Japanese development needs more collaboration

The Japanese development process needs to be more open, and involve greater levels of dialogue with the community if it's to reverse the decline in global popularity of videogames developed in the country.

That's according to IGDA executive director Jason Della Rocca in an address at the Asia-Pacific Gaming Marketplace Forum, taking place ahead of this week's Games Convention Asia.

"Japan's trouble is down to the lack of community and collaboration between parties in the gaming ecosystem," he said, referring to a recent ITmedia interview with Game Republic's Yoshiki Okamoto, in which the designer stated that Japan-developed titles had seen their market share drop from 70 per cent in the eighties to around 15-20 per cent today.

"The projects that are more open seem to be more successful - more innovations come from open and collaborative environments."

Della Rocca cited a panel session from TGS in 2004 in which key team members from Half Life 2 and Resident Evil 4 discussed design techniques, with Valve s system of gathering community feedback to influence future game development leaving people taken aback.

"I don t mean to pick on Japan," he added. "But the open versus closed debate is an important one."

Games Convention Asia will be held at the Suntec Convention Centre in Singapore from September 18-20.