ChottoSummit: Japanese indie devs reflect on the JP indie scene post-BitSummit MMXIV

Developer Riki was surprised about public day customers admiring and being able and eager to discuss even the small details of games, such as the parallax backgrounds on his NES game Kira Kira Star Night.

Kimura of Onion Games liked the fact that the venue was dark because the games stood out and drew people's attention in the darkness.

One developer commented that people who think, "Oh I love this kind of game, I'll make something like it," don't come up with new things. Sometimes, he said, you look at a game and think, "Oh, this person really likes old games," and that kind of game is completely different from what someone who likes modern games will create.

One developer was talking about how he hates creating his own IP and would rather base his stuff on someone else's; another developer asked what IP meant. He didn't know. The others had to explain it to him, and it came up that it's more than just the characters and stuff, but also has to do with the branding. Licensing also came up. (It sounds like this is connected to a distinction Japanese developers make among themselves between doujin developers, which are more closely related to doujin fan comics and call themselves "circles" in similar fashion, and indie developers who are all about coming up with their own things.)

They discussed the difference between what is meant by "game design" when spoken by a Japanese speaker vs. an English speaker, but I couldn't figure out the difference. Too tired, it was a nuanced difference, and I'm not familiar enough with that part of the industry on either side of the planet.

The developers commented on the fact that Japanese indie developers are totally okay with getting together, hanging out, becoming friends... but they don't talk about what they're working on because they see each other as rivals.

Kimura mentioned the fact that if you go to the US, to things like GDC, they have weird indie games like Papers, Please held up against big AAA titles and that's normal. Kimura adds that BitSummit has some of the feel of those big shows.

One example he gave of how BitSummit is like GDC, the IGF, etc. is that with those big shows, developers come together from all over the world, exchange ideas, and then go home with relationships with people from all over, people they keep talking to and exchanging ideas with afterwards. (It wasn't explicitly stated that ChottoSummit itself was part of the connection, but there they were, talking about the state of the Japanese indie scene and how it compares to the scenes in other countries.)

Kimura put forth the suggestion that all that exchanging of ideas has been healthy for the overseas indie ecosystem and maybe Japanese indie developers should do the same thing.

The devs have heard BitSummit referred to as a mini-TGS, and although that could be seen as praise coming from an outside perspective, they really don't want to see it turn into another TGS.

With some exceptions (such as Goat Simulator), western indie games tend to be in development for longer than do Japanese indie games. Wonderment about how western indies survive such long development cycles ensued.

There will be a second ChottoSummit next month, so maybe we'll get more insights from Japanese developers. (I, for one, am really looking forward to it.)