Like a Dragon? Yakuza? Like Yakuza?
In spite of its very modest commercial performance in the West, the Yakuza franchise is generally well liked among enthusiast media, and its fans are passionate. Earlier this year, Luke Plunkett of Kotaku wondered where the hell Yakuza 5 was. The Yakuza games are just the sort that tend to hook people in once a gamer makes the investment, and this can be seen especially with the mainline entries, with its dynamic plot full of political intrigue and personal conflict and a combat system that evolves throughout playing the game.
It’s common knowledge that localizations for the mainline entries are reported to be quite costly, due in large part to their text-heavy nature. Also, franchises that are not commercial blockbusters in the West but are also lengthy experiences built on immersion and involvement like the Yakuza franchise may have difficulty breaking through the Western market. However, I’m prompted by discussions I have seen online in the past few months to see if measures beyond continuing to localize Yakuza games are necessary for the franchise.
So, the question I ask to our readers is this: Would rebranding “Yakuza” be better for the franchise? If so, what would you do? Change the franchise’s name in the West? What type of series should it be marketed as? Or instead, do you think that the series as it is known outside of Japan is fine and needs little change from Sega beyond more investment in advertising? Would you even be satisfied with a digital-only Yakuza that sold as much as it has previously?
Tell us your thoughts!
I can’t immediately comment on the question being posed, but I do want to mention something on the side regarding Yakuza: Ishin.
If the rumors are true and the game is indeed localized, I would be happy for the franchise but skeptical of how Sega plans to handle it in the future, seeing as Yakuza 5 will have been “skipped” for the time being. I’m not sure that, unless Ishin performs exceptionally or at least stronger than it has in the past, Sega would be convinced to revisit Yakuza 5. I do want both games localized, but if Ishin comes up I hope that whatever marketing strategy that accompanies the game doesn’t cripple Sega’s ability to handle any other Yakuza game that hopes to leave Japan.
The movie was called “Yakuza: Like a Dragon” or usually just “Like a Dragon” in the West.
I think “Like a Dragon” is good. It is close to the Japanese title and would make more sense if they plan on localizing Ishin.
Originally I recall Nagoshi wanted Yakuza 5 to be treated as a new beginning or starting off as fresh as they can.
I think to rebrand the game it would need to come with a reboot. How to get new fans to a franchise that is already at number 5 and starts at ps2, most western gamers are to obessesed with graphics T_T But I think a rebrand and reboot wouldn’t be the worst idea, because I wonder too, where they want to go with Yakuza after 5. I imported 5 now, but still hope a translation will happen!!! SEGA come on!!
I don’t see any -significant- rebranding as particularly helpful to Yakuza as a series. Maybe it’ll go somewhere with a spinoff like Ishin, but for those want Yakuza 5, I wonder if it will lead to a wall. as I recall, with Yakuza 5 it wasn’t meant to be a reboot of sorts but they explored new ideas and wanted it to be different from its predecessors in the sense of not using the same graphics engine, newer locations, stuff like that.