The more you dive into keitai the more you realize that the West was far behind Japan at this time. But all of this would have probably been impossible without the creation of a technological environment built around i-mode. The same environment that unfortunately locked the i-mode from going global. Regarding the iPhone being distributed in Japan, I think we can have a look at the number of games released by G-mode in 2008 and 2010. Dropping from 274 games in 2008 to 2010 in 161, I think the Japanese market showed a bit of resistance. But in the end, the Iphone technological advances were too much for the Japanese market, or any other country. The Iphone truly became a religion in Japan.
In August 2024, during a meeting with partners, the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs asked associations and universities if anyone was taking action regarding social games (including keitai). Of course, in 2024, it was way too late to do anything substantial with i-mode because the platform was already ‘dead’. But it also means that they are aware of i-mode being part of the valuable Japanese culture. I think that i-mode and other services, even in the West, suffer a lot from not being on dedicated hardware and only digital. A lot of Japanese game companies were also offshoring their activities to China, Korea or even Poland during this time because i-mode games were not their main focus. And let’s say it: i-mode games, and mobile games in general, are not perceived as culturally significant, most of these games were thought as ‘interstitial games’, games made to fill empty time spaces like during transportation. So yes, there is definitely room for improvement in Japan regarding mobile game preservation. But if we compare it to overseas initiatives, like the French National Library, which is often taken as an example for game preservation, they do not preserve mobile games and to my knowledge never discussed it. So I guess we can at least give a point to Japan.
Comments 1
Re: Learning From The End Of i-mode, The "Life Infrastructure" That Revolutionised Japanese 'Keitai' Gaming
@frei Hey frei, one of the co-authors here!
The more you dive into keitai the more you realize that the West was far behind Japan at this time. But all of this would have probably been impossible without the creation of a technological environment built around i-mode. The same environment that unfortunately locked the i-mode from going global. Regarding the iPhone being distributed in Japan, I think we can have a look at the number of games released by G-mode in 2008 and 2010. Dropping from 274 games in 2008 to 2010 in 161, I think the Japanese market showed a bit of resistance. But in the end, the Iphone technological advances were too much for the Japanese market, or any other country. The Iphone truly became a religion in Japan.
In August 2024, during a meeting with partners, the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs asked associations and universities if anyone was taking action regarding social games (including keitai). Of course, in 2024, it was way too late to do anything substantial with i-mode because the platform was already ‘dead’. But it also means that they are aware of i-mode being part of the valuable Japanese culture. I think that i-mode and other services, even in the West, suffer a lot from not being on dedicated hardware and only digital. A lot of Japanese game companies were also offshoring their activities to China, Korea or even Poland during this time because i-mode games were not their main focus. And let’s say it: i-mode games, and mobile games in general, are not perceived as culturally significant, most of these games were thought as ‘interstitial games’, games made to fill empty time spaces like during transportation. So yes, there is definitely room for improvement in Japan regarding mobile game preservation. But if we compare it to overseas initiatives, like the French National Library, which is often taken as an example for game preservation, they do not preserve mobile games and to my knowledge never discussed it. So I guess we can at least give a point to Japan.