Examples of Damage Control in Gaming: X Marks the Play

There were plenty of noteworthy moments from last week’s stream of press previews and interviews for Final Fantasy XVI, including more detailed looks at the game itself. An unexpected aspect involved producer Naoki Yoshida suddenly mentioning during an interview with Skill Up that he’s not a fan of the “Japanese RPG” genre name, “JRPG” for short. It’s frequently used to refer to a role-playing game developed in Japan, though precisely what defines one these days is another more complicated question for another post (that I won’t make). But it kicked off conversations concerning how the genre name has been used for derision, to refer to “anime trash” and other xenophobic and judgmental meanings in a shorthand manner. One frequent source for this has been the gaming press.

Subtle dismissal of Japanese games among the western video game press and companies has long been prominent, at its most pronounced when Japanese development companies had trouble coming to grips with HD platform development during the seventh console generation. An American system (Xbox 360) being on top for a portion of the gen seriously activated these people. XPlay, the only program to not be killed or left in an unrecognizable state from TechTV when it merged with G4, was where it was most overt.

https://twitter.com/TarksGauntlet/status/1631809089385660416

XPlay’s review of Baten Kaitos Origins for GameCube starts with a banger in the opening segment, in which co-host Morgan Webb “jokes” that India could replace us, or perhaps the Chinese. You know, hilarious comments pushing Great Replacement theories. But Japan is not among them, with Baten Kaitos Origins somehow being proof that they’re a nation in decline. If you’re thinking about any kind of connection here, know that you’ve given it more thought than the writers did. The review isn’t much better, barely touching upon the particulars of the game even in edited form. It also heavily relies on dumb comparisons between protagonist name “Sagi” and “sake,” which is not only unfunny but, and I need to emphasize, does not rhyme.

The racism towards Japan on G4 and X-Play was actually so much worse than you know. pic.twitter.com/xSWNhWRI5v

— Spooky (@spookygoo) March 5, 2023

Another video posted on Twitter features the kind of dumb Japan mockery humor too prominent and normal during the early-to-mid 2000, typical for XPlay. Dubbed-over lip flaps don’t match! Hilarious! It also veers into homophobia.

Yet another video (man, there are a LOT of these) provides a short “history” of the Shin Megami Tensei franchise, stuffed full of “oh those wacky Japanese” commentary. Again, typical of the time. The ending is most atypical, in which Webb comments: “I fear for the day that zany bean curd-loving race finally rules over us.” Somehow, another Great Replacement reference with Webb as a conduit. Hell of a theme.

Sorry, there’s at least one more video I want to provide here, this time involving coverage of the PlayStation 3’s launch. The video, previously spotlighted on Twitter in June 2022, features colorful comments from Webb (again) mentioning that “who knows anything about Japanese history? There were some samurai, they periodically killed themselves…” and continues with partially intelligible nonsense. It ends with a real kicker: “Then we nuked them. That’s when they turned into a real country.” The Twitter user who posted this called it the “most casually racist fifteen seconds of 2006 television i think i’ve ever seen.” Would anyone doubt that?

Co-host Adam Sessler, who still frequently uses social media, responded to this in the worst possible way. “Dude is angry I didn’t like his consumer boner stimulator in 2006,” he said. “A truer gamer there never was.” It’s a terrible response considering the content being criticized, even if people who’ve been racist in other ways are using this as an excuse to attack him. Suggesting the entire audience criticizing him wholly consists of the worst kinds of gamers is disingenuous at best, and a shithead move at worst. It would not have been difficult to say this was humor of the time that doesn’t fly today and aged poorly, and apologize for it. It’s extremely easy to do, in fact.

It might be surprising for some to see this crap from Sessler, who’s openly criticized former president Donald Trump and the increasingly-fascist Republican Party on his account. But not for anyone who remembers his transphobic tirade from March 2020, before he was rehired for the new XPlay at the quickly-defunct revived G4, which he never apologized for.

Meanwhile, Morgan Webb is unlikely to comment, considering how absent she is from social media and the public eye these days. Those responsible for writing these segments have also yet to comment, and I wouldn’t recommend waiting for them.

This all serves as a reminder that early-to-mid 2000s humor was horrendous. Nowhere was this more prominent and in its most casually, and sometimes overtly, racist form than among gaming media, with XPlay featuring a good portion of it. You can draw a straight line from this brand of garbage “comedy” to facets of the gaming community that remain putrid hives rife with the worst try-hard edgy people around today. Several members of the press have apologized for their involvement in it, but it’s no surprise that others see no issue in what they previously green lit. It’s no wonder that Yoshida, and other Japanese video game developers, dislike genre names like “JRPG.”