A little insight into the Japanese video game industry

Two weeks ago I visited the Tokyo Game Show, one of the three biggest video game exhibitions in the world. During this annual occasion all well known publishers and production companies present their new games and developments to the public. When I first heard of TGS as a child I never expected to attend it one day. Maybe this was the issue for my planed observation: I’m influenced by my own experiences. Besides not frequently playing video games any more, I had too great of expectations for the exhibition. In a few sentences I will attempt to explain what all this fuss was about.

The exhibition is separated into two parts: the “business days” and the “open to the public days”. Of course I participated only in one of the public days. My first thought upon entering the main hall was: how the hell will I possibly get out of here again. The booths were more than crowded. There were thousands of people waiting in lines for up to 3-4 hours just to play one game for about 5 minutes. The obscurity in this case is: the gates did not open until 10:00 am and closed at 5:00 pm. For me, just observing the visitors and this special field of pop culture the period was more than enough. But what about the visitors who waited all this time just to get a glimpse at one game, which may be for sale within the next few months? As far as I could tell, more than a half of the attendees could be referred to as Otakus [i]. I even observed people who came only to take pictures of or with the booth girls, or to show off their cosplay [ii] skills. Maybe the business days would have suited my expectations more. Actually, there were some auctions selling tickets on eBay. The advantage would have been: you don’t have to wait in the lines and you are allowed to poke the booth babes in the shoulder or forehead… Hah, that’s an experience for around 10,000 yen more, isn’t it?

(A visitor with one of the booth babes)

(Three cosplayers)

However, these are basic and very personal impressions. Cosplay, booth babes and Otakus can be usually found at most of the gaming exhibitions. There is one aspect of the TGS which is not common in western countries, but is a very profitable sector in Japan: Video Game Music. I want to go into a bit more depth about this topic. In Japan VGM developed itself as its own genre with a huge fan base. On the market you will find soundtracks, remix-CDs, live orchestral performances (many nameable symphony orchestras around the world are dedicating some or even entire concerts to video game themes), sheet music for fans to play along, etc. On You Tube, for example, we can observe that VGM is not only directly linked to the video game industry anymore, but also maintains its own fascination. Give it a try by typing “Video Game Music” in the search field of your browser page. You will get countless hits of fans playing their favorite songs or just sharing the originals. What makes this comparatively new genre so special? I think its diversification. Because of the rapid hardware developments in the gaming industry the music had to match these ever changing standards. In fact we can reminisce of almost 30 years of video game music from 8-Bit sounds to prerecorded and digitally mastered orchestra scores. Nowadays, retro sounds are just as famous as special symphonic arrangements, because the time-difference just between the birth of the genre and now only sounds large. This is what makes Japan, the mother of the most successful gaming company on earth, the best place for such a trend. Many age groups and tastes are addressed. But what exactly made VGM so popular around the world? I think it simply reminds gamers of the feelings they have encountered while playing. In a sense it’s not only nostalgic. If you still frequently play games or have in the past, you can tell that a game wouldn’t feel complete without a proper soundtrack. Gaming is an interactive process and so is the music inside the game. The strength lies in its ability to convey meanings that are incommunicable via words (iii) Even the famous video game composer Tommy Tallarico reflects about VGM as an active experience and I think he is probably right, when he says:

"It's for this reason that I've always said that if Beethoven were alive today, he'd be a video game composer." [iv]

(Masses waiting in front of the Square Enix Music store)

Endnotes

[i] Volker Grassmuck defines "Otaku" as a shy and solitary person, who mono-manically tries to master his field of interest at any cost.

[ii] Shortcut for "Costume Play"

[iii] cf.: Vorderer, Peter/Bryant Jennings (2006): Playing video games: motives, responses, and consequences, p. 244.

[iv] The Evolution of Video Game Music