Is the RPG a niche genre?

[Picko]

Onyxmeth said:

Picko said:

Onyxmeth said:

Picko said:

Onyxmeth said:

Rei said:
jRPG is. wRPG, MMORPG are not.

It's not.

Evidence: Pokemon, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.

 

 

Using huge outliers is hardly a good way to prove your point. Yes Pokemon, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest are successful; however, an overwhelming number of games within the genre are not.

Of course it is. Those games have managed to find a way to sell while others haven't. It's not a problem with the genre, but the fact that those games cannot hit the same audience as the top three for some reason. Obviously RPGs are desirable and those games show it. Your argument can be used to show many genres are niche. "Oh look, sports games are niche because only one has sold 40 million copies and the rest struggle for a few million".

 

 

No it remains an invalid way to argue a point and statistically unsound - what matters is those games within the extremes. Dragon Quest for the record is essentially niche in all but one country in the world. Final Fantasy was niche in the West until Final Fantasy VII, which was in the right place at the right time. While Pokemon is a cultural phenomenon spanning television, games and movies - something which likely cannot be replicated.

These games are successful because of exogenous occurances that cannot be replicated and as such it would be incorrect to assume the success of these games is because they are JRPGs. That couldn't be further from the truth. The overwhelming majority of JRPGs appeal to a niche market, the genre is therefore niche.

Nothing you have said about Dragon Quest matters. It's still not niche in that one country, and that one country happens to give it enough sales to make it a massive franchise overall. I'm not even sure what your point was with Final Fantasy. So it WAS niche a long time ago? So what? How is that even relevant to the conversation? It has managed to become one of the largest franchises ever since FF VII and it has done that simply by throwing out more traditional JRPGs. Pokemon did get big through cross promotion. It isn't the first product to try it, and it won't be the last. It has somehow made gamers of all persuasions take notice, and that is through addictive gameplay. Believe it or not, every Pokemon customer on Earth is not buying in just because of a set of cards and a TV program.

Let me guess what your excuse is for Kingdom Hearts. It has Disney characters so it doesn't count either right?

So let me see. There are RPGs outside of the aformentioned that have passed 500,000 sales. There are some that have passed 750,000. Some have even broken a million. Yet, this is a niche market? So what exactly would you call the SHMUP genre, where games regularly fail to break 100,000? Also if JRPGs are a niche genre, what genres would you consider to not be niche?

 

 

The point of the post was to show why those series have managed to become mainstream and therefore shouldn't be used as evidence of the health or size of the genre.  The genre is primarily niche because the highly successful series have generally relied on one-off exogeneous events that cannot be replicated to become successful. I know highly confusing concept.

That there are highly successful games within the genre doesn't preclude it from being a niche genre. Plenty of niche genres in movies, music, television and videogames have had crossover hits without making the genre any less niche. If the success cannot be replicated, and in this case it cannot, then the fact that there is the odd success story should not distort the underlying truth that JRPGs are not all that popular.