Proof That American Gamers Really Do Want Japanese RPGs

Pointing at the success of Zeboyd Games’ Cthulhu Saves The World as an indication that modern day westerners are deprived of good Japanese-inspired RPG titles, Kotaku and Robert Boyd himself make the argument that we would spend a lot more money on such games if there were more around to throw money at. An excerpt:

“Zeboyd Games is a two-man studio and we made Cthulhu Saves the World in under a year (and not even working full-time on it),” Boyd said. “Not only that, but at the time, we had very little previous development experience. If we were able to find that kind of success with our low-budget JRPG-style RPG, I don’t see why a bigger studio with a solid understanding of the genre couldn’t find even more success with bigger-budget higher priced games.”

There are some other Westerners making JRPGs Adam Rippon’s Dragon Fantasy has been a success on iOS and will soon be on PS3 and Vita, and a number of developers have started Kickstarters for JRPG-style games like Echoes of Eternia. But Boyd thinks the market is still untapped.

“PC in particular has exploded in the US over the past few years thanks to Steam’s growing popularity and the rise of indie games,” Boyd said. “And yet there are still very few JRPG-style games being released professionally on the PC.”

You don’t have to be an indie to get an audience despite common consensus, big-budget console JRPGs have also found a fair amount of success over the past two years. Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime told me he was quite pleased with Xenoblade’s sales when we chatted last year, and Xseed has said that The Last Story is their most successful launch to date.