Nier Automata was made without trying to appeal to Western audiences and yet it got lots of success in the West
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While Nier Automata is a great game, if not a masterpiece, that almost certainly had positive influence on the industry, I think he's overstating things a bit here. (Think how Kill la Kill "saved anime" back in 2013).
There were plenty of very "Japanese" games and franchises that existed before Nier Automata. Maybe if he's talking about the increase in number of games that let us appreciate the "better half" of female characters after Nier Automata's release I'd agree more.
Also, I think he should let Yoko Taro speak for himself on the subject.
Still though, nothing wrong with praising Yoko Taro. Man's a genius who deserves it. I'll never forget the time he visited 8chan for an (attempted) AMA. Wish more people in the industry were like him.
I think its worth remembering the culture at the time here.
During the late 2000s and into the 2010s, the game journos and industry was full force shitting on Japanese games. Anything made in Japan was getting unfairly lambasted. Basically every trope of a Japanese game was being put under the microscope and hated on, and it basically was succeeding in making people reject a lot of those things as cliche and bad relative to Western Games of the time.
You can pull up a lot of reviews and the like from the time and find just how brutal and mocking they are of Japanese titles that aren't trying to ape Western sensibilities and culture. Especially as this was the zenith of Game Journos being high on their own shit, thinking themselves cultural titans, and using their influence to fuck with the Japanese devs. That's one of the reasons why people were so primed to destroy them in Gamergate.
While I don't think Automata is fully responsible, it is one of the most successful examples to show the big name companies that they didn't need to hide everything Japanese to appeal to the West.
Never forget the time when someone (might have been this visit) asked him why the final boss of Drakengard 3 was so maddening and difficult, and he just said "because its the final boss" and nothing further. Just let that punch sit.
Yeah, I haven't forgotten and agree with you on that. There's just stronger examples to use than Nier Automata imo, though it is still a relevant game to mention from that time as an example of this.
For example, Persona 5 was a game that exploded in popularity worldwide and was even more "Japanese" than Nier Automata (literally a turn-based JRPG with an anime artstyle, a cast of Japanese high school students set in modern Japan, with dating sim elements, and part of the decades-old Megami Tensei/Persona franchise) that came out a year prior, and it clearly also had an influence on the Japanese industry as well. It also went through the lambasting from game journos as well as tranny-lators who tried to attack its translation for being actually accurate.
Then the trannies took over Atlus NA and things got fucked sadly.
Very true on the Persona 5 point, though I think we can make some distinction between "Japanese games" and "anime games." Persona 5 is unabashedly anime in many ways, whereas Automata isn't really that anime but is still undeniably Japanese.
I think all of them combined came together to shift the tides back in the favor of Japan being itself in gaming, in various ways.
Automata I think is probably the biggest culprit for unrestrained hot MCs and open thirsting getting a comeback, which is a little sad because its a lot more than that but its what most people took from it.
Breath of the Wild released at almost the exact same time, had universal acclaim, and swept Western awards. I can get excluding that one because "Nintendo," but worth mentioning.
I think Automata's importance was being a breakthrough success. Drakengard/Nier wasn't very mainstream or even that big in the weeb groups. Then Automata comes out of nowhere and knocks it out of the park. The important part was showing that the western market can be entered successfully without pandering to it. An important example for smaller devs.
Then again... PocketPair came along in 2023 said, "Americans like guns, right?" and sold 15m copies in one month.
"anime" tends to be one of the things unique to Japan that a lot of people outside it feel free bashing them for (or at least they did for a long time until it started becoming more mainstream recently).
I don't want to make too many comparisons between what's "more" or "less" Japanese because, like you said, both are still undeniably Japanese in this case, but there are still unique attributes that can mark a work as being different from what the world might consider palatable/acceptable compared to what the Japanese audience would enjoy without issue, and as a result its hard not to look at said things as being "more" Japanese.
Not to mention the more palatable and popular a product becomes to the world (especially if its changed in some way), the more diluted and tenuous its identity tends to become. As an example with food: Sushi is still "Japanese" I suppose, but now everybody has their own take on it (Korean sushi, American sushi, etc.) and its popular across the world. Compare that with something like Natto which is pretty much a Japan-only thing and its clearly and solidly Japanese.
The world doesn't treat all of Japan's products and their aspects equally. There's a difference between someone who says they love Japan because they drive a Toyota Camry, eats instant ramen once in a while, and play Mario Odyssey on their Nintendo Switch, and someone importing "Anime Loli Pantsu Simulator 6: Pride of the Tokugawa Clan" through a proxy service to play on their Japanese Limited Edition Hatsune Miku PS Vita while shitposting about it on 2chan and enjoying some homemade melon bread and yakisoba from his Japanese girlfriend. Nobody would bat an eye at the former, but the latter... lol.
And you'd probably be more surprised if a game like the latter sold well outside of Japan, and not be as surprised at the former doing the same.
to be fair, i probably wouldn't have found katamari damacy if it wasn't for it being featured on xplay, and that's one of my favorite games of all time. it wasn't because it was particularly 'japanese,' either, though it certainly was that, it was because it was authentic and fun.
"I just really like girls." -Yoko Taro