During his opening keynote speech today, Unozawa explained that game sales in Japan are actually on an upward trend if freemium and mobile games are included. “It's been tough for package games, home consoles, and traditional handhelds,” he said. “But new kinds of games have become available and interfaces are changing, which leads to new opportunities.”He gave a few examples, including Phantasy Star Online 2. The freemium game, currently on PC in Japan but with cross-platform play coming soon for Vita and smartphones, offers paid downloadable items that are not essential to progress – costumes and so on – and yet players have been happy to pay for them.
Still, Unozawa said, Japan’s game industry is perceived as being in decline, which he fears will influence parents to stop their kids going into the game industry.
“We have seen this effect directly in the numbers and the quality of graduates coming to us,” he said. “The disadvantage is that we lose out on skill and talent. Parents might not want their kids to go into games. But we need that talent. Both investors and graduates will be easier to attract if the industry’s image is better.”
To that end he called for Japanese game companies, notoriously secretive about sales figures, to open up and allow for new performance indices to be created. “If there's a perception that our market is shrinking, we must show that it is actually growing,” he said.
If there's a perception that our market is shrinking, we must show that it is actually growing
Unozawa also addressed Japan’s shrinking role on the world stage, suggesting that Japanese companies work harder to make games that will appeal to Western gamers and to adapt to Western business practices.“
“…We can't rely on the same sales methods we use in Japan. Nintendo has proved with Mario and Pokemon that games that have localized appeal can generate sales in overseas markets.”
So, how can those graduates who haven’t been scared away succeed in the game industry? Unozawa offered a couple of tips.
“First of all, English is so important. I really wish I’d learned English when I was starting out. If I'd learned English, my life would be very different. There are no borders in the game industry anymore.”
Also, “no one wants to work in a company with a 55-year-old director telling them how to make games. Young people need to tell us old directors that we're too old and don't understand the market anymore.”
Unozawa's keynote was followed by a speech from Yoshikazu Tanaka, CEO of Gree, the Japanese mobile gaming platform that has quickly grown to usurp Sony as holder of TGS’ largest booth.
The Tokyo Game Show runs thru Sunday. Organizers boast 209 exhibitors, up from 193 last year. Of the 1,043 games on show, roughly one quarter are for smartphones.