A question about WoW in Japan

[Synthium]

Is there any? I mean, now in Legion we've seen a lot of amazing Chinese guilds but I have never heard of any Japanese guilds, competitive or otherwise. Come to think of it, I have never heard about WoW being played in Japan, or any sign of Japanese communities in the game at all.

Is WoW even available there? A quick google shows a few years old posts that would indicate there is no Japanese client but is the game in the english version available to them at all?

[Hitei]

Is there any? I mean, now in Legion we've seen a lot of amazing Chinese guilds but I have never heard of any Japanese guilds, competitive or otherwise. Come to think of it, I have never heard about WoW being played in Japan, or any sign of Japanese communities in the game at all.

Is WoW even available there? A quick google shows a few years old posts that would indicate there is no Japanese client but is the game in the english version available to them at all?

As far as I know it was never released in Japan. You can theoretically play any version of wow if you buy/make an account for that region, you just have lag and have to be able to read whatever language it's in. I'm sure there are probably Japanese players on the Korean/Chinese realms.

[Synthium]

As far as I know it was never released in Japan. You can theoretically play any version of wow if you buy/make an account for that region, you just have lag and have to be able to read whatever language it's in. I'm sure there are probably Japanese players on the Korean/Chinese realms.

Ah so in theory they are able to play on the US servers if they have insane connection but it's not "banned" or something similar?

[Hitei]

Ah so in theory they are able to play on the US servers if they have insane connection but it's not "banned" or something similar?

Haven't really kept up with blizzard's policy on it, but yeah, should be able to. "Insane connection" isn't going to do much for you though, it's just a distance factor.

[Kathranis]

There is no Japanese version, but there's an organized community of Japanese players, mostly on Proudmoore US and Blackmoore US, with a network of active Japanese-language progression raiding guilds.

There were rumblings a few years back about the game getting Japanese language support (around the time that Hearthstone was launched in Japan), but they never actually surfaced. I believe Hearthstone and Overwatch are the only Blizzard games with Japanese language support on PC. The console versions of Diablo III and Overwatch are localized, published, and operated by Square Enix in Japan.

[Deleted]

The game wasn't released there and it's not been localized in Japanese. So that's probably why. The market over there is pretty resistant towards foreign things.

[Razion]

Ah so in theory they are able to play on the US servers if they have insane connection but it's not "banned" or something similar?

MMOs will sometimes do IP blocks, but if you can access a region from your area with normal connection means regardless of the game, then general rule of thumb is you should be fine.

[ls-]

You can play on US realms w/o any issues. There's no IP bans/blocks. Been there, done that.

WoW wasn't released in Japan because foreign companies need assistance from local publishers to release their products in Japanese market. Blizz couldn't get one for WoW because the only viable publisher who could handle WoW there was Sqex, but they had FFXI around that time and new MMO (FFXIV) was in works, and allowing Japanese WoW to appear would've been quite damaging to their own products.

[Shinrael]

Moved to Japan two weeks ago and had pretty similar questions as yours. Idk what my internet is (we didn't have much of a choice in the dorm) but I manage to run EU WoW with 300-400 ms and honestly it is playable. First time I logged in to try how it is, made a level 1 priest and killed some wolves. I couldn't even notice a difference (I guess it is because of the lag-prediction option and the 1.5 sec cast time of Smite). Next I tried it on a warrior and it was kind of noticable (but also the time I logged in was different - it was late evening when everyone is using the internet here).

Problem is that even hardcore Japanese gamers don't know about WoW. As someone already pointed out, Japan is quite resistant to foreign stuff. I did show it to a Japanese friend of mine when I was in Bulgaria and we even played every now and then and he loved it. So there is hope xD Planning to make lots of friends here and hype them for WoW <3 #operationconquernihon

How I wish there was a Japanese server and Japanese language support. Would be so cool to level in MoP zones and listen to Japanese speech O_O

[Synthium]

Well that's odd, seeing everyone say that Japan is very resistant to foreign stuff especially since Japanese people are very much into US/European music - from pop to metal. It's kinda a gimmick for European metal bands actually, from old to the new ones, to have a live album released with a concert taking place in Japan. So it's strange they would have the exact opposite policy towards games, especially being gamers themselves.

[ls-]

Well that's odd, seeing everyone say that Japan is very resistant to foreign stuff especially since Japanese people are very much into US/European music - from pop to metal. It's kinda a gimmick for European metal bands actually, from old to the new ones, to have a live album released with a concert taking place in Japan. So it's strange they would have the exact opposite policy towards games, especially being gamers themselves.

You really overestimate how much Asians who live in Asia are into non-Asian stuff... I mean, there's people who like foreign games/music/etc, and if they do they like them A LOT, but such people aren't that many in general.

Moreover, that's just how business operates, local stuff (ours) is more important that foreign (theirs), preventing foreign business/product from developing/establishing is a viable way of doing things

[Synthium]

You really overestimate how much Asians who live in Asia are into non-Asian stuff... I mean, there's people who like foreign games/music/etc, and if they do they like them A LOT, but such people aren't that many in general.

Moreover, that's just how business operates, local stuff (ours) is more important that foreign (theirs), preventing foreign business/product from developing/establishing is a viable way of doing things

Is it a case of "they don't like it" or "they have never actually even heard of it/tried it" ?

[ls-]

Is it a case of "they don't like it" or "they have never actually even heard of it/tried it" ?

Mix of both.

"they have never actually even heard of it/tried it" part may sound a bit weird, esp now in the age of internet, but it actually happens, thing is, local markets in Asia are kinda self-contained and to a certain degree oversaturated.

"they don't like it" part is easier to understand. Any product, be it music, movies, etc, has its target audience for which said product is made. Quite often what's appealing to Westerners or people w/ Western-ish values isn't really interesting to non-Westerners.

And lastly, Asians who live in Asia, let's say Chinese, and Asians who live or were born elsewhere, e.g., American-born Chinese, are two different beasts.

[Retron]

I've not seen anything to do with WoW out and about so far in a couple of trips to Tokyo, but I'll keep my eyes peeled for the remainder of my holiday here!

FWIW, ping time for the EU servers in this Tokyo hotel is hovering around 240ms, whereas pinging the BBC gives ~235ms and my home PC (also in the UK) is 220ish ms. Pinging google.jp gives 2 to 4ms!

WoW seems completely playable at those ping times. TBH it surprised me the first time I was here, I was expecting annoying lag on casting spells etc but as it happens it seems fine.

[Mic_128]

It's also worth mentioning that PC gaming in general isn't big in Japan at all. It's mostly arcades and consoles over there.

[Polybius]

It's also worth mentioning that PC gaming in general isn't big in Japan at all. It's mostly arcades and consoles over there.

This is so strange and awesome.

[Dismembered]

Problem is that even hardcore Japanese gamers don't know about WoW. As someone already pointed out, Japan is quite resistant to foreign stuff. I did show it to a Japanese friend of mine when I was in Bulgaria and we even played every now and then and he loved it. So there is hope xD Planning to make lots of friends here and hype them for WoW <3 #operationconquernihon

Do it [emoji28]



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[Deleted]

Haven't really kept up with blizzard's policy on it, but yeah, should be able to. "Insane connection" isn't going to do much for you though, it's just a distance factor.

You speak about this like it is a bad thing. It the reason Russian pre-mades exist, they can exploit lag in various ways and win pretty much every time. For example, it is impossible to kill the bosses in AV and IOC if you just stack players and lag the shit out of the area, bosses don't lag and will kill everything in the vicinity. Blizzard don't give a toss despite several hundred thousand complaints.

I seriously considered going on the US realms from EU with my own team and doing the same thing. Then the issue might have finally got addressed.

[yetgdhfgh]

I know the Chinese have a massive hard on for WOW and there is alot of Koreans who play even Kim Jon Un (i know this cause this dude swears he is him) but i have never ran into any one who says they live in Japan.

I wonder why WoW never took of in Japan?

[GreenJesus]

I know the Chinese have a massive hard on for WOW and there is alot of Koreans who play even Kim Jon Un (i know this cause this dude swears he is him) but i have never ran into any one who says they live in Japan.

I wonder why WoW never took of in Japan?

Japan has their own MMOs like Final Fantasy, and other more grindier MMOs.