Despite many pointing to Japanese games/developers as the golden standard, things are a mess over there. Not the least of their problems, but the closed culture of Japanese game developers is an ongoing issue…

And so, it was great to see all of the attention given to Kiyoshi Shin and the IGDA’s Tokyo chapter in Justin Hall’s Tokyo Game Show report up at Gamasutra. I’ve personally raved about the chapter’s work and progress in bringing the Japanese development community together, but nice to see it covered somewhere so prominent like Gama. Ditto for the previous coverage of a chapter organized developer seminar up at GameSpot.

<igda_plug_mode>The emphasis that the IGDA puts on “building community” is so important and makes a difference in many small ways. If you have not attended a local chapter meeting, I encourage you to do so. Many think they’ve got better things to do with their time, but taking a few moments out of a month to connect with peers is of fundamental importance - even if you don’t realize that it is.</igda_plug_mode>

Anyway, just encouraging to see that our ongoing focus to build community is getting noticed and in some small way is playing a role in the resurgence of Japanese development.

(As a side note, the Tokyo chapter is looking for some volunteers to help with a translation project on interviews with star developers like Miyamoto.)