As the Tokyo Game Show, one of the largest video game shows in the world, runs until Sunday, here are some facts to know about the Japanese “tenth art” market.
Third world market
In 2022, Japan was the third largest market in the world for video games after the United States and China, according to the market analysis firm Statista.
It generated some 2,000 billion yen ($18.18 billion at current rates) in revenue last year, up slightly by 1.4% year-on-year, while the global market fell by 7%. according to the “Video Game White Paper” published by the Kadokawa Ascii Research Institute.
Mobile gaming is king
Mobile gaming has a big share in Japan: more than 60% of revenues generated by video games, according to Kadokawa Ascii, who estimates that a third of the Japanese population plays it.
This lucrative machine, where most of the major game publishers such as Square Enix or Konami are present, is fueled by purchases made within the games, particularly via “ gacha “, a random system giving players a small chance of obtaining rare items.
“To get characters, many people spend tens of thousands of yen (hundreds of dollars) at once,” says Hideki Yasuda of Toyo Securities. Much less appreciated by Western players, the gacha is “an essentially East Asian phenomenon,” notes the analyst.
The popularity of mobile gaming, often attributed to the long hours spent by Japanese workers and schoolchildren on public transport, is also due to the maturity of the local market, according to Serkan Toto of the Tokyo firm Kantan Games. The Japanese mobile developer Gree thus claims the creation in 2007 of the first “social game” in the world.
A sacred “Monster” at the top of sales
Abundantly monetized via gachathe highest-grossing mobile game in Japan in 2022 is called Monster Strike. Mixing role-playing game elements, billiards mechanics and the collection of “Pokémon”-style monsters, it brought in nearly 800 million Canadian dollars last year for its publisher, Mixi.
Already of a venerable age, the game launched in 2013 has been adapted into cartoons and animated films and is regularly the subject of concerts and other events. Its success, however, remained largely Japanese: also introduced in China, South Korea and the United States, it has no longer been accessible outside the archipelago since 2017.
National tropism
Conversely, foreign games are struggling to establish themselves on Japanese soil: the top 10 best-selling console titles in 2022, at the top of which sits the duo Pokémon Scarlet/Purpleonly has one non-Japanese game: Minecraft from Swedish Mojang, bought in 2014 by Microsoft.
For Hideki Yasuda, this trend is above all a story of choice of consoles: Minecraft, like nine of the ten entries in this ranking established by Famitsu magazine, is available on Nintendo’s Switch console, dominating the Japanese market, where Sony does not has only sold around 10% of its PlayStation 5s.
Moreover, Minecraft “has an extremely abstract artistic style”, underlines Serkan Toto, for whom “Japanese players do not really accept the Western style in terms of artistic direction, design, narration, etc. »
The Japanese also show little appetite for genres that are very popular among Westerners but also certain parts of Asia, such as first-person shooters or sports simulations, adds this specialist in the Japanese market.
Craze for “blockchain”
If many Western publishers are skeptical about the adoption of the blockchain in video games, most of the main Japanese players in the sector (Square Enix, Bandai Namco, Sega, etc.) have quickly bet on this technology of decentralized storage and transmission of information, on which cryptocurrencies are based, for example.
Publishers are particularly exploring the possibilities of using NFTs (unique digital works) to represent characters, cards or objects that can be transferred between players in the game or outside, and possibly monetized, or mechanics allowing you to earn cryptocurrencies playing.
Many “think that blockchain is the next big step” for video games and “want to be the pioneers, otherwise they risk being left behind,” said Mr. Toto.