14 DAY TRIAL // Western-developed role playing games are leading the Japanese ones in sales and popularity and BioWare Co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk think that that is because the developers from the Land of the Rising Sun have grown complacent over the years. The “traditional, very structured, old-school RPG” is not selling anymore mainly because of the innovative design that is coming from the West, according to Zeschuk.
He continued to comment that, “I think what happened is they got very complacent for a very long time. They kept making the same thing, and the same thing, and, in a sense, almost provided an opening for all of us to jump in with our style of games. I know first hand that they’re looking at our games now; they’re kind of looking at our stuff, the Fable stuff, and Fallout, and all that, and going, ‘what are these things?’ I think they had gotten used to making the same thing over and over, and it was working.”
Another reason cited by Zeschuk for the downfall of the Japanese role-playing game was the fact that the local market had weakened a lot and, thus, it had put developers in a situation where they had to sell their games on an international market whose consumers demanded more innovation and change of the traditional structure. This was all part of an interview the two gave to Industry Gamers.
Complacency is also a danger for Western studios, according to Muzyka. Everyone must bring new things to the table and improve what has come before if they are to survive on today's game market. BioWare is staying true to these words, as Star Wars: The Old Republic is promising to revolutionize the way the story is construed in massively online multiplayer role-playing games. Also, it plans to minimize grinding and give voices to every character in the title.