{"id":40398,"date":"2024-11-25T14:31:47","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T05:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=40398"},"modified":"2024-11-25T15:08:27","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T06:08:27","slug":"mods-for-dragon-quest-iii-hd-2d-remake-prompt-backlash-in-japan-highlighting-a-large-cultural-gap-in-how-mods-are-viewed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/mods-for-dragon-quest-iii-hd-2d-remake-prompt-backlash-in-japan-highlighting-a-large-cultural-gap-in-how-mods-are-viewed\/","title":{"rendered":"Mods for Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake receive backlash in Japan, highlighting a large cultural gap in how mods are viewed\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Since the launch of Square Enix\u2019s Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake<\/strong> earlier this month, the modding community has been busy at work making various tweaks to the game, and there\u2019s already an array of mods out there for the PC version. This includes mods that increase the speed of overworld travel, modify odds for random encounters, modify the battle UI, remove gender-based equipment limitations and more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These kinds of quality-of-life mods that aim to \u201cimprove\u201d playing experience quickly became known among Japanese players too, but they weren\u2019t taken to so kindly. One user\u2019s criticism<\/a> of the mods coming out for Dragon Quest 3 started up a heated conversation on X (as can be seen from the volume of tweets on the topic that come up just by looking up “mod” in Japanese<\/a>):\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PC gamers are celebrating the fact that there are already a bunch of mods out for Dragon Quest 3 that make it more user-friendly and whatnot, but I don\u2019t understand how you can just casually alter someone else\u2019s work.<\/em> It\u2019s the same as looking at an illustration and going, \u201cIt sucked so I fixed it for you.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The post has garnered varying degrees of agreement, with people chiming in with comments ranging from \u201cModding is an insult to the developers\u201d to \u201cWhat\u2019s the problem if it\u2019s offline?\u201d But a reply<\/a> highlighting the fundamental difference in how game mods are perceived in Japan vs in the West has since accumulated over 10 thousand likes: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This can only be described as a cultural difference. Mod culture is the extension of the right to customize and fix a game as a product you own (which is sometimes even encouraged by developers). But with Japanese games, there\u2019s a strong sense of the director\u2019s authority, and they\u2019re viewed more like personal works of art, which makes modding frowned upon.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Offline, singleplayer games released by Western studios are very often mod-friendly, and sometimes even natively support modding or come with their own modding API, but Japanese developers generally do not acknowledge modding, and when they do, it\u2019s not in a positive way. For example, a presentation released by Capcom\u2019s R&D department<\/a> last year highlights the following negative effects of mods: <\/p>\n\n\n\n