"Why?"

by Jonatan L 

Submitted by:	draco_argenteus@spray.se (Jonatan L)
Spelling	2
Grammar	2
Coherency	3
Strength of Arguments	4.5
Presentation	3
Originality	2
Penalties	0
Total	16.5
Grade

Short note: I'll be referring to prices in "SEK", SvEnska Kronor. One SEK is about 1/11th of a US dollar. You do the math, because I'm too busy ranting. So sue me. ;-P

My question is, as I'm sure you already know from the title of this editorial, "Why?". Actually, I have a lot of other questions, but this is the one I'm thinking about at the moment, and the only one that fits in an editorial like this.

The "why" this time is directed to the gaming industry. Specifically, to the people - whoever they are - who decide which games to release where.

You probably guessed it already: I'm going to rant about games not being released outside of America. Not games that stay in Japan and never get translated at all, mind you, but the ones that are already fully translated - the only thing that keeps us Europeans from playing them is... what?

I'd very much like to find out.

It brings me back to the question. "Why?"

Or maybe I should make change that. "Why not?" seems a lot more accurate.

We get all kinds of games in Europe. We get Super Mario Bros., and we get Sonic the Hedgehog. We get hockey, football (the kind you play with a round ball, mind you) and any number of racing games. We get Tetris and half a million clones. We get Tomb Raider and Doom. We get Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and half a million clones of those games as well.

We get platforms, sports, puzzles, 3D shooters and adventures, and beat-'em-ups. We even get simulators, even if I can't think of an example right now.

Something is missing, though.

Where are the RPGs?

I'm not going to lie to you. We do get some RPGs. Some of them are really good. However, we never get the truly interesting ones; the games that gaming magazines (and gaming sites, like this one) all over the world refer to when they want to tell us, "this is how it is supposed to be". Where were the Final Fantasy games released on the SNES? We never got them. Chrono Trigger? No such luck. Xenogeaars, Lunar and Chrono Cross? No way, Jose. These games, like many other, were never converted to the PAL system, and most Europeans never got to play them.

Now, back to the question. Why is that?

I can only assume that the aforementioned "people" - the people who decide which games we should get - don't think it is possible to sell these great RPGs in Europe.

I feel it's time for an example.

In Sweden, where I happen to live, we don't have that many gaming magazines. There are maybe three or four, only one of which is really comprehensive. It is called Super PLAY. Why they decided to give a Swedish magazine an English name is something I'll never know, but what matters right now is the contents of said magazine.

A quick look reveals page after page of information about RPGs. The latest issue boasts (apart from a cover featuring Vivi from Final Fantasy IX) an eight pages long interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy. This is the single largest feature in this issue. The largest review - four pages, twice the size of most other reviews - deals with Final Fantasy IX, a game that hasn't even been released in Sweden yet (it is scheduled for release on February sixteenth, I believe, for those of you who are interested), and gives it top marks. This issue also features a preview, almost two pages, on Phantasy Star Online (another game that still hasn't been released here), as well as several more "normal" reviews on other RPGs.

What does this tell us?

Well, as far as I can see, something very important:

There is a market for RPGs in Sweden; there's no way a major magazine would spend so much time covering something that no one is interested in.

Of course, I realise that Sweden is a small country. It doesn't matter much what we think - if RPGs are popular here but the other countries in Europe don't care, we still won't get any games here, no matter how loud we may shout about it. However, from what I hear, the situation is much the same everywhere.

European gamers want RPGs.

Me saying this isn't going to change anyone's mind, however. Let's dig up some statistics for a while (I promise I'll bury them again after we're done).

Looking at some recently released RPGs, I can see that Suikoden 2 remained in the "most sold Play Station games" charts for quite some time; it just dropped out. Ditto with Grandia, Vagrant Story and Star Ocean 2. Koudelka and Parasite Eve 2 (which may not exactly be an RPG, even if it's sort of close) also reached high places in the charts. In case of Parasite Eve 2, I believe it is currently in the sixth place in my local store's "top ten most sold PSX games" list. Shenmue is defending its first place on the "most sold Dreamcast games" chart very well; I don't think it intends to leave that spot for quite some time. Don't get me started on the Final Fantasy games - they did the same thing here that they did everywhere else: went straight to the top of almost every chart you can think of, and remained there for weeks, if not months. Old RPGs like Suikoden and Wild ARMs still retail for about 300 SEK in the Used Videogames stores (if you can find them at all), while most other games that were released at about the same time have dropped to 100-200 SEK in that time. I recently saw a (used) copy of Xenogears retailing for - 600 SEK! (And of course, I didn't have six hundred bucks on me that day... *grumble grumble*) That's more than most new games cost; Suikoden 2, for example, cost me about 400 SEK. Used games don't cost six hundred SEK unless they are in very, very high demand.

If we turn back the clock a bit, we'll see that in spite of its horrendous price tag (about 800 SEK - used!) and the hassle involved in importing a copy, Final Fantasy "III" sold like butter; many of us had our SNESes remodelled or bought adapters only to be able to play that one game. Looking at the Mega Drive (or Genesis, if you like that name better), Phantasy Star IV also made first place in the "most sold" charts.

By the way, speaking of Phantasy Star, I'd like to hand SEGA a huge, red rose for releasing their RPGs in PAL version. Here you go, SEGA! @-,'-'-,-'-

Nintendo, however, who never saw fit to release any of their truly interesting RPGs in PAL version, get a radioactive thistle. Enjoy, Nintendo! #######-- And don't tell me you're surprised to hear that I played those games as ROMs, without paying for them. That's what they get for not making it possible to buy the actual cartridge.

Unfortunately, I'll have to give Sony a thistle as well, as they haven't exactly been showering us in RPGs either. They get a normal one, though, because I really liked the Suikoden games. This is for you, Sony! #######-- And if I ever find a pirated copy of Xenogears, I'm buying it. What else am I supposed to do? They aren't exactly helping me find a legal copy, are they?

Now for something completely different. From the three paragraphs above - which company do you think I've bought more stuff from? Based on my actions (which are, of course, based on their actions) - which company do you think has made the most money?

Anyway, to get back to the games: RPGs are popular, and people are willing to pay for them (the Xenogears copy was gone the next day; it probably vanished just as soon as I turned my back on it). If even less popular games such as Suikoden and Star Ocean 2 do this well... what do you think would happen if we got access to some of the "great names", such as Chrono Trigger? Just like Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger would sell - if nothing else, people would buy it only because it is Chrono Trigger.

To wrap this up: RPGs do sell. We are willing to pay for them, if we only get a chance. Downloading the ROM is an emergency solution - most of us, myself included, would rather get the cartridge or the CD.

After seeing all that, I really have to ask again. Why? We want RPGs. Why not give them to us?

Come back in ten years and I'll tell you if I ever got an answer to that question. Don't hope too much, though. These people are almost as stubborn as I am.

END TRANSMISSION

Notes:
This is certainly a very good topic to bring up, and the question raised is a valid one. However, the frequent line breaks broke up the flow of the argument. The editorial also seemed to switch between styles, from serious to sarcastic to joking, which hurt both coherency and presentation. One small factual error hurt this editorial, it was Square's decision not to release Xenogears in other countries, not Sony's. This may be the best editorial on this topic I've seen as far as providing concrete facts to back up its points, but its also not an original topic.