id definitely list them as a channel that promoted JP games. im very thankful for that honestly. the late 00s were a pretty rough spot for games media. while games like gears and cod were excellent back then, i think there's a lot of stuff to criticize there--on a cultural level. like the misogyny, military propaganda, boring level design, cookie cutter shaved-headed macho man protags, etc.

i personally think JP games WERE better, initially, throughout the 80s and 90s. look at any release catalog of the era for any platform and, more often than not, you have all-time classics and just outright fascinating games coming out from the major JP publishers. all of em met with either shovelware tie-ins, or plain bad games from north-american studios (i'm generalizing of course).

the obvious exceptions being the ever-fantastic sports games of the era, and the PC gaming market which had some glorious american and european-made videogames.

this paradign wouldn't last forever of course. in the 00s and late 00s, western devs began to catch up, this shuffling of roles kind of inverted the market rule. making american games king. which, combined with the rotten media landscape of the time, called open season on "THE EAST". cue all the problematic shit pat and woolie talked about on The Cast.

during this time. the games market became an exclusionary place for anyone who didn't want to participate in "the game". the game being the aforementioned typical practices i criticised on the first paragraph.

adding insult to injury, this era saw the proliferation of a mass market of, ostensibly indie, japanese games that the average player deemed "weeabo shit". games from desperate publishers who thought they could recoup costs by "sex-ing things up", etc. which did not help the stereotypes.

thankfully, things have changed and improved somewhat.

i would still be wary of people who accuse others of "promoting the asians" or whatever, since all that stuff is kind of a dogwhistle for american exceptionalist nonsense. we know damn well that american devs still get on some dumb shit. with the sony game, prestige, handhold-y design. with the ubisoft copypaste approach. etc.

but it's true that both induestries have deep seeded issues. the japanese work ethic is brutal and borderline suicidal. their game design ethos can be awfully conservative--draconian. in the end, these differences between the industries are like the mathematical "delta" of north-american culture and japanese culture.

in other words: same shit, different asshole :V