How Has Japanese Anime Influenced the Development of the Online Gaming Industry? Posted Aug 6, 2017
Anime in 2017 has morphed from finding its home in the hearts of those who love everything to do with Japanese culture to worming its way into modern culture as a whole. It used to be the case that you’d need to walk into a niche comic book store in order to see anime on sale, but nowadays there is a lot more of it about in more mainstream bookstores, and a lot more of the titles are familiar amongst the general population. This is an important benchmark for how anime has become a part of the modern world in the west, but perhaps the single biggest clue that anime is truly a global phenomenon is its success in the gaming industry, with anime now a major influence on the current trends in the gaming world.
Is Anime Keeping Up with the Times?
In the world of gaming, there are lots of reasons why games evolve and how exactly they develop. One of the innovations that helped revolutionize the gaming world was broadband and high-speed internet connections, which utterly changed the way we now interact with other gamers online whilst playing games that work seamlessly across different platforms, with no interruption of service thanks to patchy dial-up.
Smartphone gaming was another huge leap forwards, and it is smartphone gaming that has taken advantage of the forward-thinking, technologically advanced themes of anime. You can see the influence on pick-up-and-play games, like bgo slots taking inspiration from anime for their Koi Princess game as players have reacted positively to the Japanese theme. The manga/anime artwork is very different to traditional western-style cartoon graphics, with the central female character of the slot drawing users in from a visual perspective.
This positive response by gamers as well as bgo picking up on anime is a sure sign that anime is at the very beating heart of pop culture since they are one of the leaders in the iGaming world, but other operators have followed their lead when it comes to offering engaging slot games focusing on visually arresting themes. 777 Casino and Heart Bingo are just two examples of online slot game providers that allow gamers to play on the go on their mobile phones whilst keeping engaging graphics at the very forefront of their gaming experience.
Go, Go, Go!
As we can see here, iGaming and anime have moved hand in hand with the times, staying relevant and at the forefront of gaming, but it’s impossible to mention anime and gaming without looking at the success and impact that Pokemon Go has enjoyed.
Put simply, Pokemon Go has been a huge success since its launch. The game became a permanent fixture on news channels for a few weeks after it was released and helped Nintendo propel themselves back to the forefront of the gaming world. The game itself was also seen as a major point in the development of the gaming world, showing game developers the huge impact augmented reality can have.
In conclusion, it’s nice to look back at how Pokemon was already an early pusher of tech innovation, way ahead of its time. Remember when GameBoys were prevalent and you had to buy a blue or red version of the game before swapping Pokemon to evolve them or to catch different ones? The success of this game also brought in a wider impact in terms of the interest in anime; perhaps anime like Attack on Titan would never have been involved in the Maple Story MMORPG if it hadn't been for the initial success and development of Pokemon.
In part this is because in the Pokemon games the social side of gaming was massively ahead of the curve, and we didn’t even realise it at the time! One thing is for sure: anime, clearly, is no stranger to being at the forefront of the gaming revolution.
