Why do the Japanese seemingly place far more emphasis on a game's soundtrack than the west does...

Why do the Japanese seemingly place far more emphasis on a game's soundtrack than the west does? I would even say it's not too uncommon to say the music is often even the best part of a Japanese game. While there's some outliers, I don't feel there's nearly the same emphasis in western games, and often times it feels like an after thought.

Is it just me? If not, why do you think this is?

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Two words: Visual Kei

Visual Gay.

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Because, Japan does everything better. Literally.

VK sounds like vidya music a lot of the time
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This.

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Because the west largely has no sense of aesthetic or artistic merit in general (in the games industry at any rate). Look at game music, look at game box arts, look at game visuals. They just can't. What's there is all driven by hollywood culture. Which is why you get so many generic movie orchestra scores

Because americans are uber capitalists. Game development isnt even managed by gamers. Most leads and supervisors are sales people and guys and gals with business degrees. They spend most of their time circle jerking at lunch meetings. Very few companies have management that is passionate about vidya. They run focus groups and realize plebs will be the game regardles off music. The game could have shitty soundcloud tracks and it wouldnt matter. So their motivated by saving money in music production. Japanese tend to work in smaller groups and tend to stick with one company to work so this creates an enviorment of having product in your artwork or product. Americans are like merceneries. One year they could be with X company 2 years later theyre with Y company who offered stock after 1 year of work.

This. The west also doesn't understand the benefit and power of a well timed insert song or just vocal songs in general.

You hear enough wank about a good soundtrack being one you don't notice. Morons actually take that to heart and set out to make unmemorable tosh. Doesn't help that music as a whole has been dead in the west for decades now.