Ashadelo said:
Because they understand their home turf market better than most Japanese companies right now. The Japanese culture for a long long time has been a culture that is more colorful, and lighthearted in its esthetics. Outside of the video game pop culture and anime, it has been this way for a few decades and I don't see that changing anytime soon. From the food you buy, to outdoor activities it's vastly different from the western counterparts. So when you make a game that lines up with a lot of what you see in everyday pop culture, along with portable multiplayer you have a good recipe for a potentially massive hit in the video game market. When a Japanese video game deviates from this multiplayer/colorful/kawaii overtone then it's way more of a gamble if your game will be super successful or not. |
Ye that, but I think it's important that both Splatoon and Animal Crossing are games popular amongst various demographic. Splatoon is huge within the kids, AC is huge amongst female from various age. Nowadays it's really important to appeal to female gamers as well, about half the population are female. And a lot more casual female gamers, one of the reason mobile gaming is that huge is primary because it grabs different types of people not just gamers.
