Masahiro Sakurai recently gave some advice to Japanese game developers, that made waves around the world. However, what Sakurai meant to say was literally lost in machine translation, but we found a credible source to share what he really meant to say here.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, Sakurai spoke to a Japanese entertainment news website named Entax after receiving a citation from the Japanese government. Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs gave him the Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists, for his tremendous achievements in sharing the breadth of his knowledge in video game development in the form of his now legendary YouTube channel.
Audrey Lamsam, who runs a Japanese goods store name Aitai Kuji, recently remarked that the translation of Sakurai’s statements that has been going around isn’t accurate. Video Games Chronicle admits they went for machine translation for their reporting, and that unfortunately led to misunderstanding of what Sakurai meant to say. Of course, Audrey herself is fluent in Japanese, so she can do it in a way that can capture the nuance of certain expressions that just can’t be captured by a word-for-word transliteration.
We’ll just go ahead and share Audrey’s translation:
“In response to a question about Chinese games being popular in recent times, a question was asked to Sakurai about what he thinks Japan should do for the video game industry.
Sakurai: “This isn’t just my own opinion, but Japanese game developers should simply make games that they themselves would enjoy.
In recent times, I believe there has indeed been a movement to “Americanize” things more as various media are of course very well received in America. […]
However, those who enjoy Japanese games probably aren’t looking for that type of [Americanization] of games. Rather, I think they are looking for something unique and interesting from Japan.
Ideally, I think game developers should just make games that they want to make, and hopefully those who can accept that will enjoy them.””
Of course, the interviewer from Entex is thinking of games like Marvel Rivals, Black Myth Wukong, and Genshin Impact. These are recent releases in China, that one could say took a lot of inspiration from games and developers in Japan and the West.
In turn, Sakurai may be referring to a trend in Japanese games that dates back to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 era. Famously, Capcom was undertaking a huge push to make games that were more like the ones Western developers used, that led to more failures (Lost Planet, Exoprimal) than successes (Dead Rising).
But even this topic is more nuanced than to just say Japanese developers should mainly make games for Japanese gamers. No one would argue that Konami failed to cater to Japanese and Western audiences with the Metal Gear series. It may also be easy to forget that most of the sales Japanese game developers make is in the US, not Japan, because the market is simply much bigger there.
And so, this proper translation is truly helpful in understanding both the situation Sakurai is speaking to, and the advice he is giving. If what the developer wants to make is something that Americans will enjoy, they could make it work out. But Sakurai is cautioning developers not to try this just because they think it will sell more units in America.
Ultimately, game designers, like musicians or filmmakers or authors or other creators, do take a bet that they came up with something that will find an audience somewhere. Sometimes, it is an actual good idea to move in a direction that gamers can relate to and already want, but you also never know if you will end up making a new genre on your own. Sakurai has found a lot of success making games that Japanese and the rest of the world enjoyed, even before Super Smash Bros., so there’s a bit of weight behind his advice for all game developers.
