If you’ve been playing games for a while, then you’ve likely noticed how many games wind up feeling the same. Gaming has been this way for decades now, with the majority of releases chasing the latest trends. In the 00’s it was all about military shooters. In the 10’s, battle-royale, souls-likes and open worlds came into vogue. For the 20’s, well the jury is still out on that. Througout all this, if one wanted a break, then they could always turn to Japanese-made games for something a little different. There is fear that this is changing, but the President of Square Enix, Yosuke Matsuda thinks otherwise.

According to Exputer, Matsuda recently did an interview with a media outlet known as Gendai Business. In that interview, he’s quoted as saying: “[…] even if Japanese imitate Western games, they will not be able to produce good ones. The drawings of monsters and the visual and the audio effects are all somewhat Japanese. And players around the world know this is what makes Japanese games good.”

This and other comments make it sound like Matsuda is against allowing a lot of western influence into the games his company makes, but Square Enix has been receiving some criticism lately for exactly that. What exactly is going on, one wonders.

Personally, I’d rather not see Japanese games become more western. They’ve offered distinctly different gaming experiences for as long as games have been made. It’d be a real shame to see those unique ideas, mechanics and qualities disappear to make the games more “palatable” to certain western audiences.

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What do you think about this? Do you see Japanese games becoming more western? Would it be a good thing or bad thing in your eyes?

Image By Flickr User: Al Pavangkanan (cc)