Indie games, crowdfunding make their way to Japan

An interesting new game model is launching in Japan via an Osaka-based company called Playism. Machinarium (above) is one of their titles already localized in Japanese.

Going forward, this will work in reverse as well. While Playism’s launch titles consist primarily of indie games developed overseas and translated into Japanese, in the future, AGM will also localize and publish doujin games developed in Japan for the overseas audience through the service – but there’s more.

The Playism initiative also introduces the concept of crowdfunding to Japan, in order to support original game development by independent creators.  Active Gaming Media say that the goal is to “bring users closer to the creative process” and find new ways to share what makes games and their development interesting.