Game Studies

Between Indie and Doujin: The creation of the Japanese indie

Abstract

This article concerns the changing reception of the Japanese gaming media ecosystemm from the 2010’s until today. It draws on previous fieldwork done by researchers like Mikhail Fiadotau, Michael William Vogel and Christopher Helland, historical accounts of the Japanese industry from Martin Picard and Yusuke Koyama, and conceptual frameworks of legitimacy and deviance in gaming by authors like Mia Consalvo and Christopher A. Paul. I suggest that the term “Japanese indie,” as it’s being used in English and Spanish gaming media today, repackages a sector of the Japanese independent development scene, commonly referred to as doujingeemu within Japan, for a globalized audience. Although independent Japanese games are usually understood as any work that self-publishes in Japan, the marketing developed by companies like Playism and BitSummit foster a distinction between works that are made following a hobbyist ethos and those that want to reach international audiences. The values and ideas associated with the English term indie have been imported to the Japanese development scene and effectively split it in two, with some studios embracing the new paradigm and others clinging to the old one. For some creators, this division is murky at best and is mostly used to dissociate their work from the ideological implications that the indie label imposes. For agencies and audiences, this distinction exists to distinguish between commercially viable titles, which are usually those that fit standardized forms of gameplay, and non-viable titles, which are considered niche or unpalatable to a global audience.

Keywords: cultural studies, Japanese studies, orientalism, constitutive rhetoric, reception studies, discourse analysis

Introduction

The recent upsurge of Japanese games into non-Japanese markets, through venues like Steam and domestic consoles, has opened new venues of inquiry around the relationship between dominant sectors of distribution and alternative gaming scenes. In game studies, conducting research about these topics poses difficulties that mostly come from a lack of precise data. Games that are made in languages other than English, or that are built using uncommon engines or operating systems, face accessibility issues that are compounded by existing biases and audience expectations. On a general basis, games that receive significant marketing pushes from distribution publishers take center stage and become relevant to the medium as a whole, while lesser-supported titles lack visibility from the get-go and therefore have it harder to get any recognition from general outlets. Japanese games that are distributed independently, or are made by small studios, have faced this problem for decades, and are highly susceptible to market pressures that sorts them into smaller commercial niches. Because of this, it is becoming increasingly necessary to establish a historical account of the different ways in which Japanese independent games have been distributed, perceived and consumed by non-Japanese audiences.

While Japan has one of the most significant game development scenes in the world and companies with global reach that distribute extremely popular titles (Consalvo, 2016), distributed independently games were barely covered by non-Japanese outlets, and when they did it, they usually characterized them as niche entertainment [1]. In recent years, however, academic researchers started to acknowledge these video games’s unique formal elements (Loriguillo & Navarro-Remesal, 2015) and their historical context (Picard, 2013), to the point that studying doujin geemu is on the rise today (Nakamura et al., 2017). Some English gaming outlets have also started to dedicate more coverage to Japanese independent games, usually by emphasizing their uniqueness (Shea, 2016; Haddick, 2023). Greater access and visibility in digital platforms like Steam is a significant contributing factor in this phenomenon, as the commercial opportunities brought by digital distribution have motivated some companies and authors to attempt international distribution (GOG, 2018). This development has also run parallel to decisions on the part of several Japanese companies to remake older catalogues and sell them on current hardware (Famitsu, 2022). This strategy in particular has been put forward by both international publishers and small-sized studios alike (Romano, 2020).

With this increasing visibility come questions about how Japanese geemu are being distributed today. For over a decade, marketing campaigns have tried to instill a distinctive form of “Japanese indie games” as a viable commodity in the West (Plante, 2013). In almost every instance, these strategies attempt to appropriate the complex, and not generally agreed upon (Garda & Grabarczyk, 2016), meaning of the label indie and apply it to titles that would otherwise be labelled as doujin geemu. Despite some attempts to equate these terms, documentaries like Branching Paths (Ferrero, 2016) insist on separating them for the sake of cultural distinction. Some researchers (McWhertor, 2014; Haddick, 2023) make a case for understanding doujin as a hobbyist activity and indie as more competitive and market oriented.

Though one might concede that most of the differences between these terms amount to semantics, they nonetheless carry over assumptions that have an impact on business practices. Many of the companies that specialize in localizing Japanese games (like Playism) or maintaining promotional events (like BitSummit) work with doujin developers while distinguishing between titles that gain international distribution and those that do not. Even well-established doujin venues like DLSite describe themselves on platforms like Steam as “a well-established digital contents platform specializing in Japanese indie works” (see Figure 1). The implication seems to be that, despite mostly hosting doujin software, Steam compels doujin venues to reify their catalogue as indie. As with other companies that host personal storefronts on Steam, Japanese publishers are shaping themselves to fit the expectations of the platform’s intended audience.

Figure 1. Screenshot of DLsite’s official storefront in the Steam platform, as of 2023 (screenshot taken by author). Click image to enlarge.

Through examples like this, a distinction is made between similar titles based on market expectations -- a distinction that creators and distributors insist on. So, what is the difference between these doujin and indie, and why does it matter to consumers and developers? In this article, I examine the historical and ideological baggage behind these terms and suggest that their use reflects an ongoing negotiation between local processes of a larger Japanese media ecosystem, and external market forces that keeps this ecosystem’s business models afloat while heavily conditioning it.

First, this research will attempt to discern the moment in which certain doujin games started to be defined as indie and promoted as such. I will use Consalvo and Paul’s framework of legitimacy in gaming culture as a lens to understand this development. In the same way that some players have contested that certain titles and scenes from gaming as a whole are not “real” games or don’t belong in the medium (2019, p. 60), so have doujin games been judged according to long-held prejudices about what games ought to be. While many successful Japanese games come from the triple-A industry, others have been accepted as indies (Juul, 2019, p. 177) and lauded for their “wacky” (Wagenaar, 2016) or unique properties. When the game does not conform with these categories, they are Otherized and seen as reflections of an otaku, or unappealing aspect of Japanese culture (Galbraith, 2019, p. 183). To understand how these distinctions came to be, this study includes a comprehensive summary on the use of the word doujin by non-Japanese audiences. This is followed by a study on the temporal contingencies that gave rise to the term “Japanese indie.” The final section reflects on the case study as a whole and suggests further comparisons between the Japanese doujin scene and similar fields of cultural production.

Defining doujin and defining indie

The terms doujin and indie have a complex history that require extensive descriptions beforehand. “Doujin” is Japanese in origin and was initially used to describe a self-publishing and sharing culture that arose in Meiji-era Japanese literary circles (Fiadotau 2019, p. 47). As it pertains to videogames, doujin has been used by authors like Koyama to describe games that are self-published or created by a small group of developers, who generally distribute them at hobbyist spaces like Comiket (2023, p. 8). This distribution method contrasts with the way that Japanese triple-A games are usually distributed, which is through massive venues and, most often than not, internationally. Due to technical and historical circumstances surrounding Japanese game development, many of these doujin titles are mainly published on PC platforms, beginning with the PC-88 in the 80’s and continuing to Windows-compatible software in the 2000’s. Moreover, they have been characterized by Japanese gaming audiences as containing large amounts of sexual content (2023, pp. 142-143), as well as putting a low emphasis on gameplay and a heavy one on narrative (2023, pp. 146-147). These characterisations stand against the fact that some the most popular doujin franchises, like Touhou Project (Team Shanghai Alice, 1997-), are generally composed of action titles without erotic content.

Using a four-layered framework model, Fiadotau makes a case-by-case comparison of doujin games based on their conceptual, historical, ecological and textual properties. According to him, doujin games are conceived by Japanese developers primarily as a hobbyist exercise, not one concerned with monetary gain. Their method of distribution, while increasingly digital, lies heavily on physical marketplaces like Comiket, and their history is firmly tied to those spaces (2019, p. 50). This historical layer is firmly tied to what Fiadotau calls an “ecological” layer, as conditions within these conventions heavily affect doujin development and create a distinctive media ecology, or environment (2019, p. 52). Their textual properties are also seen as different from mainstream titles, in the sense that doujin are not broadly appealing and emphasize narrative elements that publishers usually shy away from. More than that, Fiadotau is implied that doujin artists are not motivated to make a name for themselves or become rich by selling their games. This statement is not congruent with the fact that several doujin properties have achieved commercial success and international recognition; one example of this is the above-mentioned Touhou Project (Kaa, 2021).

Because of their textual and environmental properties, doujin games can be categorized as products that mainly derive from fan activities (Fiadotau, 2019, p. 43). In this sense, the main actors that consume and distribute doujin in Japan constitute networks like the one described by Ganzon for the otome gaming fandom (2019, pp. 349-350). Consumer investment in physical events, rather than digital ones, make doujin fans indebted to specific spaces of socialization, which help conjoin a shared identity based around consumption of these texts (Kirkpatrick, 2012). Following this, doujin games have also been treated as an extension of the same fandom practices that reinforce existing subcultures within Japanese society, mainly those of the otaku lifestyle. Although the term otaku has been used to describe different groups over the years (Galbraith, Huat Kam & Kamm, 2015, p. 3), in the case of doujin geemu, it has been applied to players who develop intimacy with two-dimensional characters, commonly referred to as bishoujo and bishounen [2] (Galbraith, 2011). Following this, doujin geemu also tend to tackle taboo subject matter or showcase controversial content (Cosmos, 2017, pp. 246-247). In this sense, many doujin are assumed to have bishoujo and bishounen characters and are seen as reflections of the desires of their niche audience (Galbraith, Huat Kam & Kamm, 2015, pp. 182-186). Aside from this, the term otaku has also been used to exoticize and contrast Japanese games of both doujin and commercial venues based on their weirdness to non-Japanese audiences (Hutchinson, 2019, pp. 24-26). In this sense, otaku does not refer to players who are emotionally invested in fictional characters, but to a general idea of “Japaneseness” that is seen as inherently Other or alienating. The concept of “Japaneseness” has a long history in the field of Japanese Studies and is tied with issues around Japanese identity and nationalism (Morris-Suzuki, 1998; Oguma, 2002), but here it’s being used to distinguish Japanese games and explain why they are uniquely appealing to non-Jappanese audiences [3].

Now that I have established how the term doujin is used today, I will now describe how the term indie has developed over the years. While originally used as a contraction of the word “independent” and applied mainly to punk music of the 80’s and 90’s (Wallach, 2014, p. 151), it currently no longer defines specific practices or content. Rather, it refers to a commercial category that evokes a general aesthetic or ethos around art, mainly one that is made by smaller groups of people and is not driven by pure monetary gain (indiegamemag, 2020). In outlets that cover video games, the term indie extracts most of its semantic meaning from well-known objects like the documentary Indie Game: The Movie (Pajot & Swirsky, 2012). In that film, the term is embodied by its three protagonists, who exhibit similar attitudes towards game development: an individuated, highly vision-driven work ethic; a small number of participants; and a desire to make games that innovate mechanically while evoking a certain form of nostalgia. From 2010 onwards, gaming media like IGN have tightly associated these attributes with the indie ethos, especially in comparison with the seeming homogeneity of triple-A titles.

As Juul puts it, the indie mindset implies a framework of production that articulates an opposition towards normative models of production, consumption and design (Juul, 2019, pp. 14-15). In general terms, this mindset is still evoked by English and Spanish gaming outlets, even though several indie productions of recent years no longer subscribe to it. As Garda and Grabarczyk observe in their discursive analysis of the word (2016), the freedom originally associated with the term can imply several forms of independence, whether financial, creative or commercial. In this way, there is not a single definition of indie that can be applied equally to every production today, and many outlets do not specify one either. As a result, several scenes and events that do share much in common are currently sharing the label of indie. As Juul once again notes, games that are generally agreed upon as landmarks of the indie movement include titles like Super Meat Boy (Team Meat, 2010), Braid (Number None, 2008) and Cave Story (Studio Pixel, 2004) -- a Japanese PC title that was independently produced and distributed. These games share a similar ideological framework of opposition to standard processes of development at the time of their release, as well as similar networks of distribution, but their context nonetheless differs in several ways.

Indie games also differ from doujin in that, aside from digital platforms, their main venues of distribution are festivals and game jams. According to Juul once again, these events are fuelled by an anti-modernist mindset (2019, pp. 175-177) that compels designers to adopt an authorial approach and go back to simpler design conventions to set themselves apart from mainstream video games. Artistically speaking, this leads many designers to develop games that evoke genre conventions of the 80s and 90s -- an era of game design that most of these creators grew up in. Japanese doujin are seemingly not driven by the same ideological impulses, as their interests lie mostly in fan works that focus on narrative content (Fiadotau, 2019, pp. 63-64). As such, they are not subjected to the same discussions around authenticity that indie gaming (as well as other forms of indie culture) continues to face today.

The shifting dynamics that encompass both the doujin and the indie scene have informed how investors navigate an increasingly competitive market. As of this moment, these terms are used less to evoke a particular fieldwork or ethos and more as floating signifiers (Hall, 2021, pp. 359-374). Both words had some overlap for a time (Fiadotau, 2019, pp. 41-42), but their differences today are emphasized to the point that they are no longer considered part of the same cultural field. However, the story of their use reveals, through events like BitSummit (discussed further below), that the appearance of the category “Japanese indie” marks the moment in which several of these doujin titles were reified for a non-Japanese audience. Because of this, “Japanese indie” games today can be seen as an attempt to hybridize international indie practices with local, doujin ones.

Use of the term doujin by Japanese and non-Japanese audiences

At the beginning of the 21st century, the word doujin was used in English and Spanish forums that focused on Japanese popular culture, described both independent books and videogames from Japan. Originally used in this context by manga and anime enthusiasts (OoCities, 2003), the term was usually translated as “fan work.” Within more general gaming communities, the term took slightly longer to appear and was usually paired with bishoujo (Lluna, 2005). At the time, these games consisted almost always of visual novels, and they mainly appealed to hentai (pornography) fans. Doujin games, therefore, were primarily conceived as pornographic by online gaming audiences during the 00’s. Its meaning started to change, however, when English-based websites started to promote titles that did not conform to these stereotypes. Spaces like Hardcoregaming101 (2009) Insert Credit (2002) and Canned Dogs (2009) spearheaded interest in titles that would later become staples of the doujin scene, such as Glove on Fight (French Bread, 2002a) and Melty Blood (French Bread, 2002b).

By the late 2000s, magazines like Retro Gamer (Szczepaniak, 2009) were publishing articles that reclaimed more nuanced takes on Japanese gaming, but preconceptions about the abundance of sexual content still prevailed (Snow, 2008; Ty, 2009). In academic circles, research around Japanese independent games was sparse, but there was a growing interest in the thematic complexity of some bishoujo games (Jones, 2005). Making similar claims as later researchers, Jones argued that the capacity of transportation present in visual novel narratives of the time offered a higher sense of authenticity in representing Japanese culture. The main element that was highlighted to justify this perception was that their stories are usually set in everyday settings like high school, shopping malls and Japanese neighbourhoods. A similar argument would be made years later by Helland when discussing franchises like Touhou Project (2018, pp. 43-47). A consistent framework developed within academia that saw doujin games as potential providers of “Japaneseness.”

Other studies of the time focused on the sexual content of these games (Martínez & Manolovitz, 2009; Sousa, 2014). This research concluded that Japanese doujin were narratively complex but designed for gratification first and foremost. It would take another decade before new frameworks started to appear (McInerney, 2019), and by then, a greater historical interest on local development scenes had already developed (Picard, 2013). While Mia Consalvo focused on triple-A Japanese titles (2016) and Loriguillo and Navarro-Remesal studied geemu’s ties to the Japanese media mix (2015), authors like Hichibe and Tanaka (2016), Vogel (2017), Helland (2018) and Fiadotau (2019) treated doujin games as a local phenomenon. Their work set the ground for current studies in doujin games by distinguishing them as their own cultural field. In several cases, these studies established direct comparisons with the indie market, explaining that although doujin and indie share similar attributes, their ideological and cultural backgrounds were significantly different. These assertions, however, also cemented a perceived distance between the Japanese local scene and the rest of the market.

While doujin games were being further considered for research, the meaning of the word began to change among Japanese developers by the mid 2010’s. Thanks to the internationalization brought by digital platforms, several doujin games started becoming popular overseas. This is probably one of the reasons why, when talking about what being a doujin artist means today, prominent figures like Jun’ya Ota, original creator of the Touhou franchise, said that “doujin games are starting to become indie” (Ferrero, 2016). To authors like Ota, the popularity brought about by services like Steam also brought a sense of professionalization to doujin development, making them look more indie as a result (Vogel, 2017, pp. 36-38; Al-Aaser, 2018).

As of today, doujin games are still treated as a distinct category in English and Spanish websites (Shea, 2016), and have been celebrated for their creativity. As Alicia Haddick argues, “whereas the indie market’s evolution has defined independent development in terms of the scale of production and inception away from the major studio model, doujin games in Japan define themselves by being unique experiments produced by and for like-minded fans” (2023). Statements like these use similar distinctions as those suggested by researchers like Fiadotau, which are being used in popular outlets as well. This distinction can be explained as an effort to instil an ideological effect, as Consalvo and Paul define it (2019, pp. xxvii-xviii), that might impose a view of doujin as a vibrant and dynamic sector within the industry. This effect is delivered by going against what is seen as conventional wisdom, like the notion that doujin games are mainly pornographic (Griffin, 2020).

Depending on the sender, an ideological effect can imply different motivations and results. When applied by Japanese developers in documentaries like Branching Paths (Ferrero, 2016), it can be seen as an effort to dissociate their work from mainstream games. When applied by doujin enthusiasts, it can be seen as a form of identity formation (Kirkpatrick, 2012), as well as a reinforcement of fandom networks of consumption (Ganzon, 2019, p. 350). However, when applied by international observers like Haddick, it can be seen as an effort to generate value around the local development scene and ensure its international projection. Currently, doujin games are still based around events like Comiket, and their content is still heavily tied to local processes that cannot be easily exported. To compensate for this, some doujin games have been paired, by fans and creators alike, with other forms of Japanese culture (Gushiken & Hirata, 2014, p. 145), and have therefore been imbued with a sense of “Japaneseness.”

The “Japaneseness” of doujin games

If recent developments of the word doujin in American and Spanish outlets are considered, the term, as well as the games associated with it, is arguably going through a process of legitimization (Consalvo & Paul, 2019, p. 85). Such a process, however, goes against the popular conception of Japanese independent games as pornographic or alienating. This implies that, on the part of non-Japanese observers, a legitimate difference exists between doujin games that focus on erotic content and games that do not. Like with other forms of Japanese popular culture, a conscious distinction is made between aspects of the culture that are deemed “cool” and aspects that are considered “uncool” to foreign audiences.

For decades, American and Spanish audiences have set distinctions around Japanese culture to try to conform it with expectations of an idealized Other. As a rhetorical and ideological strategy, these distinctions have been used by Japanese politicians (Sakai, 1997, pp. 72-74) and cultural industries alike (Iwabuchi, 2002, pp. 42-44) to instil a sense of authenticity and increase Japan’s reputation overseas. In this sense, the ability of some cultural artefacts to evoke an attractive notion of “Japaneseness” stems from their ability to adapt and conform to audience expectations by reinforcing an essentialized view of their country. Triple-A titles evoke it by mechanically or environmentally reproducing some aspect of Japanese society, like in Yakuza (Ryu ga Gotoku, 2002-) and Persona (Atlus, 1996-). In some cases, it has been associated with entire genres like the JRPG (Pelletier-Gagnon, 2014, pp. 64-72). The perception of some Japanese games by American fans as products with “frictive” qualities (Annett, 2014, pp. 325-327) makes them especially attractive to evoke an idealized and cool Other.

This idealization comes at the expense of a more nuanced perspective on the realities behind the culture that enables these products, and in some cases, it fosters a monolithic and conservative image of Japan. In popular venues like fashion, branding initiatives like “Cool Japan” have attempted to foster interest in Japanese brands while reinforcing an essentialized and ultimately infantilized view of the Japanese woman (Miller 2011, pp. 23-24). With Japanese popular culture, Japanese politicians have attempted to push against an image of so-called “Porno Japan” (Galbraith, 2019, pp. 181-183). The Japan they are fighting against here is the one that encapsulates the otaku lifestyle, which is defined as sexually and socially deviant to Japanese norms (Galbraith, Huat Kam & Kamm, 2015, p. 188). The criteria for displaying otaku traits usually tied with the consumption of content with bishoujo or grotesque qualities, which corresponds with Galbraith’s recollection of the term (2011) and Fiadotau’s findings around several doujin titles (Fiadotau, 2019, pp. 58-59). As it happens with Japanese female fashion (Miller, 2011), the push towards legitimizing certain forms of popular expression in Japan is done by marking other forms as illegitimate or unrepresentative of Japan as a whole.

As of today, the association of the doujin scene with non-conforming aesthetics continues through a shared use of fandom networks that sometimes runs counter to legitimizing efforts from Japanese institutions. Consumers of popular doujin franchises like Touhou Project overlap with consumers of unacceptable or pornographic content, in the same way that consumers of “clean” otome games cannot be dissociated from those that explore social taboos (Cosmos, 2017, p. 250). Thanks to this, the “Japaneseness” that these titles evoke in foreign audiences is not as idealized as the one evoked in triple-A Japanese titles like Final Fantasy (Square-Enix, 1989-). However, one development that has proven successful to legitimize certain doujin games has been reifying them as a new category of “Japanese indie.”

The conceptualization of the “Japanese Indie” game scene

The moment when Japanese games started to be categorized as indie came at some point in the early 2010’s. During the 2000s, the use of the term “indie” remained ambiguous and frequently overlapped with the term doujin. In the popular web forum TIGSource (see Figure 2), users asked for places to “find Japanese indie games” (Aquin, 2009) and wondered about how they were being made and distributed. Over the course of the thread, several users made a point about distinguishing Japanese production, whether indie or “standard,” from the rest. For example, user “Tom Sennett” claimed that “The Japanese mainstream is already batshit crazy, so there has to be some really awesome stuff on the fringe.” User “alspal” also claimed (albeit with doubts) that indie games in Japan was synonymous with doujin games, and as a result, user “agj” responded by suggesting that doujin were most usually fighting or shooting games that “prominently feature loli artwork” (loli here being used to refer to erotic depictions of underage female characters). This assertion was quickly rebutted by user “Aquin,” who asserted that they played “a hell of a lot of doujin platformers” and suggested that doujin games could be considered indie under a certain light. That said, Aquin conceded that “loli artwork abound.” By 2009, doujin games were already being defined and judged by foreign audiences on the basis of their similarities with other games, but also according to their bishoujo qualities. It is interesting that users made no mention of visual novels, which were a representative genre within the scene and had been, up until that point, a main reference for bishoujo titles. Already in this Anglo-centred forum, indie games were mainly conceptualized as those that fit into the anti-modernist mindset identified by Juul, and titles that did not fit this mindset were frequently left out of the conversation [4].

Figure 2. Heading of a TIGSource thread, started in 2009, that asks where to find Japanese indie games (screenshot taken by author). Click image to enlarge.

The growing interest in Japanese indie soon began to impact business decisions. Titles like La-Mulana (GR3 Project, 2006) and Cave Story’s remake by Nicalis (2011) prompted international publishers to find similar titles in the Japanese market. One of the first websites to use the term “Japanese Indie” was PSNTORES, which focused on Sony’s online store releases. When announcing the release of Gundemonioun Collection (Platine Dispositif, 2010), the author Chris K initially classifies this game series as doujin, but immediately clarifies that “doujin means (...) indie, games from Japan” (Chris K, 2010). The article also contains some declarations from Sony’s director of Business Development, who expressed interest in bringing doujin games to international audiences because doing so “demonstrates our desire to deliver new genres filled with creative games to a global audience.” Not too long after this, Capcom established a partnership with Nyu Media (Gamespot Staff, 2011) and started to localize well-known doujin titles. Like other localization companies, Nyu Media generated interest by appealing to fans of Japanese games, especially through the Steam Greenlight initiative (Estrada, 2014). With this system, games with high userbase demand had stronger chances of getting published and distributed. Nyu Media tried to foster interest in the Japanese gaming scene through the same avenues that indie consumers were using to at the time, and as a result, many of their titles were marketed as indies.

In the same year, the localization company Active Gaming Media launched the Playism platform, a digital store similar to Steam that tried to establish its own brand around Japanese PC gaming (Sahdev, 2011). By focusing on translating popular indie titles into Japanese, AGM created a venue for Japanese players to access the same games that indie culture was championing at the time. The platform also set out to promote doujin games overseas and tried to introduce monetary strategies that were firmly embedded in American’s indie game development, like crowdfunding. In doing so, Active Gaming Media would become one of the main promoters of the indie ethos in the Japanese market. It is important to consider that, at this point, doujin games were considered indie in the sense that they were perceived as possessing similar attributes, despite their cultural background. As a result, most of the Japanese games featured on Playism were similar or belonged to the same genres as those from the American indie scene.

The launch proper of the Japanese indie game scene would not happen until 2013 with the inauguration of the BitSummit festival (Plante, 2013; Vogel, 2017, pp. 34-35). Through this venue, foreign publishers of indie games gained a foothold in the Japanese market for the first time, and several creators began distributing doujin internationally. BitSummit festival’s main promoter, James Mielke, clarified that the purpose of the event was to make sure that the world knew about the Japanese indie scene (Ashcraft, 2013). As Vogel recounts, Mielke’s strategy was an explicit attempt to educate Japanese developers in the ways of indie publishing, providing them with the tools that could set them apart and gain a foothold in the global market. At the time, Vogel described Mielke’s declaration as possessing a “civilization-bearing subtext” (2017, p. 37), and it could be seen as an attempt to disrupt doujin development by inserting foreign, indie values into the scene.

Shortly after BitSummit was established, distinctions between doujin and indie development became more distinct. Cara Ellison, in an article for The Guardian (2014), described the Japanese scene as a hobbyist-driven space, and emphasized the necessity to separate most Japanese geemu from the ones that were being promoted at events like BitSummit and the similar Tokyo Indies. Meanwhile, reporters like Brian Ashcraft (2014) and Chris Priestman (2014) interviewed developers and organizers who made a conscious effort to distinguish their output from those found at spaces like Comiket. One designer in particular, Ojiro Fumoto, asserted that Japanese doujin games were not aiming at the global market like Western developers were doing at the time, and as a result, the preferences and expectations of both groups did not properly match. Several developers echoed this perception at several events, and Vogel notes at the time of his research that their aim with this was to create a space of distribution based around game jams and festivals, which was like how indie games operated in America at the time (2017, pp. 37-38). Another key development that Vogel recounts is the adoption of programming tools that had been standardized in the English indie sphere, like the Unity engine (2017, pp. 75-83).

These events and marketing campaigns catalysed a distinct market of Japanese indie geemu. The efforts of Active Gaming Media, BitSummit and eventually Comiket itself (Smith, 2014) enabled the legitimization of certain Japanese games to non-Japanese audiences. The resulting space became a mixture of doujin and indie sensibilities, with some prominent actors becoming figureheads for both. One of the authors that displayed both doujin and indie traits was Jun’ya Ota, whose work Helland dedicated his article to (2018). Others, like Ojiro Fumoto and the game company Nigoro (creators of La-Mulana), became more distinctively indie in their output. Unlike doujin artists, their work was not hobbyist-based nor derivative of existing media, and their focus on international distribution made them successful as indie creatives.

A good example of this “indiefication” of the doujin scene can be found in Yume Nikki (Kikiyama, 2004), an independent title that acquired a significant fandom in the late 2000s. After Playism acquired distribution rights to the game, they commissioned Kadokawa Games to create a remake. The result, Yume Nikki: Dream Diary (2018), was intended to celebrate the original game while updating it to modern sensibilities. The differences between the two games exemplify the gap between the original’s doujin sensibilities and the newer one. While Yume Nikki had been released freely, the remake was sold commercially and officially distributed by a major publisher. According to the title’s website, this remake set out to respect the original author’s vision while incorporating elements from “other recent indie juggernauts to create something wholly unique” (see Figure 3). Its release was also worldwide, contrasting the original game’s exclusive Japanese release and eventual fan translation. Its gameplay was also similar to well-known indie platformers like Inside (Playdead, 2016). Lastly, the game was developed in the Unity engine, whereas the original had been created with RPG Maker.

Figure 3. Screenshot of Kadokawa Games’s official homepage of Yume Nikki’s remake. The English and Japanese text emphasizes that the game has been made respecting the author’s vision while adding modern gameplay sensibilities (screenshot taken by author). Click image to enlarge.

The conclusion that can be drawn from this is that through this so-called “indie intervention” (Vogel 2017, p. 34), doujin games were divided in two separate arenas: one who acquired indie properties and began distribution through indie avenues, and the other who didn’t and became progressively isolated. While one clung to its hobbyist roots and made use of the same local spaces, the other became increasingly geared towards digital distribution and international success. By the time researchers like Fiadotau and Helland started distinguishing between the two arenas, the material conditions of both fields were dissimilar enough to constitute separate scenes altogether. A key distinction was that indie Japanese games appealed to international preferences and global trends in the gaming medium, while doujin remained regionally specific.

Despite the efforts put forward by events like BitSummit to hybridize doujin and Western indie cultures, the positive reception of Japanese indie games suggests that their consumption is still tied with cultural expectations around “Japaneseness.” At the height of Japanese games’ “indiefication,” popular gaming channels on platforms like YouTube praised Japanese titles as meriting separate treatment from other indies (Weidman, 2014). According to these channels, games like Crimzon Clover (Yotsubane, 2011) appealed to indie consumers by the fact that they were Japanese titles that displayed mechanical sensibilities from earlier years. This helped provide them with a sense of authenticity that became directly tied to their “Japaneseness.” The assumption that Japanese doujin had remain isolated from international markets for most of their existence (Gill, 2021) imbued these games a similar ethos to the one Juul describes as a main feature of indie games. As an example, several popular channels like Extra Credits (Floyd & Portnow, 2015) saw the appearance of independent Japanese developers like Artplay and Comcept (Byford, 2015) as the beginning of an auteur movement in Japan that would surpass creative limitations put on by the Japanese industry. This rhetoric was ultimately used to legitimize Japanese figures of the triple-A industry as well, such as Hideo Kojima (Parkin, 2015) and Tetsuya Nomura (Herreros, 2022). The career and artistic preferences of these authors, whether coming from both well-established and smaller firms, were eventually subsumed into the umbrella of cool “Japaneseness,” and received a similar treatment that Westerm indie developers had.

In contrast, Japanese games that do not adhere to popular design choices nor conform to audience’s expectations of “Japaneseness” continue to be labelled doujin. In conjunction with this, their perception as uncool titles is reinforced by emphasizing aspects that make them less palatable to non-Japanese audiences. As such, doujin have become more associated with bishoujo and bishounen content. While Japanese indies conform to the hegemonic paradigm that indie gaming turned into in the mid-2010s, doujin games remain marginalized.

Conclusions and further research

As this historical account has hopefully shown, the distinction between terms like “indie” and “doujin” brought about by events like BitSummit has not been as clear-cut as it looks. While nowadays many Japanese titles are labelled indie and receive coverage from major news sites as such, there are still several titles that conform to a doujin paradigm. Some of these Japanese geemu are also being labelled as indie and doujin at the same time. A recent example of this complex labelling process is the use of the tag indie to include any Japanese game that successfully makes its way into Steam. While veteran publishers like Playism make a point of distinction via selective curation, companies like DLSite label everything they upload as indie. Thanks to this, significant doujin titles like Higurashi When They Cry (07th Expansion, 2002) have been remade and marketed to non-doujin consumers.

These recent developments make it increasingly difficult for general audiences to distinguish between indie and doujin. As some doujin developers believe that their scene is becoming more indie (Ferrero, 2016), legitimate concerns about the after-effects of this “indieglobalization” (Wallach, 2014, pp. 156-157) are beginning to rise. Considering that the main drive behind the indie ethos pushed by BitSummit and similar events is to legitimize and professionalize the Japanese local development scene, it is reasonable to assume that the hobbyist and fan-driven ethos of doujin development may not be able survive in this new environment. Just as Japanese politicians are trying to regulate Japanese culture writ large to make it more amenable to foreign audiences (Galbraith, 2019, p. 183), indie publishers are exerting a similar impact on Japanese geemu.

For foreign audiences, however, Japanese indie games still retain a sense of authenticity that is mostly derived from their adherence to previous eras of the medium, and for the influence that Japanese games had on gaming during the 1980s and 90s (Picard, 2013). As Vogel has already observed (2017, pp. 42-45), it can be argued that this process helps Japanese indie games gain more exposure and success. However, their recent exposure runs the risk of pushing events like Comiket away, which were the ones that helped develop the doujin scene in the first place. The fact that so many of Japan’s recent success stories are games that fit non-Japanese paradigms of indie gameplay makes this concern feel more pressing.

One last observation regarding the push for international acceptability and success on the part of Japanese developers is that it could be used as a case study to compare similar alternative scenes around the world. As Picard observed (2013), Japan’s early success in the 1980s and 90s was fuelled by a local scene that stood apart from American and European trends. The success of Japanese geemu overseas eventually formed a distinction between globally aimed titles and hobbyist-driven games, which survived in the form of doujin (Koyama, 2023, p. 265). Similar processes of success and marginalization have occurred elsewhere in gaming. For example, the early success of several titles from Eastern Europe (Game Development, 2017) helped some companies from Eastern Europe to establish themselves. This was done at the expense of lesser-known titles in the region, which became niche by virtue of their language, and were rarely made available to English audiences. On the other hand, entire sectors like the mobile phone market, weren’t covered by consumers and journalists because they considered them “illegitimate” (Consalvo & Paul, 2019, p. xxv). These processes reveal that, while some game designers and creators can be reinstated as part of a larger, world-wide indie framework (which is mainly defined by North American outlets), others are being pushed away and delegitimatized. For Japanese games, the decisive factor seems to be whether these games display otaku characteristics, which publishers and marketing agencies identify as niche or illegitimate (Fiadotau, 2019, p. 58).

In the field of videogames, gaming outlets and some government agencies alike use Orientalist rhetoric to institutionalize received wisdoms of the Japanese geemu as a “wacky” (Wagenaar, 2016) and alienating product. At the same time, several doujin titles are being reclaimed by audiences and gaming outlets the years as representative of an indie ethos of authenticity and anti-modernity (Weidman, 2014). A quick look at the historical coverage of Japanese games reveals, however, that their main appeal comes from how they convey a sense of cool “Japaneseness.” As a result, some Japanese indie games are celebrated for their creativity (Haddick, 2023) even as they conform to a narrow set of expectations. If they do not fit these expectations, they are more likely to be labelled doujin or as showcases of Japan’s Othering. Over the years, some of these attributes become illegitimate and unworthy of consideration within gaming’s cultural fields. The example offered by Consalvo and Paul of the so-called walking simulator (2019, pp. 109-112) can be paired with similar perceptions around the Japanese visual novel (Koyama, 2023, pp. 146-148), and the recent acceptance of both genres on the part of some indie scenes suggests that some aspects of doujin are being legitimized. But in the meantime, most Japanese games are judged through a lens that exoticizes them for the benefit of a non-Japanese audience (Hutchinson, 2019, p. 24), and while sometimes this can work in their favour, it inevitably sets them apart from the rest of the industry.

Endnotes

[1] For a general overview of this phenomenon, checking popular gaming websites like IGN, Thegamer, and Vandal reveals a cottage industry of articles dedicated to point out the “weirdness” and “uniqueness” of Japanese games. Examples include (Shea, 2016), (Matas, 2022) and (Zaman Makhdoom, 2023).

[2] Literally translated as “beautiful woman” and “beautiful boy.”

[3] A good example of this can be found in popular Spanish-speaking website Vandal, whose forum invites a significant portion of Spanish-speaking audiences to speak their mind about gaming news and experiences. In 2008, an invitation to “pick a side” between Japanese games and “Western” games prompted 107 responses in less than 4 days (Killy-Eiyuden, 2008).

[4] A similar forum thread was attempted by user -Elaphe- in the Spanish-speaking forum Vandal (2008) in 2008. There, the user argued that, since doujin games are supposed to be amateur, then they should be considered Abandonware as they were supposed to be free games. This prompted no responses.

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