A Rebuttal to Extra Credits "JRPGs aren't RPGs" argument

I don't have time right now to make a video addressing this, but I want to comment on a recent video from the folks at Extra Credits titled "Western & Japanese RPGs (part 1)".

The video puts forth several ideas that I think are fundamentally flawed,

1) That "WRPGs" and "JRPGS" shouldn't belong to the family of "RPGs", but are actually two entirely different genres which developed independently of one another. This is because the folks at Extra Credits believe "JRPGs" descend from eroge visual novels (apparently because Wikipedia says so-- it's the only other place I've ever seen such an argument made-- but we'll get to this in a moment).

2) That game genres should not be defined by the game mechanics of the game, but by how players perceive the game (ie. the reasons they play the game and what they take away from the game).

I believe the folks at Extra Credits are wrong.

Here's why,

Addressing argument #1: Anyone who has any inkling of knowledge about videogame history can tell you visual novels descend from graphic adventure games, which themselves descend from text adventure games, a branch of interaction fiction games.

Interactive fiction games are legions more popular in Japan than in elsewhere in the world, but they are made all over the world, including the "West", even if they aren't called "visual novels". The only substantial difference between the gameplay of point and click adventure games like Gabriel Knights: Sins of the Father (which I played extensively when I was a kid) and a game like Fate/stay night is you can actually move your avatar across the screen in Gabriel Knight , rather than gameplay deciding solely on which story branches you pursue like in Fate/stay night. This is a mild difference and certainly not enough to suggest no common familial ties.

And many "Western" RPGs also descend from interactive fiction games, but we'll talk about that later.

As for the argument that companies like Enix, Square and Nihon Falcom made eroge and then infused those elements into their design, I cannot argue they dabbled in games with visual novel elements before making computer RPGs.  However concerning Square, near as I can tell, did not make any eroge games before releasing Final Fantasy -- GameFAQs and Mobygames don't list any. Now, they did release Nakayama Miho no Tokimeki High School, a dating sim for the Famicom Disk System, but this game was released at the same time that Final Fantasy was released (both were released in December of 1987), so it seems to have been developed at the same time.

(Note that Wikipedia's article for eroge games currently claims Square and Enix made eroge games in their early days, but that claim is not sourced nor does it say what the names of those games are. Suspicious indeed, but it doesn't really matter if they did or not. You'll understand why as you read this article).

HOWEVER, if you look at the very early history of the computer RPG genre you find a lot of people trying to combine ZORK with the tabletop RPG Dungeons and Dragons, or at least the idea of a shared narrative space in an interactive fiction game . For example, MUD1 (the forefather of all things MMORPG) began its development with the intent to make a "Multi-User DUNGEN", with "DUNGEN" having been an unlicensed port of ZORK.

Now, while MUD1 did not use any of D&D, many other games descending from MUD1 did, such as DikuMUD, which is pretty much responsible for the creation of Everquest. 

ZORK, for those who don't know, was a text adventure game-- an interactive fiction game! The same category of game that visual novels belong to!

ZORK itself was inspired by Colossal Cave Adventure (1975) also known as ADVENT, which had influence on a wide number of computer RPGs, including every rogue-like ever made (including the Mystery Dungeon series and games like Azure Dreams from Konami, which many would call a "JRPG").

But let me talk about a game from which every "JRPG" and every "WRPG" directly descends.

'dnd' for the PLATO was made in 1975 by Gary Whisenhunt and Ray Wood. I've talked about it's importance in videogame history in an episode of RPG(ology). I'm also preparing to interview the creators. I've been able to talk with them a little about the game, and the events surrounding it, and they shared with me they had played pedit5, which is regarded as the first computer RPG. It was eventually deleted from the PLATO system, which encouraged Gary and Ray to make their own version (other reasons being they wanted to improve on its design, which they successfully did). 

'dnd' influenced Wizardry, which influenced The Black Onyx, which kick-started the  Japanese computer RPG industry.  Wizardry also influenced all the licensed D&D titles from Strategic Simulations, which eventually leads us to the games made by Black Isle, Bethesda and BioWare.

Furthermore, games like those in the Ultima series were ported over to Japan and influenced the design of Dragon Quest. Even Wizardry was translated and released in Japan, where the series became exceptionally popular, enough to warrant an anime OVA adaptation.

Furthermore, game companies in Japan make a diverse range of game products. They do not always use the same design mechanics. All of the major Japanese RPG companies produce many subgenres of RPGs. It is impossible to band them all together under the label of "JRPG", unless you are simply meaning "Computer RPGs made in Japan", which is the only way I believe the word should be used, since you can draw no conclusions about the mechanics of the game from that statement alone. Their industry is just too diverse. 

Nippon Ichi has done many action RPGs, roguelikes and strategy RPGs.

Square has produced every kind of computer RPG, ranging from the crude dungeon crawler (Deep Dungeon series) to the MMORPG (Final Fantasy 11).

Atlus has internally developed dungeon crawls, strategy RPGs, action RPGs and many of their Megami Tensei games have non-linear narrative elements to them. Atlus also produces a wide range of different types of games, everything from shooters to platformers to puzzle games. 

Many "JRPGs" have little in common with one another except a leveling system; for example, the Deep Dungeon series by Square has few of narrative structure and combat system design in common with Final Fantasy games. Many of the early Romancing SaGa games were essentially "Final Fantasy, if the narrative structure was non-linear". Any true student of the genre is going to know this stuff and recognize the differences.

I also know that Elder Scrolls: Oblivion had influence on the design of Final Fantasy XIII-2. I know this because in November 2011 I sat less than a foot away from Yoshinori Kitase, producer of the title, when he said that ES:O was one of the games the dev team had been playing a lot during the development phase of FF 13-2, when I was visiting the GotGame offices while he was there promoting an early build of the title.

There are no borders when it comes to game design, despite what the folks at Extra Credits assume. Japan has not been an isolated country for a long, long time. It is one of the United States most important trade partners and there is a lot of exchanging of ideas between our countries. 

So the argument that"JRPGs" like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest shouldn't belong to the same family of games as ones like Elder Scrolls and Mass Effect is positively ridiculous. They share common ancestors, so of course they belong to the same family! And had the guys at Extra Credits went outside their bubble and actually talked to the designers of these games they would know this.

Also, the argument about Call of Duty can't be an RPG because it's primarily a shooter is flawed; who says a game need belong to just one genre? If films can be both a "romance" and a "comedy", why can't games be both a "shooter" and an "RPG"? Why pigeonhole designers into choosing just one set of game mechanics?

Lastly, the guys at Extra Credits have assumed the Japanese designers did not know what D&D was when they were making their games and focused primarily on the videogame RPGs. This is mistaken.

Despite what Wikipedia will tell you (currently the article is confusing adventure games with RPGs, and making the common but mistaken assumption that all fantasy videogames must be RPGs), the first "JRPG" was actually made by a non-Japanese person; Henk Rogers, in 1984. The Black Onyx came about due to Henk's love of AD&D and belief that a game like Wizardry would work in the Japanese computer game market. Before 1984 nobody had ever heard of an "RPG" before in Japan and he literally had to teach the game reviewers how to play it. But they caught on quick and it caused a sensation in the market.

After the success of The Black Onyx,  there was a lot of interest in the tabletop RPG game that inspired it, Dungeons and Dragons. D&D then inspired Group SNE to develop the Sword World brand, (which most Americans are familiar with due to the anime and manga merchandise based off it, Record of Lodoss War), which became massively popular and spawned dozens of other tabletop RPGs, many of which have turned into manga and anime adaptions, like NIGHT WIZARD.

Sword World started in 1986 as a homebrew campaign setting for AD&D and the sessions were published in the magazine Comptiq, a popular Japanese computer game magazine.

This means AD&D was not just available in Japan, but very popular in Japan, BEFORE Final Fantasy (1987).  

Sword World was developed over a period of years, and even tried to become an officially licensed AD&D campaign setting before the designers made their own rule systems and self-published in 1989 with wild success.

Even as computer RPGs kept being developed, "Western" tabletop RPGs remained popular in Japan: for example, a beautiful version of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Rules Cyclopedia was translated into Japanese and published in 1991.

It is no coincidence that Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy use many monsters taken directly from AD&D's Monster Manuals. Creatures like slimes, oozes, gelatinous cubes and mind flayers have NO precedence in Japanese media. Hell, they have NO precedence in games before D&D.  Yet they, including the Mind Flayer, found their way into Final Fantasy.

So in conclusion, Extra Credits failed to do the research and since that flawed research is the basis for much of their argument on why "JRPGs" and "WRPGs" don't belong to the same family, "RPG" , their argument has very little weight. Both American and Japanese game designers find inspiration for their titles from the same game genres, and in many cases the same exact games.

Addressing point #2: Defining art primarily by how others perceive that art is fundamentally flawed because the audience is going to see things in the art that was not intended by the artist. This is why art, film and literature criticism strongly focus on the artist(s) who made the art, and what they intended to convey to the audience.

If we were to allow audiences to decide what genres media belong to, then Michael Bay films would probably be called "super awesome explosion" rather than action films-- but that is just a perception! Michael Bay gets a lot of crap for making popcorn movies but Michael Bay's films have a unique style to them, which is fairly consistent, even throughout the music videos from earlier in his career (which audiences are completely unaware of). I'm not a fan of all his movies, but I admit when you look at his work as a whole he has a consistent style in how he wants the story to be presented.

Secondly, let's look at literature: to millions of fans Harry Potter is a children's story that offers a great many life lessons and lectures at length about separating actions between, "That which is easy, and that which is hard". However, to an unfortunately sizable population of audiences, the book is interpreted to preach Satanism and much controversy has been had over those claims. Also, some people honestly believe Harry Potter is real and by acting out the steps in the book, they might be able to be Harry Potter.

So, if we actually allow audiences to define what a game is about based on how they "feel" about it, then we open the door to lending credibility to those who call first person shooters "murder simulators'.

You can't just say, "No, we only define by how the MAJORITY of audiences view it," because it is scientifically impossible to determine such a thing. We would have to insert Ender's Game-style scanners into the brains of everyone who plays Call of Duty and Super Mario Brothers to get an accurate reading of how the majority view those games and the particular reasons they play them. Making a broad assumption about something as complicated as a layman's perception of art, and then insisting that assumption to be dogma is not scientific, and has no place in any field of professional artistic criticism. Our genre labels must have consistency based in facts, not assumptions.

Game mechanics are facts. It is not open to interpretation whether something has a leveling system or not; a game either does or it does not. And that is why genre labels are determined by game mechanics, not feelings.

This is why real criticism is artist-centric. It focuses on what the ARTIST is trying to convey TO audiences, because what the artist intended tends to be very consistent, and is very easy to verify by simply asking them.

Granted, how audiences are emotionally impacted by the work is important, but the answer is only important for verifying how effective the artist was at delivering their message. That is why much criticism has been lobbied at Avatar; many critics feel the films environmental messages were too heavy handed and the line between who was "right" and "wrong" too black and white, which is interpreted as having the characters (especially the antagonists) be two-dimensional characters.

We know Harry Potter is a fictional children's story that intends to express the value of friendship, family and doing good in the world because the author, J.K. Rowling said so. We know it is effective at doing so based on the choices the heroes make compared to the ones the villains make, and how even though there is misfortune along the way, the heroes eventually prevail and protect their community.

We know Twilight is a fictional story aimed at young adults that seeks to express the value of friendship and making compromises in a relationship, and trying hard to be a great lover, because Stephenie Meyer has said so. We know it is not so effective at doing that because the story centers around the importance of having a boyfriend, even if he breaks into your house at night and stares at you while you sleep. The ideal lover is portrayed as a someone who can't decide if he wants to kiss her or kill her; a thought process most people would associate with a psychopath.

And....

....we know Final Fantasy 13-2 is a computer RPG because the fine folks at Square-Enix said so. We know it is effective as a computer RPG because players spend the overwhelming majority of their time manipulating the RPG mechanics, manually leveling up their character based on earned experience, and making decisions that alter the direction of the storyline toward one of the many possible endings.

I think the guys at Extra Credits are trying a little too hard to be clever. I hope they will retract their argument before they dump more fuel onto the "JRPGs aren't real RPGs" argument that is flamed all over the internet, which is based entirely from ignorance of videogame history as well as ignorance of game design theory, as well as ignorance of art criticism. It is sad to see Extra Credits giving any kind of credibility to those thought patterns, because I thought them more educated than this.

Actually, I'm certain they are more educated than to give that argument credibility and they should know better.

The layman doesn't think "JRPGs" and "WRPGs" are different because they play them for different reasons. They think they are different because they assume all "JRPGs" are like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, and all "WRPGs" are like Fallout, because they have tunnel vision for the titles that are most heavily promoted at Gamestop and talked about in major game publications (which are generally the same games).

They also judge at face value, and assume "anime graphics" = the poorly translated version of Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh from 4Kids, which got advertised all over TV, much to their annoyance.

The JRPG vs WRPG "genre differences" arguments only hold water when you ignore the majority of Japanese made computer RPGs and the majority of American made computer RPGs. Let's just take one company as an example: Electronic Arts. They have produced many computer RPGs that have no non-linear elements to the narratives, such as LOTR: The Third Age and Darkspore.

Another American company, Snowblind Studios, recently responsible for the dialogue tree featured but very linear narratived LOTR: The War in the North also made other linear narrative RPGs, such as Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance & Champions of Norrath. And the aforementioned Wizardry and Ultima games are very linear experiences.

If you actually bother to spend time on GameFAQs you can easily see the majority of American made computer RPGs have linear narratives, and there is actually quite a lot of Japanese made computer RPGs that have non-linear elements to their narratives. So the whole "WRPG" and "JRPG" genre labels really are a bunch of nonsense. For a brief period of time back in the late 80s and early 90s, there was more of a focus among American developers to make RPGs that featured silent protagonists whose personality could be determined however the player wished and much of the game was focused on exploring the narrative space (Fallout and  Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura are examples) but that period was brief.

If there is any real design focus in the Japanese computer RPG industry it is in making complex systems that can be manipulated with a console controller, whereas American developers had historically made their interfaces to rely on utilizing keyboards, but this had more to do with what platforms they were publishing on. It just so happens to be the game console market has been dominated by Japanese manufacturers for nearly thirty years, and the personal computer market (Windows machines) is dominated by Americans.

In short, the average gamer is a poor judge, and in the past 10 years a lot of average gamers found work at game journalist magazines, and they brought their anti-intellectual viewpoints with them. They don't even use rational methods for rating games, instead giving arbitrary scores to games based on how they feel about the first couple hours of play, as if that is supposed to be of value to fans of the genre that game belongs to. They keep using the word "score" in their reviews as they issue a numerical value to the game, which they have pulled out of their ass. Their use of the word "score" reminds me of something Inigo Montoya once said in The Princess Bride, "you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

For example, a not so long ago review on IGN: "I've never played more than an hour of any Japanese RPG."

 So naturally, you, the guy who doesn't play JRPGs, are the perfect guy for IGN to hire to review some Japanese RPGs that will be used by the audience who does play them to determine whether they should buy the game. Brilliant!

The videogame journalism industry is the only industry where you will see something that absurd. It would be like a food critic website hiring a vegan to review the food at a chain of BBQs, and expect them to actually produce a review of value for people who might want to eat there.

The labels "JRPG" and "WRPG" came about because the field of game journalism is in a terrible state of affairs.  There is no other reason.

The average game player no better understands the design of games than the average car owner understands the design of their car. Both a car and a game are complex devices designed to be so user-friendly that the operator does not need to understand how it works, they just need to understand how to use it.  But in the professional field of car reviewing and game reviewing, the only people who should be passing judgement are those who understand automobile mechanics and game mechanics, respectively. That this has not been happening for the field of game journalism is the real problem here, and leads to these kinds of silly debates that are given unwarranted credibility by game magazines with poor hiring standards.

The truth is that designers in both continents make a wide range of different types of RPGs, and they play the games made by one another to get inspiration. A true fan of the genre knows that.

(Edit: I've made another, much shorter post about this topic that covers a few things I left out.)