Abstract
Examining the role of the “production field” in doujin games and how it diversifies game content in Japan by depicting the practices, activities, and livelihood earning opportunities of doujin game developers, we demonstrate that they are best described as hobbyists rather than “indie” or commercial game developers. The analysis of seventy-eight interviews with doujin game developers indicates that their interests and motivations are different from indies. Doujin game developers generally create games for non-economic rewards, such as the fun of production and interaction with other developers and users. Still, a number of them have been able to earn a living by selling their works at doujin events and doujin shops and some have begun to adopt new global game distribution platforms, such as Steam.
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Notes
- 1.
Doujin groups are referred as “サークル” or “同人サークル” (sa’a-kuru, doujin sa’a kuru from the pronunciation of English word “circle”) in Japanese.
- 2.
As Picard (2013) discussed, Tsukihime and Higurashi When They Cry, a visual novel, and Touhou Project, a vertically scrolling shooting, are most successful in terms of popularity and sales among payed doujin games. Both sold more than 100 thousand packages in Japan only. Additionally, fan-fiction, commercial movies, animations, cartoons, and console games have all been produced based on these games’ world views. Among others, Touhou Project is one of the leading doujin works on which numerous fan-fiction works have been based on and shared at doujin events, Nico-Nico-Douga (a popular video sharing service), pixiv (an illustration distribution site), and others for more than 10 years. The popularity of Touhou Project has ranked with Pocket Monster (Pokémon) and Hatsune Miku in fan-fiction activity.
- 3.
Jesper Juul (2002) distinguishes between “games of emergence,” which end with various outcomes by combination of several simple rules, and “games of progression,” which offer consecutive challenges to gamers. This is virtually identical to the distinction between dynamic and static games.
- 4.
According to a survey completed by the Comic Market 35th Anniversary project in 2010, 581 circles sold dynamic games and 648 circles sold static games among the answered 33,347 circles. Besides games and doujinshi—the main content sold at Comic Market—fan-fiction, cartoons or manga, original visual books, and novel books are also sold at the event. Among all doujin circles who participated in the 2010 edition of Comic Market, the number of manga doujinshi circles was 21,981, novel Doujinshi circles 8288, and illustration doujinshi circles 4355.
- 5.
The Akihabara LOKETE Game Show was an event in which doujin and indie games were displayed and played by audiences, held by the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) JAPAN at Akihabara in 2009.
- 6.
Street Fighter 2 is a fighting game developed and published by Capcom in 1991.
- 7.
Nana is the heroine of a girls’ comic NANA, written by Ai Yazawa since 2000.
- 8.
Newly developed console games should be ethically assessed by Computer Entertainment Rating Organization (CERO). Similarly, PC game should be checked by ethic assessment organizations like Ethics Organization of Computer Software (EOCS). These assessments are self-regulated and not legally binding. Still, non-assessed games cannot be sold at game shops, which do not order non-assessed games in order to avoid trouble.
- 9.
However, some doujin game developers have said that recently more and more users have become sensitive to bugs, often demanding the same level of service expected from commercial game companies. This is especially true in the case of female players, who are more likely to be importunate about the matter. Thus, developers of female-oriented games make sure to meticulously debug their games.
- 10.
Some doujin game developers aim for economic rewards from the beginning.
- 11.
This chapter defines “distribution” as the process through which developers pass their works to users. “Doujin distribution” refers to distribution processes via doujin events and shops. As of 2015, there are about thirty companies specializing in doujin distribution, including real-shop owners, companies, and download-only non-shop companies.
- 12.
Calculations based on sales data referring to Comic Market 35th Anniversary research, interviews with real-shop owner companies, and published data of download-only sellers (Hichibe 2013).
- 13.
At doujin events, popular circles’ booths are located along the walls of the convention halls. The most popular circles are called “before-shutter” (shatta-mae), while slightly less popular circles are referred as “wall” (kabe) circles. The least popular circles have rows of booths in the middle of the convention hall, where there is little room for buyers to line up.
- 14.
When selling works on commission at a store, a doujin circle gets around 70 % of the shop price.
- 15.
Games like The Walking Dead by Telltale Games share many of these qualities, but the developers of them make games for economic rewards. So, they are categorized into indie, not crafter or hobbyist (or doujin) on our framework.
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Acknowledgment
We are grateful to their constructive input by Dr. Koyama Yusuke, Dr. Miikka J. Lehtonen, and Dr. Nele Noppe. We also sincerely thank anonymous reviewers whose comments and suggestions helped improve and clarify this chapter.
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Hichibe, N., Tanaka, E. (2016). Content Production Fields and Doujin Game Developers in Japan: Non-economic Rewards as Drivers of Variety in Games. In: Pulos, A., Lee, S. (eds) Transnational Contexts of Culture, Gender, Class, and Colonialism in Play. East Asian Popular Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43817-7_3
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