culture clash (?)

  • Thread starter raweer
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raweer

raweer

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Switzerland
Switzerland
REALRACE
hi all,

Japan has a population of 127'000'000 people (US 317, GER 81, UK 64 53) ... I don't know, how big PD/Sony's homeland market is (compared to other countries - i assume big).
Their (business) culture - compared to the "west" - is very different (amongst others much less straight-forward, respect, "face" is fundamental, etc).
And it seems possible for me, that Kaz lives in a confining bubble, separated from the "real world". That he hasn't subaltern guys, who explain the "western" customer-reaction 1:1. And that he sees himself as an artist, who deserves respect ...

Perhaps this is an explanation or at least an approach for PD/Sony's behaviour? ... to the Japanese GTP-members: how handle Japanese websites our problem? ... if they even have one ;)

cheers, r., who is still waiting for the promised course maker and the community features - and would still play GT5 (shuffle) ... and don't buy GT7

Firedragon said: https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/culture-clash.316877/#post-10071067
Normalaatsra said: https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/culture-clash.316877/#post-10074348

edit: links to well-considered answers added
 
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Me as a westerner, would just prefer GT to be an open sandbox. Kaz provides the cars, tracks, and infrastructure and lets me create my game experience around it, without having to wait for 16 other people online.

Kaz as an easterner wants a game that is restricted to his vision, and only his vision. Unfortunately his vision is a moving target and leaves features unfinished for months and historic cars neglected.

Kaz is a lot like George Lucas, hopefully Kaz will be smart enough to one day sell out to Disney too.
 
DSkywalker01
Me as a westerner, would just prefer GT to be an open sandbox. Kaz provides the cars, tracks, and infrastructure and lets me create my game experience around it, without having to wait for 16 other people online.

Kaz as an easterner wants a game that is restricted to his vision, and only his vision. Unfortunately his vision is a moving target and leaves features unfinished for months and historic cars neglected.

Kaz is a lot like George Lucas, hopefully Kaz will be smart enough to one day sell out to Disney too.
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This is personal taste, not so much cultural.

I for one don't really like sandbox games.
I played and enjoyed GTA and Watchdogs. But when I'm done with the story line and side missions I loose interrest.

For Gt the seasonal events and gathering money for cars I like keep me interested (didn't use grinding on purpose because to me it's not).
Somehow the way Gt is build up suites me very well.
I wonder how long pcars can keep me interested with all cars available from day one.
 
I do think that plays a huge role on all the problems with GT lately. Kaz himself confessed about that "one artist; one car" bull poop. It's time to get over the Feudal Japan era for the sake of progression. PD should expand not only in their homeland, but abroad. They have the resources to hire more people and grow, but they apparently don't want to.

And although I don't completely believe that a new gen console will make that much of a difference on what can be done with the game, since this depends solely on the dedication that the developer gives to their game (better things don't magically appear. They have to create them. And the more power the console has, the more work goes for the developer if they want to squeeze out all the performance), imagine the possibilities if PD doubled their man-power. GT7 most likely be epic. For GT6 I think it's too late...

Doing this would be beneficial not only for them, but most importantly for us, their followers and consumers.
 
I think PD has basically a speed/productivity/efficiency problem, that is all. They usually deliver, but they are always slowwwwwwwwwwwwww...
They need to hire more people, but not only sound engineers, more people in general, to do more stuff, and faster...


DSkywalker01
Me as a westerner, would just prefer GT to be an open sandbox. Kaz provides the cars, tracks, and infrastructure and lets me create my game experience around it, without having to wait for 16 other people online.

Kaz as an easterner wants a game that is restricted to his vision, and only his vision. Unfortunately his vision is a moving target and leaves features unfinished for months and historic cars neglected.

Kaz is a lot like George Lucas, hopefully Kaz will be smart enough to one day sell out to Disney too.
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That doesnt make sense. GT is not a sandbox game and never will be. And being westerner or not has nothing to do with it and the fact that you may prefer sandboxes or not
 
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HuskyGT
I do think that plays a huge role on all the problems with GT lately. Kaz himself confessed about that "one artist; one car" bull poop. It's time to get over the Feudal Japan era for the sake of progression. PD should expand not only in their homeland, but abroad. They have the resources to hire more people and grow, but they apparently don't want to.

And although I don't completely believe that a new gen console will make that much of a difference on what can be done with the game, since this depends solely on the dedication that the developer gives to their game (better things don't magically appear. They have to create them. And the more power the console has, the more work goes for the developer if they want to squeeze out all the performance), imagine the possibilities if PD doubled their man-power. GT7 most likely be epic. For GT6 I think it's too late...

Doing this would be beneficial not only for them, but most importantly for us, their followers and consumers.
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Wow. An American saying the Japanese should get over their feudal Japan era, in which America nearly did. A quote like that is almost racist. If you don't think so, so be it.
How about Americans solve Americas problems.
 
Nooboogering
Wow. An American saying the Japanese should get over their feudal Japan era, in which America nearly did. A quote like that is almost racist. If you don't think so, so be it.
How about Americans solve Americas problems.
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It's not my intention to sound racist, and it never crossed my mind. You're just taking my comment and blowing it out of proportion.

And I'm not American. Even though I was born here in the United States and currently reside in this country too, I proudly consider myself Salvadorean (you probably wouldn't even know what that is), since that's where I was raised and lived for the past 28 years. I'm Hispanic and damn proud of it.

I'm sorry, but it is what it is. This is business what we're talking about. You can't throw culture in the mix.
 
HuskyGT
It's not my intention to sound racist, and it never crossed my mind. You're just taking my comment and blowing it out of proportion.

And I'm not American. Even though I was born here in the United States and currently reside in this country too, I proudly consider myself Salvadorean (you probably wouldn't even know what that is), since that's where I was raised and lived for the past 28 years. I'm Hispanic and damn proud of it.

I'm sorry, but it is what it is. This is business what we're talking about. You can't throw culture in the mix.
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OK. Sweet as. Never meant to be sensational and without looking or googling, I would say Salvordore is somewhere in South America.
 
Nooboogering
OK. Sweet as. Never meant to be sensational and without looking or googling, I would say Salvordore is somewhere in South America.
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Close. It's really hard to find because of how small it is. I actually think it's the smallest country in this part of the world. It's in Central America, next to Guatemala.
 
raweer
And it seems possible for me, that Kaz lives in a confining bubble, separated from the "real world". That he hasn't subaltern guys, who explain the "western" customer-reaction 1:1. And that he sees himself as an artist, who deserves respect
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Kaz is involved in other things than simply doing a game.
He has connections with car companies worldwide, obviously since he does a car game, plus taking part in motorsports.

Where I'm trying to get is that Kaz is not living in his own bubble as if he never leaves his country/culture, he get exposed to the western culture a lot, and know it already, have you missed the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge that Kaz did?
 
raweer
And it seems possible for me, that Kaz lives in a confining bubble, separated from the "real world". That he hasn't subaltern guys, who explain the "western" customer-reaction 1:1. And that he sees himself as an artist, who deserves respect ...

Perhaps this is an explanation or at least an approach for PD/Sony's behaviour? ... to the Japanese GTP-members: how handle Japanese websites our problem? ... if they even have one ;)

cheers, r.
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What behaviour exactly?
 
Boxout
Kaz is involved in other things than simply doing a game.
He has connections with car companies worldwide, obviously since he does a car game, plus taking part in motorsports.

Where I'm trying to get is that Kaz is not living in his own bubble as if he never leaves his country/culture, he get exposed to the western culture a lot, and know it already, have you missed the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge that Kaz did?
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So because he poured a bucket of ice on his head, that makes him understand our frustration with his lack of communication? lol
 
A few upcoming features are quite innovative and not offered in modern-day competitors, like the course maker and GPS integration (and yet people think GT6 is therefore incomplete..but that is another discussion that I will not take part in *yawn*).

The developer can simply decide to not disclose too much information about it to not give their rivals a free advantage. This is a major reason that some are forgetting about. Same applies throughout the entire electronics industry.

I don't think this applies:
raweer
hi all,

And it seems possible for me, that Kaz lives in a confining bubble, separated from the "real world". That he hasn't subaltern guys, who explain the "western" customer-reaction 1:1. And that he sees himself as an artist, who deserves respect ...
Click to expand...
(Almost) no one here knows the man personally and to speculate that he lives in his own world is therefore a bit daft, because it is purely based on assumptions. In some video of Kaz getting his own street in Ronda, Spain, clearly the contrary is visible: he is quite the humble man and nowhere near a person who himself thinks he deserves respect. Same shows in his documentary, so I would say he is a very reverential man instead.

What PD does as a company can have business reasons of all sorts, but to project it on the leading person is not fully justified. Who knows he's fully aware of the situation and wishes to be completely open, but is held back by the Sony management? An indication of this is the game being released on an exact date in December 2013 and immediately receiving a large update. That must mean that the Sony part has a great influence on the decisions taken, whatever Kaz would think of it, one would think.

Some of you will regard this as another excuse and will use this to classify me as an apologist, but this could be the truth. Not thinking about it as a realistic causal notion would be very selective. Now that's living in a bubble. :)

Truth is that games which are very open like Project CARS and Assetto Corsa are doing so because they had to create a fanbase from the beginning; they were almost forced to in order to be successful. GT has had a successful history and somewhere down the chain someone decided there was no need to 'modernize' themselves and to use the same approach. Culture could be a part of it....but really, that is speculation and no one truly knows.

I too hope that the situation will allow more direct communication in the future, but the general consensus is that big and inert companies are very unlikely to quickly adapt, so I would not count on it. Having direct communication and influence on the game's aspects would be fantastic...

Don't forget that these companies are in here only for the money and the communication is not a goal at all (except for the aforementioned new PC games that are only open and communicative to indirectly receive money). As long as the sales are up, the stockholders and high bosses are not likely to change anything.....well, that is what business courses are trying to make us believe and hopefully these are wrong in this case.
 
So I've been looking at this thread and apparently there isn't any "Eastern" or culturally foreign perspective about the working practices of the people behind GT and PD. Though I wouldn't want to give an opinion, I thought it would be helpful if I answered OP's question.

Even coming from Southeast Asia, I think Japanese ethical customs are vastly different from other Asian customs. Countless times has this been mentioned in any media that discusses about Japanese culture. It's the same thing in real life, Japan is not some kind of country that exists on TV, these people exist and they are different from everyone, just like how my customs is different from Australian or Indian customs.

The best thing to do is to not mind them (or now commonly known as "don't give a ***k") about it, because their business practice is different. It's absolutely fine for businesses to follow a different working formula that derives from another culture, it depends on the person in charge and how they see fit. If it works for them, then it's good for them.

There's a big irony about the posts mentioned here prior to this one, those remarks are considered offensive/insensitive in Eastern cultures.

Stylel_Code
He has internet, and if he can't be more open minded, it is his problem to keep beeing in such ignorance.
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DSkywalker01
Kaz as an easterner wants a game that is restricted to his vision, and only his vision. Unfortunately his vision is a moving target and leaves features unfinished for months and historic cars neglected.

Kaz is a lot like George Lucas, hopefully Kaz will be smart enough to one day sell out to Disney too.
Click to expand...

HuskyGT
I do think that plays a huge role on all the problems with GT lately. Kaz himself confessed about that "one artist; one car" bull poop. It's time to get over the Feudal Japan era for the sake of progression.
Click to expand...

These comments work perfectly well elsewhere, but [maybe] not over there. If people were acknowledging about the cultural barrier, maybe the GTP community's reactions to PD would be different (as in more moaning and whinging).

My opinion about Kaz though is shared with Firedragon's comments.

PS: I don't wanna start beef with anyone please. Not trying to be a social-justice warrior either. Just my 2 pennies that would probably be pointless anyways.
 
Firedragon
Don't forget that these companies are in here only for the money and the communication is not a goal at all (except for the aforementioned new PC games that are only open and communicative to indirectly receive money). As long as the sales are up, the stockholders and high bosses are not likely to change anything.....well, that is what business courses are trying to make us believe and hopefully these are wrong in this case.
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I couldn't agree more and I've said the same thing many times myself. As much as we, and I, like to think PD and other developers are micromanaging these games based on the wants, needs and desires of it's most vocal fans, it's really the bottom line that does all the talking and PD/Sony/GT's bottom line has been pretty darn good these last 15 years. If I were Kaz I'd just keep doing what I was doing, following my own dream, churning out the same basic game over and over, filling the coffers and going racing. The game has sold well over the years even if it appears that GT6 is down quite a bit and why change something drastically if it continues to sell? The only thing that will change his approach to the series is a shock to the wallet.

I'm surprised no one has dragged these two icons into the discussion yet:cool::lol::

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