We keep quietly running a channel called next.games.
It's a place where we introduce overlooked Japanese games to players abroad, one title at a time. In English we publish it under the name Uncut, with a Japanese version alongside it. Games that sit on Steam yet sink into the sea of search results without ever reaching ten reviews — we find those rough gems, put them into words, and offer them up to the world. That's really all we do.
Finding them, putting them into words, one at a time
The work itself is very plain.
First, we look for games that have sunk. Relying on taste and genre, we dig up a title with few reviews that no one has found yet. Deckbuilding roguelikes, turn-based tactics, logic puzzles — centered on genres for the discerning, we pick the one that makes you ask, "this should be fun, so why is it unknown?"
Once we've picked it, we turn its appeal into a piece written for a global audience. What makes it fun, where it differs from the rest, who it will land with. We write one title's worth, then go looking for the next one. That's the loop. Nothing goes viral, no numbers leap. We just find them, put them into words, and line them up. We stack this plain handwork one title at a time.
It isn't flashy, but we don't stop
To be honest, this isn't a flashy endeavor.
Introducing one title doesn't make anything change dramatically the next day. We keep at it anyway, because we believe there is meaning in the keeping itself.
In running this site, we value quality over quantity, and we've decided not to mass-produce thin pieces just to pad our update frequency. next.games is the same. We don't force ourselves to add titles every day. But we don't stop. When there's enough worth writing, we line them up, one title, then another. Instead of flashiness, we want to keep stacking the fact that it's still going.
A small sign
Let me touch on just one small sign.
The other day, the Steam wishlist was up by about 0.36%. Just a little. I'd like to think it's because we kept adding titles, but I honestly cannot say for sure. It might be chance, or some other reason. So I don't intend to puff my chest and call it a result. There was simply a number that moved a tiny bit, here in the hands of something we've kept up quietly. That's all it is.
We'll keep adding titles, one at a time, from here on too. Find the rough gems that have sunk, put them into words, and offer them up to the world. We mean to keep that loop going, calmly. If you like, take a peek at next.games.passed.jp.
