Japan’s indie game scene is growing up

theverge.com:

Ten years ago, a group of game developers in Kyoto started up an indie festival with the aim of promoting and uniting the country’s fragmented independent scene. One hundred seventy people officially showed up to the inaugural BitSummit in 2013, and organizers said they’d aim for at least 200 people next time around. 

I went along to the second BitSummit the following year, and it turned out that more than 5,000 others had the same idea. It was an appropriately ramshackle affair, with little to the staging beyond rows of tables in a gaping Kyoto convention center. The majority of exhibitors had traveled from abroad. Super Hexagon composer Chipzel put on a great live performance. The vibes were good, and it felt like something real might be starting, but the Japanese indie scene was clearly still in an embryonic form.

Back in 2014, though, the prevailing tone of discussion was that the entire Japanese games industry was in a bad place. After dominating in the PlayStation 2 era, domestic studios struggled to adapt to the challenges and costs of developing for HD consoles like the PS3, which sold fewer than half as many units as its predecessor locally. Even Nintendo looked to be in big trouble after the Wii U flopped immediately on launch. Several publishers turned their attention to handheld and mobile gaming. 

Since then, the Japanese industry has executed a remarkable turnaround. The PS4 and the Switch were both huge successes. Previously niche franchises like Yakuza and Persona have become household names, while Capcom is on an impressive run of revitalizing its own properties. Three of The Game Awards’ last six Game of the Year winners were Japanese, and few would bet against Tears of the Kingdom raising that average