Despite rumors to the contrary, the Japanese independent-game scene is alive and well. Over the past weekend in Kyoto, a crowd of around 180 people, made up of game developers and the media, packed into an event hall to show off their latest self-made creations at the first BitSummit. It was also a chance for them to network and learn how they can bring their games to a global audience. In North America and Europe, indie events like this are common. In Japan, they're not.
There is the twice-a-year Comiket (Comic Market) in Tokyo, which features some indie or dōjin games. But Comiket doesn't provide the country's independent game-makers the opportunity to learn about new game development software or how they can get their games on global distribution networks, such as the computer-based network Steam, from American game company Valve.
"There's a whole hidden community here," said BitSummit organizer James Mielke, a producer at Kyoto-based game studio Q-Games, which is best known for its PlayStation and Nintendo games. "Let's lift the lid off of them!" And that is exactly the point of BitSummit: to shine a light on Japan's indie gaming.