crash from 1983 to '85, it lost precedence and in that vacuum Nintendo superseded other companies and gained massive influence over the industry[74]. This was a noted development in games history and culture in Japan because, now that there was a hardware system that was reasonably affordable, people didn't need to have the finances of a company to be able to afford to buy individual and very expensive game systems to play games. This initial dominance of the video games market by Nintendo continued in large part because of this initial hold they had taken of the market affording them a huge amount of economic and social weight as they were one of the only brands selling video games and, because they were one of the only developers, the globalization of Japanese media and games allowed Japanese industries and by extension culture to shape and control the industries development[74]. While Nintendo since then hasn't been the penultimate dominating force in the industry, with contenders like Sony pulling ahead after the release of the PlayStation system and especially the PlayStation 2 becoming the most popular and widely sold system in the world, Japanese companies like these have still maintained dominance and popularity in the industry for various reasons, shifting the paradigm from being 'west' dominated to being Japan dominated[75]. Due to this domination of the market and Japanese attitudes towards technology and culture, Japan became the cultural exporter of the video game world and has remained a major participant [75]. Even in current day when there is international competition between companies, Japanese companies have always had at least a central role in the industry and in the advancement and trendsetting in games development[74].

Current Japanese video game franchises, such as Super Smash Bros., Pokémon, Super Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Kirby, Star Fox, Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, Animal Crossing, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona, Resident Evil, Dark Souls, Final Fantasy and Monster Hunter have gained critical acclaim and as a product of their popularity and reception they dominate sectors of the industry and what consumers expect from certain genres of game and how new games are received by players and critics. The Japanese game development engine RPG Maker has also gained popularity, with hundreds of games being created with it and released on Steam by the late 2010s.

Mobile Games
Video games in Japan have expanded in number of ways since the times dominated by PC and console gaming. One of the most explosive ways this has occurred in Japan is the introduction and popularization of mobile games. In terms of economic relevance, the games for smartphones have expanded drastically from 2012. As a result, the market size of mobile games has a 70% share in the Japanese game industry[71]. This economic presence is parallel to the social presence mobile games possess, with most people who play video games also playing mobile games as well. One theory for why mobile games are so popular in Japan is because of how they cater to social needs special to Japan. Because people in Japan spend time traveling on public transport so often and mobile games have extremely high portability as a result of being played on phones and other devices and have extremely low entrance costs (usually they are free to download) that downloading them so there's something to do while on the train is an obvious conclusion[71]. In addition they can also serve to promote interpersonal interaction and act as an activity that can be performed with friends, or to even introduce oneself and acquire new friends, which again thanks to their low cost can allow them to lower the barrier and anxiety of social interaction, partially alleviating loneliness which is a big social problem that is affecting a lot of the culture and media in Japan [71]. This is why some have argued in their research that because social participation is becoming more online in nature, games like mobile games that are able to facilitate these interactions and relationships are becoming more important and popular as time goes on[73].


 * ^ [70] Prisco, J. (2017, November 13). How Japan changed video games forever. Retrieved from CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/12/asia/future-japan-videogame-landmarks/index.html
 * ^ [71] Yamaguchi, S., Iyanaga, K., Sakaguchi, H., & Tanaka, T. (2017, December). The Substitution Effect of Mobile Games on Console Games: An Empirical Analysis of the Japanese Video Game Industry. The Review of Socionetwork Strategies, 11(2), 95-110. Retrieved from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/trosos/v11y2017i2d10.1007_s12626-017-0014-1.html
 * ^ [72] Marchand, A., & Hennig-Thurau, T. (2013). Value Creation in the Video Game Industry: Industry Economics, Consumer Benefits, and Research Opportunities. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 141-157.
 * ^ [73] Rayna, T., & Striukova, L. (2014, December` 6). 'Few to Many': Change of Business Model Paradigm in the Video Game Industry. Digiworld Economic Journal, 94(2), 61-81. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2534019
 * ^ [74] Liao, S. X. (2016, May). Japanese Console Games Popularization in China: Governance, Copycats, and Gamers. Games and Culture, 11(3), 275-297. Retrieved from https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.lib.utah.edu/doi/10.1177/1555412015583574?icid=int.sj-full-text.similar-articles.1
 * ^ [75] Cheng, C.-Y. (2013, July 31). Is the Video Game a Cultural Vehicle. Games and Culture, 8(6), 408-427. Retrieved from https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.utah.edu/10.1177/1555412013493349