http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-08-17-alex-hutchinson-game-journalists-exhibit-subtle-racism

Interesting article, but I full-heartedly disagree with it (to a certain degree). Games like Gears of War, which rely more heavily around story, will be judged more harshly with regards to its story-telling. On the other hand, games like Super Mario Brothers are all about platforming and the story really doesn't matter much at all to the experience.

However, that's just one solitary case. Do you guys agree with this author that Japanese developers tend to get off the hook more easily than Western developers?

Should Mario be more like this new XBL game, Dust: An Elysian Tail? (Imbedded below) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg81GcutanQ

If a game claims to have a hard hitting story, then it should be judged accordingly, if not same as well.

I don't think he's ralking about games like Mario platfomers personally, those kinda get a pass for having next to no story or a patronizingly simple story but they aren't really gibberish that gets lauded as being an amazing story. To me that sounds more like he's criticizing the stranger side of Japanese gaming like Suda51 games and Katamari Damacy.

Personally I can't agree, I've seen lots of great JRPGs get smashed on meta so I don't think there's any positive bias towards Japanese games in general gaming journalism.

He has a point but loses credibility by sounding like a crybaby. It'd be better to defend his reasoning with solid, logical evidence instead of criticizing opinion in the grounds of "Waah! Waah! They're biased against me, can't they see I'm better? How evil these journalists are..."

The problem with games like Gears, is that they try to have an engaging story, but fail.

Mario games do have a story/setting, but it isnt championed by Nintendo. Gameplay and fun is held above everything else, and rightly so. The story is there, but its not trying to engage you half as much as a game like Gears.

As proof of a JP game that got trashed for story, I could point you towards the biggest - Final Fantasy XIII.

He did nothing to support his claim. Comparing Bayonetta's story to Gears of War??? Bayonetta's story was meant to be silly and nonsensical, and it wasn't even praised for it's story, so I don't understand how he came up with this notion that it got special treatment over Gears of War. And does he not realize how serious that accusation is?

Bwahahaha. If anything game journalists are against Japanese games for being Japanese and not the other way around. This is the first I've heard anyone even give this a thought.

What's worse is that I don't see how anyone can praise Western games are superior storytellers as the story for all of your blockbusters (including the examples they give) have some awful stories.

I haven't read the article yet but if he's saying Japanese games get a free pass he is very wrong. Activision will release COD every year to applause but Japanese devs (especially JRPGs) will get punished for perceived staleness.

Sounds like nonesense to me. Games like FF13 get terrible scores compared to the likes of ME3. The Japanese games that get the best scores tend to either either have little emphasis on story (Mario/Fighting games/etc.) or are few and far between (Xenoblade and Skyward Sword are the only recent examples I can think of).