Why Were 90s RPGs Harder in the US Than Japan? The Real Reason (It's Not What You Think)
Everyone says 90s RPGs were "dumbed down" for the West. The real reason? Video rental stores were illegal in Japan — and that changed everything.
https://playstationcouch.com/post.php?id=733Open linkView original on lemmy.today
23 replies
“it’s not what you think”. I think it’s clickbait. Was I right?
I don't know what to think anymore.
It's a short article with examples. Yes, the title is clickbait but the content is worth reading IMO if it interests you.
"Curiosity bait" as Tom Scott puts it. I am fine with it aslong as the title is not misleading.
It's not misleading. According to the article, there's a popular explanation which is wrong, and they offer a better one.
Never claimed it was. I said I was fine with curiosity bait as long as it is not misleading.
I know, I was replying to that sentiment. I didn't mean to imply that you said anything you didn't explicitly say.
The article contradict itself the whole time, the explanation for the FF case doesn't make any sense and is opposite to the argument.
all this does is make me wonder why game rental stores are illegal in japan when movie rental is, from what i've seen in the past, perfectly legal
EDIT
Cause rental stores made bootleg copies to rent out, and often sold the software/hardware to copy the games as well.. which irked the game companies which made the government crack down
Renting definitely has a purpose and utility provided it's a reasonable price. Coops and shared use spaces are better, but there are lots of things that people barely ever use in day to day life that cost lots of money. I don't want to buy a lawn aerator for hundreds or thousands of dollars when I only need it once every ten years or whatever. That's an extreme example, but a lot more people would be willing to do DIY maintenance or repairs on things of the barrier to entry weren't so high. Being able to rent power tools, party lights, rarely used appliances is a legit useful service to provide.
It's a really interesting subject, and although it's clearly had human editing, it makes me sad how much AI generation characteristics I think i see in the text
I could be wrong, in which case im sad AI has introduced such doubts and cynicism
If i'm right, i dont object but wish people would declare AI assist in the byline. Particularly when w are dealing with hobbies and fandoms and the like where passion is often the source of knowledge.
My new favourite meta game; is it written by AI, or by someone Autistic?
or someone AIstic
Let me tell you about MLB vs the Nippon League and why Japanese batters crush it in the MLB.
/They use a smaller baseball in Japan, so for Japanese batters its like softball in MLB size baseballs.
/Go Hanshin Tigers!
I knew exactly what the reason was. I hate these titles.
That's fascinating. Renting is such a toxic business model for so many reasons. Remember that predatory "rent any household object" store? Rent A Center. Glad that ended. Sad how a business model affects the creative work being sold.
In general i agree very strongly, but always gave cartridge game rentals a pass. You made me question that today.
I couldn't afford everything that looked fun as a kid, renting gave a 'try before you buy' option that simply didn't exist for consoles with physical cartridge media.
Early PCs had a lot of shareware and demo versions to fill that gap so rental wasn't needed, it's sad that those practices died out and left the space for people to profit by bringing barely anything more than having the wealth to buy the assets.
So the pass i gave is now revoked. Cartridge rental was me paying for something that should have been a marketing cost for the publisher.
Still think the old model of rent a movie for the weekend is okay, though I strongly object to streaming platforms renting access to nebulous catalogues). At least, it was okay when the rental cost was 10-15% of the purchase price... now i see ads for digital rental of brand new movies that are almost the same price as buying it on disc and that is just naked profiteering.
Yeah there's a lot of games I would've never played when I was a kid if it wasn't for the video store renting out games. I had a second hand Mega Drive, one controller and two or three games of my own, not bought all at once. And I can say that I got a lot more out of renting games than feeding coins into an arcade machine at least. They even had games available for swap, so I could trade something I bought and regretted, or finished and got everything out of.
I also definitely wouldn't have watched 90% of the movies I got to watch if it wasn't for the video store.
I think like anything else it's neutral, or a good or bad thing depending on what kind of predator is running it. Same as second hand stores. Renting out things that people need to survive sounds fucked. But renting out Sega games and whatever fantasy / sci-fi / horror movie caught my eye made part of my childhood.
These days you can still find a ton of demos on Steam and elsewhere, I have a whole section in my library for demos in fact. Really had fun with the demo for Secret of Weepstone. I like that model over rental or "game pass" bs.
I assure you, Aaron’s is still around and preying on people. Rent-A-Center’s name just changed.
We still have a rent-a-center here.
Good/bad to know
Neat article, and plausible explanations.