World of Warcraft in Japan
There was only one time I remember where I think I ran into another World of Warcraft player from Japan. To the best of my knowledge, it was during a Dire Maul run. The player was complaining about some noisy youths outside of his apartment in Osaka and had to AFK.
For all I know, he could have been lying through his teeth while residing in Arizona. But it does bring into question the games player base and how it’s distributed worldwide. From what I understand, WoW is not officially sold in Japan. But after doing a search for WoW on Amazon Japan, there appear to be Japanese people playing this game.
I’ve always been curious as to how this game would fair in Japan if it was heavily marketed. Have Blizzard get a big-time celebrity endorsement from the likes of Downtown and see what happens. Or have Arino Shinya play WoW on Game Center CX. How funny would it be when Arino’s level 25 gnome warrior gets ganked for the 10th straight time by a level 70 undead mage? Sadly, I look at Japan’s lukewarm response to the Xbox and Xbox 360 and wonder if WoW would suffer a similar fate.
Japanese game design has a tendency to differ from what we find stateside. But not always for the better. I found Final Fantasy XI to be a painfully monotonous experience compared to WoW. Would the average Japanese player look at WoW in the same way?
I’d like to hear what you have to say. Have you run into any Japanese players in World of Warcraft? What was your overall experience like?
[Screencap courtesy of Kilroggian]
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I don’t know. Japanese gamers don’t tend to like what we over here like. It’s strange. They would much prefer a dating or soccer coach sim to almost anything. Our tastes are almost 100% opposite from each other.
I am also curious about the number of Japanese people playing WoW.
I saw one computer store in Akihabara selling WoW expansion box, but I didn’t ask if anyone buying or playing them.
I’m curious to see how WoW would fair in Japan also… Kiyoshi is not far off from the truth about Japanese gamers. How do I know? My wife is Japanese and I game’d out there for about 6 years. The players out there prefer online games such as Maple and things of that nature… For the up comming XP WotL is suppose to be hitting stores in Japan we will then see how good the game does out there… I know the Hardcore gammers will take a like to it, but it might take some time for it to really catch on in Japan. Only time will tell
I’m sure there are some Japanese people playing WoW from Japan but my hunch is it’s probably the gaijin who are buying on Amazon. Having said that I played UO back in 2000 while living in Japan (bought it at Lawson). The lag was horrible but quite few Japanese people were on the servers. Since WoW is, IMHO, a much better product than UO I can see where it would have a niche following.
I live in Hirakatashi, Japan about 20 minutes from Osaka. The only people i know who play WoW are myself and other gaijin. Although, when Japanese gamers see us play they are amazed.
I’m looking to get a proper (and powerful) desktop machine in Japan to replace my ageing laptop that I brought from Australia. While I’m considering going “local” by getting a Japanese OS machine, I was wondering if it would allow me to install the English-version World of Warcraft? Does anyone have any experience to share?
Much appreciate any advice.
Oh .. I do know someone playing WoW in Hokkaido. But yet again, he’s not a native Japanese.
@Alex – I played the ten day trial of WoW a few months back without any problems. My PC was bought in Japan and runs a Japanese OS so I don’t think you should have any problems from that at least. The difficulty I’m having is upgrading my trial account to a full one so that I can keep playing. The U.S. warcraft site requires a zip code together with your credit card details but my Japanese yuubin bangou doesn’t fit. Waiting for a reply from customer support…
If that doesn’t work you can always pick up a boxed copy on Amazon and use prepaid time cards.
Thanks guys. I did some testing by installing WoW on my wife’s Japanese PC (which aggroed her big time) and it worked fine most of the time. I didn’t try going into instances or raids. Questing outdoors and going into cities were ok. It gave me the “blue screen of death” twice. Not sure what happened. Had to un-install the game quickly before I get kicked out of the house.
But I’ve decided to go ahead and buy the new desktop anyways; will deal with the problems as they come.
Thanks again for the advice.
Hi!
I`m a Japanese player of World of Warcraft. It very isn`t popular in Japan. Reason mostly is most Japanese gamer don`t play regular PC online game. Most School Student play on T.V game as they have not enough time in their everyday life, so a simple cheap game system is best for them. Children and school student are best target for games. I don`t know if it`s different in other country sorry. I play World of Warcraft because I saw it when I went to America and I absolutly enjoy it. Also, it was a good way to improve my English. Is my english bad or good?
Most of the sentences in your post have at least one error in spelling or grammar, but they are all very understandable. Your English is just fine; not bad. Depending on how long you’ve been studying and practicing, it may even be very good. I wish that I could relate my thoughts in Japanese as well as you do in English.
I’m from Japan and lived in US for about one year and I play! Come join me on Blackwater Raiders server, Horde!! Omura, lvl70 warlock~
Im in the military stationed in Japan. I can say you really wont see any wow games in gaming stores here. Very few Japanese people have even heard of wow. However, I’m sure if it got advertised here it would be played. I would agree with kinkin though, most Japanese people are not into online gaming, its mostley PS2 OR PS3 games, wii. There is a very popular console game here simular in idea to wow called monster ball or something close like that and you can connect wifi to the internet and play online. My wifes cousin plays it and I’m going to check that out tomorrow. I have played wow for 3 years. Omura I will be sure to find you in tn game. You can find me on oceanic server calestraz caden or pvpwarrior alliance.
The Japanese are not as inclined to use the PC as “gaijins” This will be the main reason why WOW will not succeed in Japan.
let along lots of families in Japan dont even have a PC.
People here rely on there Mobile phones and that is sufficient enough
during dinner time people gather around the dinner table and eat and watch television, therefore giving home consoles a better possiblility of game play then a PC game.
Akihabara people are keeping it real by playing WOW but to the average gamer. A pc is not the game console of choice.
PC games = Niche Market.
are little undead friend up there saying Why is it?
It’s a sort of Osakan catchphrase.
Am a Japanese player but I don’t live in Japan, was raised in California, i can barely speak some of it though, language is pretty difficult though, its an SoV language (subject, object, verb). But my family said that kids in Japan are very busy in schooling and etc, that they only get a one day off and have a really short summer. Seems tough you but yet not much people drop out of school in Japan from what I heard.
Oh and also My old server had a lot of Japanese people lol my guildleader was Japanese we speak in japanese in the guild and others didn’t understood, its quite amazing when you meet another person that is the same culture as you, there is a bunch of vietnamese, chinese, mexicans, at my school, nooo japanese at all lol… It was a weird server, there was lots of asians, pvp server though. There was a guild that only Chinese people can be in lol and i think u also have to speak it too.
ehh with the right marketing it could be done, but if there’s already a small interest building im sure it could flourish there. personally as an American i would like to group up with some of the very sparse Japanese players. so if your currently in alexstraza and mabey later in cenarius look for an alliance character named luzar
I’m in Tokyo at the moment and was wondering if there was going to be a big WoTLK launch.
I’ve been ambling around mostly for the past few days but have yet to come across any WoW advertisements =)
To those who claim Japanese people are not into online games. That is simply not true. FFXI which was released both in the US and JAPAN was extremely popular Japan in it’s day. The amount of people who play in general has indeed decreased due to the age of the game. But there was many Japanese players who played that game. The ratio of english speakers and Japanese was about 1:1 IMO.
I believe if there was a jp language version of WOW and it were marketed in japan, it would do well.
I know these are v. old posts but as this site comes up first for a Japan+Warcraft site, I thought I would post.
I live in Japan and play WoW. The reason it has not broken the market here is that there ARE well-established Japanese-marketed MMORPGs.
Also there are hundreds of Manga Kissa (24 hour Internet and Comic Stores) where you can rent a darkened cubicle and play Lineage all day and all night.
I play WoW to stay in contact with users in Europe, but the time difference was a nightmare, staying up till 4am to join a Raid then finishing at 7am.
Eventually I set up a Guild for Raids at mid-day European time and a nicer Evening slot for players in Japan. Plenty of night workers in Europe also looking for daytime WoW action. The Guild is called KNIGHTS of DAZE on the Moonglade EU server.
Any players in Japan who want to Raid at more convenient times on a European Server, have a look at
kod.guildtag.com
Mixi (something like Facebook, but more popular in Japan) has a wow group, and from what I can tell the majority of members are Japanese. There are, as of now, over 1700 members on it, as well as groups set up for 3 different servers.
In my experience, wow runs fine on a Japanese desktop… I know people who play on both Macs and Windows machines bought in Japan. My machine runs Japanese Windows XP, and I’ve never had any problems with Warcraft, or any other English language games.
I usually use Sofmap to get wow-related stuff. Not many other stores carry the game, and when I asked at the Umeda Yodobashi Camera (a big electronics shop in Osaka), the people working there hadn’t heard of it… still, there is a community of players if you can get a Mixi account set up and can read Japanese.