So, real talk: why does GameCenter CX gets so little recognition as one of the most important transmission on games ever? Considering it's been going on for 20 years, I wonder almost no one has recognized how it predated so many current trends: retrogame mania, nostalgia, let's play, how we talk about retro games, etc
@damianogerli i'm gonna go ahead and wager a guess that a lot of the lack of recognition comes from a lack of an official, legal release outside of japan (when arino went to the USA it was pretty much a given everybody who went to meet him watched the show via piracy)
as for why there was no attempt at a localization after the "retro game master" thing bombed, beats me
@damianogerli the second post in your thread has not federated to this instance, but, wrt SA-GCCX: again, that's piracy. we can debate whether or not that's a moral thing until the cows come home, but it means commercial success is invariably dead on arrival. you and i know the show because we're terminally online, but a vast majority of gamers today never frequented web forums such as the one those fansubs originated in and still carry in their name
@damianogerli as for why the nintendo DS game was so forgettable: arino's challenge was popular in japan because the show was popular in japan. they had a star attached to it. pretty much everyone who recognized it outside japan did so despite the localization's divorce from the show, seeing as though it had no export presence. for everyone who didn't know who arino was, it basically passed for more indie retro shovelware.
@mavica_again who are you calling terminally online?!
Jokes aside, yes, I agree with most of your points. I sure hoped that with Kotaku publishing it the series would gain some kind of recognition outside Japan, but consider how they butchered it, no surprises that it didn't kacho-on (HE HE!). Ok, it could have gone way worse, but still cutting out the most interesting stuff and leaving only Arino's Challenge was not the right way to go at all.
@mavica_again the DS games also were kinda problematic, I ended up playing the first one before even watching the show and was very confused at what was even happening. Have no idea what XSEED was thinking importing it and axing all the references and not doing much about it. It did sell 100k which is not *HORRIBLE*, but definitely wasn't a great game. Have a feeling the later ones were very similar too.
@mavica_again still you know, in 2023 there's almost... nothing about it? One article on Fanbyte (RIP) and that's it. I'm trying to pitch to Kotaku a short history of the series, but I'm pretty sure they won't be interested, despite - y'know - the connection. I'm publishing an article about the series in Italian in a few days but not even sure who is going to be interested in doing an English version.
@damianogerli i agree with you completely: the disparity with the show's popularity in japan and niche online circles compared to its relative obscurity anywhere else is baffling. the DS game relied heavily on the show and understandably an export localization rubbed out too much to keep it interesting enough. why nobody has tried again to export the show learning from kotaku's mistakes is boggling.
that said, the show has momentum in japan. to foster the same outside japan would take decades
@mavica_again yeah, it is probably too late to do anything about it. still I'd like for GCCX to have a little more popularity, y'know just that tiny bit that goes beyond "ah yes the japanese guy from the memes". But there's not much else for me except, as Starship Troopers put it quite eloquently, "I'm doing my part".
@damianogerli it's kind of a catch-22, really