You really don't see any irony in people being offended that he called an American a foreigner when the whole basis for why the guy was mad was that the American wrote an article shitting on Japanese gaming development and how they're "Clueless"?
So the American can generalize that say that they're clueless, but I'm supposed to get offended when the guy comes back calling him a foreign asshole? At this point it's just a description.
Great great great post, and it is so true. This entire gen has been LOADED with the whole "loljapan" stuff. Noone batted an eye then, and Kotaku is once again clearly in the wrong, and now I'm expected to crucify Kamiya for firing back? Cmon now, don't be ridiculous.
And stop leaning on the bullshit excuse that people that see Kamiyas position as reasonable are doing so because they like his games. I don't give a toss about anything he has worked on, nor anything that he will. This isn't about that.
UPDATE: The original headline for this story—"The Guy Who Made Bayonetta Is Clueless about Valve and PC Gaming"—has been changed. "Clueless" was a poor choice of words and we apologize for the negative connotation. That said, we appreciate Kamiya's colorful reaction to the story and hope that, now that we've changed the headline, those who couldn't get past that will be able to read the piece. - Stephen Totilo, Editor-in-Chief
People keep saying stuff like "of course he would call Kotaku 'stupid foreigners' because of their dumb article" but is there even any reason to believe that he paid enough attention to that article to make that conclusion? Considering his past tweets, I think it's more likely that the "stupid foreigners" thing was 100% directed at the English-speakers trolling his twitter and no one else.
You would have a point if the headline of the article itself wasn't enough to give him more than enough reason to respond the way he did. That's why Kotaku went and changed the title. Their position in this is completely indefensible.
I stopped reading anything Kotaku YEARS ago, i used to go there for video game news, but they were clueless with alot of topics and not to mention slow as fuck, it almost felt like they never really played video games.
after he made that racist twit I am never again buying any of his games. It's funny how most of you are defending him. If some westerner said something like that you would be all over his balls.
It was completly unnecessary to say something like that.
and to use his logic, why did he say forigners? Is Luke representing all forigners? Shadow racism is the best, but knowing Japan that is no surprise.
A bit late, but this is mind blowing to me. Disparaging Kamiya claiming he is racist only to make racist comment himself at the last part of his indignant response.
Goddamn if that is not irony I don't know what is.
I stopped reading anything Kotaku YEARS ago, i used to go there for video game news, but they were clueless with alot of topics and not to mention slow as fuck, it almost felt like they never really played video games.
A bit late, but this is mind blowing to me. Disparaging Kamiya claiming he is racist only to make racist comment himself at the last part of his indignant response.
Goddamn if that is not irony I don't know what is.
The best part is the "but knowing Japan that is no surprise." line. It's like, it just keeps giving, and giving, and giving.
I was upset about the whole thing yesterday, but now it's just amazing to continue to watch people continue to get pissed off about something that isn't even relevant to the issue at this point. It wasn't the best choice of words, but looking it in the context of the entire situation, you can't really blame him.
Still loving the backhanded apology from craptaku, too.
I remember commenting on Kamiya about the PC tweet. I was genuinely surprised that he has "no interest" in it. Shocked, even. One of his fanboys replied to me saying:
because not everyone has to like the things you do and it's less significant over there.
I don't particularly read his tweets daily; as a developer I assumed that he would be interested in PC, in general. Especially with the massive audience on Steam. It's good he has a game plan for himself.
Was he talking about playing them or developing for them? I assumed what was being discussed was regarding the development of games. As I said I don't follow him religiously; I catch a few tweets here and there. Mostly the ones where he says something priggish to a follower.
I don't particularly read his tweets daily; as a developer I assumed that he would be interested in PC, in general. Especially with the massive audience on Steam. It's good he has a game plan for himself.
Was he talking about playing them or developing for them? I assumed what was being discussed was regarding the development of games. As I said I don't follow him religiously; I catch a few tweets here and there. Mostly the ones where he says something priggish to a follower.
Playing them. Not his decision to develop for; Inaba's already been looking into it and he's the producer guy. He visited Valve last year, even.
That's what makes this whole thing so asinine. Kotaku basically took a thing where Kamiya was talking about his personal preferences and ran with it to make them represent Japan. :/
神谷英樹 Hideki Kamiya ‏@PG_kamiya
Ask your mom. RT @DeathReveals: Soooo, whats in game magazines next week? Got any hints?
He does that a lot - not that it bothers me really. I assume it's just his personality, especially when having to deal with so many baffoons. He could be a little more diplomatic though.
In this case with Kotaku though, I've got no issue.
Playing them. Not his decision to develop for; Inaba's already been looking into it and he's the producer guy. He visited Valve last year, even.
That's what makes this whole thing so asinine. Kotaku basically took a thing where Kamiya was talking about his personal preferences and ran with it to make them represent Japan. :/
Playing them. Not his decision to develop for; Inaba's already been looking into it and he's the producer guy. He visited Valve last year, even.
That's what makes this whole thing so asinine. Kotaku basically took a thing where Kamiya was talking about his personal preferences and ran with it. :/
That is what makes it absurd, the fact that the article exists (new title or not) is absurd and its mere existence is a lie that makes several jumps of logic while ignoring facts and not to mention efforts by many Japanese devs to change this perception that Kotaku is trying to perpetuate with this piece. I cant by the live of me understand why someone would post stuff like this:
It's not a sensationalist article, though. It's pretty level-headed, saying "hey, this guy expresses sentiments of a lot of people in Japan, and it's hard to blame them--Steam isn't nearly as good over there as it is here, and Japanese culture tends to prefer physical objects to digital." That's a completely reasonable position to take, even if the headline is pretty much straight-up click-bait.
When not only is wrong to make assumptions, but not realizing that they party involved is actively seeking to put their games on Steam and the studio is trying to position itself as worldwide representative of japanese gaming.
People freaking out about "foreigners" is just the ultimate irony. Japanese gaming, and all of Japanese culture has been smeared on these blogs basically every day for the last several years. Even just yesterday in the thread showing off Platinum's 2013 lineup I remember one commenter saying "Just when you thought it was safe to ignore Japanese games ...." and no one called him out for it. Kotaku runs shit culture articles every day to try and make Japan seem as fucked up as possible, only picking the weirdest shit.
Kamiya lashes back once after their article basically uses him to call all of Japan "clueless," and you guys act like you give a damn about xenophobia now? Give me a break. It's getting to the point of reverse racism because if anyone's been the victim of constant bashing and race-based generalizations in gaming this gen, it's the Japanese.
Just look at the comments on that initial Kotaku article on Kamiya's comments, merely saying he's not interested in PC gaming. "Just when I thought Japan couldn't be any more behind than they already are ..." and on and on.
That is what makes it absurd, the fact that the article exists (new title or not) is absurd and its mere existence is a lie that makes several jumps of logic while ignoring facts and not to mention efforts by many Japanese devs to change this perception that Kotaku is trying to perpetuate with this piece. I cant by the live of me understand why someone would post stuff like this:
When not only is wrong to make assumptions, but not realizing that they party involved is actively seeking to put their games on Steam and the studio is trying to position itself as worldwide representative of japanese gaming.
Another thing I noticed about this is that Plunkett saw Kamiya's tweets and easily could have contacted Kamiya and said something like, "Hey, I'm so and so, doing a piece for Kotaku about such and such, saw your tweets, can I ask you a few questions on the issue?"
But failing to do that and doing what he did, only to then follow up with Kamiya on twitter with just a "did you read my article?" and I'm 99% certain there was no other attempt to reach out to him before this.
People freaking out about "foreigners" is just the ultimate irony. Japanese gaming, and all of Japanese culture has been smeared on these blogs basically every day for the last several years. Even just yesterday in the thread showing off Platinum's 2013 lineup I remember one commenter saying "Just when you thought it was safe to ignore Japanese games ...." and no one called him out for it. Kotaku runs shit culture articles every day to try and make Japan seem as fucked up as possible, only picking the weirdest shit.
Kamiya lashes back once after their article basically uses him to call all of Japan "clueless," and you guys act like you give a damn about xenophobia now? Give me a break. It's getting to the point of reverse racism because if anyone's been the victim of constant bashing and race-based generalizations in gaming this gen, it's the Japanese.
Just look at the comments on that initial Kotaku article on Kamiya's comments, merely saying he's not interested in PC gaming. "Just when I thought Japan couldn't be any more behind than they already are ..." and on and on.
I'd have stopped reading at "clueless" if I was him. Kamiya was insulted and misrepresented in the headline. Fight the power, King of Japan Kamiya! Don't give into sensationalism!
That is what makes it absurd, the fact that the article exists (new title or not) is absurd and its mere existence is a lie that makes several jumps of logic while ignoring facts and not to mention efforts by many Japanese devs to change this perception that Kotaku is trying to perpetuate with this piece. I cant by the live of me understand why someone would post stuff like this:
When not only is wrong to make assumptions, but not realizing that they party involved is actively seeking to put their games on Steam and the studio is trying to position itself as worldwide representative of japanese gaming.
Don't confuse Kamiya for Platinum, though. The article merely says "hey, Kamiya doesn't really seem to care about PC games, which is a pretty normal view to have in Japan." It doesn't say "Kamiya, and by proxy, his company, hates PC games and are stupid and don't like Valve." Instead, it says: "There are a couple reasons for this point of view, partly because of the tendency of Japanese culture to prefer physical media, and partly because PC localization/support for Japan gamers has always been really bad."
You can take issues with the author's claims. You can say that Blizzard doesn't localize PC (three of the four titles listed were Blizzard games) in Japan because their games haven't sold well previously (I have no idea if this is true or not). You can say that Japan is xenophobic and just prefers Japanese devices (and the concept of 'gaijin' as a perjorative, as well as the attempts at sabotage towards the original Xbox by Japanese playtesters, might be a place to start). You can say a lot of things and make people look bad or good or whatever.
But... if you are a reasonable, intelligent human being, you should be able to grasp the fact that the article's author merely took tweets from a noted game designer as a way to explain why PC gaming isn't all that popular in Japan.
It's not attempting to slander him or even make him look bad, and now that the title's changed, there's nothing in that piece that can be used to insult Kamiya.
I get that many of you guys love the man, and instantly hate anything that makes him look bad (
except, for some reason, his games.
), but come on. A little moderation would be nice. What we should have had were a bunch of comments condemning Kotaku for a sensationalist headline that diminishes the content within. Instead, we've got a bunch of people just shitting all over Kotaku for very little good reason.
But... if you are a reasonable, intelligent human being, you should be able to grasp the fact that the article's author merely took tweets from a noted game designer as a way to explain why PC gaming isn't all that popular in Japan.
It's Ashcraft. I don't think these articles are ever not Ashcraft. When he writes about game stuff, I like him, but the "hey guys, Japan is WEIRD" articles... yeah, no thanks. That one about the psychotic drawings by a voice actress was amusing, though.
But... if you are a reasonable, intelligent human being, you should be able to grasp the fact that the article's author merely took tweets from a noted game designer as a way to explain why PC gaming isn't all that popular in Japan.
When Plunkett saw Kamiya's tweets, why didn't he contact Kamiya before posting the article? Wouldn't that have made for a better article? Don't you think it's ridiculous to take a couple of BRIEF tweets that were made in response to some questions and use them as the foundation of your article? That's sort of like the opposite of what twitter is all about.
People freaking out about "foreigners" is just the ultimate irony. Japanese gaming, and all of Japanese culture has been smeared on these blogs basically every day for the last several years. Even just yesterday in the thread showing off Platinum's 2013 lineup I remember one commenter saying "Just when you thought it was safe to ignore Japanese games ...." and no one called him out for it. Kotaku runs shit culture articles every day to try and make Japan seem as fucked up as possible, only picking the weirdest shit.
Kamiya lashes back once after their article basically uses him to call all of Japan "clueless," and you guys act like you give a damn about xenophobia now? Give me a break. It's getting to the point of reverse racism because if anyone's been the victim of constant bashing and race-based generalizations in gaming this gen, it's the Japanese.
Just look at the comments on that initial Kotaku article on Kamiya's comments, merely saying he's not interested in PC gaming. "Just when I thought Japan couldn't be any more behind than they already are ..." and on and on.
Your answer reminds of me of all the those who will whine about GAF hivemind changing its mind constantly (the kind of answer that would usually start with a bubububu GAF told me yesterday that...). It's entirely possible to think that Kotaku's article was a piece of shit, that the generation has indeed been rife with race-based generalization and that a lot of internet idiots are happy to spout 'loljapan', and to think at the same time that kamiya's tweet was indeed racist (and the other tweet got that right, he was being a coward about it too). It's certainly not worth getting super upset and start witch hunt about it, but not worth defending either.
I remember reading an article on Kotaku about how Japan is not fun anymore to live in. It was one of the biggest pieces of garbage in existence. Kamiya probably remembers that
Exactly. Attempting to pass tweet searching off as journalism is the biggest problem. Kotaku is above a proper interview or not writing an article if said interview is impossible.
I get that many of you guys love the man, and instantly hate anything that makes him look bad (
except, for some reason, his games.
), but come on. A little moderation would be nice. What we should have had were a bunch of comments condemning Kotaku for a sensationalist headline that diminishes the content within. Instead, we've got a bunch of people just shitting all over Kotaku for very little good reason.
I like it how you seem to imply that everyone here who dislike how Kotaku did this stuff immediately qualifies as a Kamiya fanboy. I also like it how you seem to imply that what Kotaku did here is not such a big deal for people to get frustrated about, particularly when they call themselves "journalists."
Anyways, if, someday, a person taking something that you post over the internet--be that a twitter, a facebook post, or anything else--without your permission (stealing it, in other words) and use it to make something that can easily be perceived as slandering you for their own profit (in Kotaku's case, clicks to their website), you'll be okay with it?
If proper news source like The Sunday Telegraph or any other reputable news organization did this shit would be flying all over things so fast for them it's not even funny.
I wish you'd stop pushing this 'stealing' angle. Using quotes from a social media public platform isn't, in so far as I can tell, stealing. It may be shit, almost worthless reporting, but it's not stealing.
One thing that this topic neglected to mention though, in the face of all these "He said it in Japanese! It must be offensive!" posts... Kamiya responds to English trolls in Japanese all the time, often telling them "tell me again in Japanese".
I wish you'd stop pushing this 'stealing' angle. Social media usage on a public platform isn't, in so far as I can tell, stealing. It may be shit reporting, but it's not stealing.
Eh, as far as I am concerned it is, insofar as they are using it to create something that can profit them without permission of the person creating the content. It's like people taking your post in Facebook/Twitter and use it as a tagline for their product--the intent is the same, to attract and create benefit to them from your creation without your permission. As far as I am concerned it is stealing.
Proper news organization just wouldn't do it without attempting to at least contact the person making the content first, for permission/verification.
Anyways, even if it's not "stealing", its still a very shitty thing to do. For them, or anyone else, to "wonder" why Kamiya would be mad at them is just silly.
You either haven't been paying attention or you're just playing dumb. It's not about criticizing individual developers so much as it's been about trying to find a fault in Japan as a country, culture, and people. It's been about painting with extremely broad strokes and generalizing that all Japanese developers are the same or something.
Since around 2006 or 2007 or so, there's been a serious backlash against Japanese developers and games from Japan in general. Lots of "how the mighty have fallen" and "is Japan still relevant?" articles and such.
Well sure. Their global marketshare has shrunk severely in the past few years, and nearly every major Japanese game company not called "Nintendo" is having financial issues.
But, there's just as many articles lamenting the faults of western game companies, or the game industry as a whole.
While Kotaku's original headline and twitter exchange was beyond dumb, it's not racist to notice that the Japanese game development largely ignores the PC as a platform. It's an interesting market anomaly.
Individual Western companies. When it's about Japanese companies, it's about all of them. Nobody's holding up THQ as an example of why Western game development is irrelevant.
You guys are so quick to get angry and offended when he said stupid foreigners.
If you were more calm then maybe you would have noticed that he said "some" stupid foreigners which is obviously kotaku. It's even more appropriate in this context because kotaku actually are stupid ass foreigners who misjudged japan just by a twitter post from a Japanese developer. I don't think I've ever seen a more appropriate time to call someone a stupid ass foreigner then this and again, remember he said "some" as in Kotaku...learn to read
He does that a lot - not that it bothers me really. I assume it's just his personality, especially when having to deal with so many baffoons. He could be a little more diplomatic though.
In this case with Kotaku though, I've got no issue.
Doesn't seem like a good example to me. He always says, "next week in game magazines" to reply to dumb questions. It was pretty obvious that guy tweeted him just trying to provoke a response.
I've never seen him be an ass to someone who asked a genuine original question that wasn't stupid.
Well sure. Their global marketshare has shrunk severely in the past few years, and nearly every major Japanese game company not called "Nintendo" is having financial issues.
But, there's just as many articles lamenting the faults of western game companies, or the game industry as a whole.
While Kotaku's original headline and twitter exchange was beyond dumb, it's not racist to notice that the Japanese game development largely ignores the PC as a platform. It's an interesting market anomaly.
How is it an anomaly? Different markets care about different thing for different reasons. These markets change, too.
Kind of like how the ZX Spectrum and Amiga were big in the UK, but barely exited in the US. Or how the lack of console support in Korea led to PC games being huge there. Same goes for most of Eastern Europe. It's only an anomaly if you compare Japan to post-2009 USA.
People have pretty bad memories if they so quickly forget that the PC platform was ridiculed and ignored just a few short years ago. The early years of the PS3/360 generation sucked for getting good PC versions of games. It wasn't until around 2009 or so, and mostly thanks to Valve leading the digital distribution effort, that PC gaming has had such a resurgence in popularity.
You guys are so quick to get angry and offended when he said stupid foreigners.
If you were more calm then maybe you would have noticed that he said "some" stupid foreigners which is obviously kotaku. It's even more appropriate in this context because kotaku actually are stupid ass foreigners who misjudged japan just by a twitter post from a Japanese developer. I don't think I've ever seen a more appropriate time to call someone a stupid ass foreigner then this and again, remember he said "some" as in Kotaku...learn to read
Individual Western companies. When it's about Japanese companies, it's about all of them. Nobody's holding up THQ as an example of why Western game development is irrelevant.
Agree. THQ, Midway, Zynga, Curt Schilling, Bioware founders retiring early and the failure of TOR, none of it gets coupled with a stream of "western culture is weird" articles, and none of it ever turns out to reflect on western culture as a whole.
Virtually every one is a western studio, but the overall narrative in the gaming media is still that Japanese developers are struggling.
It's one of those things that you can't explain to someone who hasn't closely followed gaming media on multiple sites for the last 6 years. It would just take too much effort to collect all the articles, the comments, to dissect all the various instances where tone was unnecessarily harsh and demeaning. They were either there to see it or they weren't. For those paying attention, it's obvious that Japan has been under assault in the press for years.
