I said it before with the original version and the redux. While Megatech doesn't make their own games, it would be nice if someday in the future, they give it a shot.
Let Megatech Satisfy Your Primal Desires (REDUX)
- Thread starter Caravels of Portugal
- Start date
You need programming know how,but that's the easy thing, the harder would be getting japanese artists to pull it... and I think that's the easier one too(need someone in Japan to get doujinshi or pro artist)
Yeah, in the context of the timeline, Megatech Software did not have the prestige, resources, and support needed to develop a full game from scratch yet. As of the current chapter, they are still a small company specializing in the license and localization of Japanese computer games for release in the West. JAST, Otaku Publishing, and other groups have not appeared yet, for now, so Megatech is the only player in the anime game market, which was pretty small in OTL during its time.
I want to honestly admit why I created this timeline.
The history of Megatech Software alongside its contemporary, Otaku Publishing, is a small, fascinating yet forgotten fragment in the the history of the anime fandom. Before JAST was existed, these two companies attempted to import and translate eroge into English for Western audiences. Their games were not very popular, even moreso for Otaku Publishing, as they received little coverage from video game magazines or even anime hobbyist magazines. From what I examined from surviving reviews, these magazines seemed to have a negative opinion on Megatech's games for its content and gameplay.
Perhaps it was the sexual content of the games that repulsed normal gamers. Or maybe it was the rampant piracy that once plagued PC gaming in the 1990s. Or how anime was considered a niche, underground fandom as compared to general gaming and comics fandoms. We do not know why. But Megatech and Otaku quickly went out of business by the late 90s at latest. Their employees just simply vanished from the video game industry without leaving any trace. It would've been nice if the former employees could just come forward and speak about their experiences working with such companies.
I first discovered information about Megatech Software when I was much younger. It was a small link on Wikipedia article for Leisure Suit Larry, in which the article described how the game was much lighter in adult content compared to its then-contemporaries. One of the games listed last in the comparison was Cobra Mission. It was then I uncovered a lost world of video gaming. From there on, I searched for its whereabouts to no avail. It was only until 2023 I started working on the timeline to put it down and perhaps spread awareness about it. Before that, I've posted a thread about the matter in 2022.
Writing and publishing, coupled with getting responses for it, was the only thing preventing me from becoming onerous, ornery and odious about my life. It's a thing that makes me happy and gives me motivation to persevere with my life. I'd like to thank to everyone in my experience developing this timeline. I express my gratitude to @Jaiken for giving me the seed of inspiration from which the timeline grew out from. To anyone reading the thread, if you like the timeline, then please give it a like and spread awareness about Megatech Software.
Anyways, the next entry will be about Kogado Studio. As the company is still exclusively Japanese, I'm going to enlist some help in searching information about the company's history.
I would say it was definitely to niche to be fully successful at that point. I mean by that point America only just got a few JRPGs into their shores and they did not always have the best in terms of translations or marketing. People were just not that into Anime as they are now.
There is also the reality that gaming and entertainment was far more competitive with several great releases occurring during that time, you had to be at top of your game and not many anime games were or simply lacked the mass appeal to break out. That is before one counts the PC space which Japan at this point was barely a thing especially since most Japanese PC games were never translated and brought over, and even if they were they would face stiff competition from all of the new PC games at that time. Most people were far more interested in DOOM or the latest RPG to really look at Japanese games.
I think its a testament that Japanese games even made it big OTL.
Before the Working Designs translation of Lunar: The Silver Star, the few JRPGs that arrived in North America were notorious for their awful, overly-literal in-house English translations by non-fluent translators in Japan. This was not unique to JRPGs, as the memetic "All your base are belong to us" quote from Zero Wing, "I am Magneto, Master of magnet!" and "Welcome to die!" quotes from X-Men arcade game, and the various lines in the initial PlayStation release of Resident Evil can attest. This was one of the reasons why JRPGs were considered inferior products to computer-based RPGs like Ultima and Wizardry.
In the the 1980s to the early 1990s, there was a bias against Japanese video games. The Japanese origin of many popular arcade games such as Space Invaders, Pac-Man, and many others were often minimized, usually attributed to its American distributors such as Midway, or rarely addressed in their flyers. It's the reason why Nichibutsu quickly fell into obscurity coupled with how derivative their games were of other popular arcade games.
Console games featuring cute protagonists were changed to aggressive, mature-looking characters. This was a result of cultural differences between Japanese and American perspectives, which cuteness is more accepted in the former culture than the latter. The infamous box art of Mega Man 1 for the NES was an attempt by the illustrator to avoid depicting a cute robot hero and attract young boys, who would not be accepting of such a character design as well working on a short notice.
It was common to remove Japanese cultural gestures and practices in video games, although this is minor compared to the rest. The entire setting of the first Persona game by Atlus was changed from Japan to Chicago without bothering to change the background elements in the game. This includes the awkward racebending of Mark, a white character, into a black man with his hat changed from a beanie to a baseball cap.
During the initial years of the PlayStation 1 in America, Bernie Stolar, the executive vice-president of Sony at the time, enacted the infamous "Five star" policy. This prevented the release of promotion of 2D games, JRPGs and video games with strong Japanese influence to avoid undermining the 'edgy and cool' status and the emphasis of 3D action games of the PlayStation, which was being marketed to young males instead of the older child/young teen audiences typical of previous generations. He's still considered a hated figure in certain gaming circles today.
While such bias lessened over time with the release of Japanese video games with better translations and interesting gameplay, this sentiment still remained in Western critics and audiences. X-Play, a video game review show on G4TV, was full of anti-Japanese remarks from their hosts, particularly Adam Sessler, whenever the show covered Japanese video games. This and a lot of inappropriate remarks towards female characters earned the show a bad reputation retrospectively.
I mean I would say another thing is just the type of games that the different markets like. The west mostly likes action with FPS being the most popular while the Japan tends more towards RPGs and such. This is not a full rule but I would say this was the dominant position during the 80s/90s where Japanese games lagged behind the western market in terms of action, or at least outside of platformers which the Japanese did dominate.
Also I would say the anti-Japanese sentiment is far more pervasive than one would think as one looks at the changes done during translations and that are still being done today.
Also I would say the anti-Japanese sentiment is far more pervasive than one would think as one looks at the changes done during translations and that are still being done today.
Dude Ultima and wizardry invented rpg period ,even japanese developers wished to reach última level, plus also jrpg were niche as computer RPG ruled,they still do(Skyrim, Fallout), but Ultima was the stalwart.
I do have to wonder is Megatech should just making DOOM mods/total conversions and using that to get more attention and funds, since DOOM was all the rage and it would be much easier to get someone to play an Anime DOOM conversion mod than it would be to play a JRPG or Visual Novels, especially in the PC market place at this point in time.
Back in its heyday, this was the only source of game reviews for anyone with little internet connection, and it was a one-of-a-kind show where it mixed commentary with humor and comedic sketches. However, the emergence of video game review channels on YouTube eventually displaced X-Play and made the show outmoded and clunky in comparison.
Eventually, the legacy of X-Play began to rear its ugly head when preserved footage surfaced in 2020s. The hosts Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb would crack extremely offensive anti-Japanese jokes whenever they reviewed Japanese games, and sometimes had whole sketches dedicated to such brand of humor. The worst offender was the review on Baten Kaitos Origins, which the hosts disparage the reviewed game interrupted by the "SAGI" gag said in a stereotyped accent.
I'm not sure if it's feasible or not.
id Software was pretty permissive of mods based on DOOM, so this allowed the rapid proliferation of WADs on the Internet and the formation of communities within a year after the game's release. Although there was a wide variety of WADs ranging from total game conversions to joke levels, anime-themed WADs was practically non-existent, at least according to available information. Megatech Software is a licensor, not developer, at least for now. id Software may be tolerant of fan-made WADs, but releasing them commercial would result in litigation because the company does not want the Doom brand being undermined.
Yeah....why the hell would they do that tho? That's extremely fucking racist......
It's very difficult to explain.
What you see here in those X-Play segments were products of their time.
In the 2000s, where the show was produced, discriminatory humor based on ethnicity, religion, medical conditions, and sexual orientation was acceptable and commonplace in American society. There were a lot of Islamophobic jokes circulating in the initial years of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. Calling people 'gay' or 'autistic' was a standard schoolyard insult. LGBT people were often presented as wimpy or extremely creepy and perverted. Stereotypical depictions of black people as drug dealers, violent murderers, or rappers were often used on television shows. And many, many more.
It's a different time. These depictions were deemed wrong and are wrong today. Such depictions cannot be erased from history, only preserved for future generations to understand and avoid propagating hatred and bigotry in media.