FINAL PROJECT: The Relationship Between Culture and Games

With the world becoming further culturally aware through the use of the internet and other media, it is becoming more and more diverse as a large melting pot for the exchange of ideas. Of course from these meeting of ideas differences are to be expected. Games are no exception; titles that are hits over night in one country may be complete failures if launched in another. It is for this very reason that not all games are translated over to other countries. Game developers are too afraid to put at risk thousands to millions of dollars to push a game to other countries just to have it fail. This has happened time and time again, not just in games but also in art, music, fashion, and any other form of self-expression influenced from culture. We now have game developers asking themselves “We know our country loves it, but will the rest of the world love it as well?”

A prominent series in the United States, the goal of Harvest Moon is to maintain a farm with crops and animals over a period of time while befriending the other townsfolk and eventually becoming married to one of the many bachelorettes in the game. To raise the lucky girl’s affection enough to accept your marriage proposal, players would have to spam her every day with gifts that she said she loved, stalk her throughout the town as she went about her day, and ask her out to all the local social events before your love interest rival won her heart before you did. Each time the player would attain the next level of affection, they were rewarded for all their persistence with heart events and new lines of speech each time they spoke to the girl. For example: “Hey! What are you up to now? Is the farm doing well?” would change to something like “Please don’t work yourself too hard. Work is important, but your health is too.”

The focus of this paper, Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side pushes this game play aspect into a full blown game based around it. Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side is a dating sim produced by Konami, a genre nearly exclusive to only Asia, specifically Japan. It is the most popular and famous dating game series released to date, and in 2006 was voted as the 23rd best video game of all time in Japanese Magazine Famitsu. The purpose of dating sims like the name suggest is to simulate dating. Unlike other genres, dating sims are normally fully voice-acted and the art is a major selling point of the game alongside character development and storyline. The visual stylization used in the genre varies from illustrator to illustrator but it is nearly always drawn in the Anime style. Another game play element found in the genre is mini games that affect the story by your quality of performance. You play as a high school student and your goal is to develop a relationship with one of the 14 chase-able characters by performing actions such as going on dates, giving them presents and choosing what to say in dialogue prompts in a effort to get close to them before you graduate school. Which if you were successful in doing, the person you pursued would then declare their love to you. Or you could pursue one of the girls in the game and get a best friend ending. This genre distinguishes itself from its cousin the Visual Novel genre by having more statistical elements in the game play such as needing to reach certain parameters throughout the game to win each character. Just like Harvest Moon heart events are triggered each time you reach a higher level of affection with a character. Each person you can follow is drastically different from each other, with each their own charms and quirks just like in real life to give the game higher replay value through different endings.

Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side incorporated many new features to the game to appeal more towards the girl audience and better simulate dating. On free days you can now go shopping to several different stores to purchase clothes and plan your outfit for dates or join an after school club. You can also choose from several businesses to apply for a part-time job and there are over 20 places you can go on a date, which also change though weekly in the game. For instance in the winter you can go skiing in the mountains, and the local movie theatre shows a different movie every week. Other characters in the game can send you messages throughout the game by “email” and every quarter you take finals which at the end of the game partly determines what university you go to in the ending. Tokimeki Memorial has numerous game play elements that randomly vary so that the game isn’t ever exactly the same every time you play.

Though Tokimeki Memorial is extremely popular and successful in Japan, not a single game from the series has been shipped overseas, and the game developers don’t ever plan to either. There are multiple support groups online to have the game shipped over in the U.S. but regardless the dating sim genre has never treaded over to the U.S. before successfully and the predicted responses to such a genre is unknown. The only other similar game that was successful after being shipped overseas was the Phoenix Wright series featured on the Nintendo DS, but it is a Visual Novel game not a Dating Sim and so far hasn’t become as mainstream as it is in Japan. The bottom line is the Game Developers just can’t risk translating the game for other countries.

Culture and target audience is the whole reason I’m speaking of that causes these games to fail once shipped over. There are just a plethora of things in American culture that is different from Asian and Japanese Culture. So it’s to be expected for the social norms, expectations, idealisms and taboos to be different as well. Conflict from cultural differences is to be expected. Just like any other media of expression, games reflect and are influenced by the culture they are created from because their creators are raised in that culture and their audience as well. It is only natural for them to implement the same ideals in their games, because it is what their audience is familiar with and it’s always easier to reach or side with something familiar than something foreign.

The Entertainment Software Association in 2006 reported that 38% of video game players in America are women. In America we socially connect playing video game as a male activity. Even though we are making strides in increasing the number of women that play video games to change that stereotype women are still currently a niche market. Due to this there are more video games in America that targeted specifically to males than to females. However in Asia, women who play video games actually are relatively equal in number to males and furthermore the number of adults to children who play is more comparable as well. Since Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side 2nd Season is a game oriented towards females, it was able to flourish in Japan whereas it probably wouldn’t have in America.

Video games are not seen as something only men do, but as an activity everyone can do like playing cards and watching television, since playing video games are more of a social norm in Japan because the ratio of people who play video games is much higher. The Japanese video game market is diverse enough that they have the freedom to have more minor titles released that they can build and learn from. It is because of this the type of genres that are most sought after in Japan are the polar opposite of what is desired in America. Popular genres in Japan are currently Role Playing Games, Dating Sims, Music/Rhythm Games, Visual Novels and lastly games that are based off of popular manga (Japanese Comics) and anime. While Americans favor games that are First Person Shooters, Action and Sports Games. However because of games such as Rock Band, and Guitar Hero, Music/Rhythm games are slowly becoming more main-stream in America. Regardless of all the dissimilarity of interests between the two countries, both do share favoritism to Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, though which games favored specifically differ, with Japan siding with Final Fantasy XI and Americans with World of Warcraft.

Dating Sims games like Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side 2nd Season in of themselves somewhat break social mores in America due to their reclusive nature of game play built around the simulation of romantic relationships. America generally considers discussing information about personal relationships something private to individuals within social in-groups and our public versus private persona are kept separate. Something like a simulated romantic relationship would be kept as part of a private persona because it is seen as unusual and unhealthy to real socializing. Oddly though, Japanese culture would seem like it would share the same type of thinking. Yet the reality is in Japan people are less likely to outright criticize or make fun of another who they are not extremely close with, since they always honor the other individual to maintain the harmony of the group as is characteristic of collectivistic cultures.

An American taboo conflicting with Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side 2nd Season would be the type characters you are allowed to pursue in the game. Specifically you are able to pursue your homeroom teacher Wakaouji Takafumi, though admittedly from the art style he doesn’t look a year above 30 throughout the game. In the previous installment of Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side you were capable of also dating your high school principle Amanohashi Ikkaku, who looked like was about 40-years-old. I think that if the game is ever is translated and shipped to America these characters would have to be made unchase-able or risk getting lots of complaints and law suits for inappropriate content. Other things that would need to be changed or made aware is the culture specific holidays in the game such as White’s Day, a special day in only Japan where the guys give gifts to girls as a follow up to Valentine’s Day, where the girls give chocolate to the guys.

Originally designed for the Playstation 2, Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side 2nd Season is a DS version of the original PS2 game with additional characters and a new Skin-Ship mode added to take advantage of the DS touch screen. The game developers didn’t just choose their choice of platform for the game out of nowhere. Their choice was chosen based on specific cultural marketing reasons just had the genre of the game been. From the Japanese busy on-the-go lifestyle, there is a constant advancing need for more portable and multimedia devices which can be easily carried around and taken out whether it is on the bullet train to school, or while at a café on a lunch break. According to Media Create in 2007, the Nintendo DS sold more units than the lifetime sales of the Playstation 2 in Japan. With the newest release of the Nintendo DSi, hailing a new camera feature, larger screen, and DSi Ware with internet browsing capabilities, 500,000 units were sold its first month in Japan. Besides the lifestyle factor, brand loyalty is a social norm in Japan as well, which is the second basis for Microsoft’s ongoing difficulty of breaking into the Japanese market with the Xbox360, besides the lack of games with genres that the Japanese audiences have shown to prefer. To this day only one Xbox or Xbox360 game has ever been in the top 100 sales list in Japan. A fourteen-year-old Real Time RPG franchise game, Namco Bandai’s Tales of Vesperia for the Xbox360 was placed at #82 on the list.

These phenomena of difference in thinking and interests can chiefly be explained by the Collectivistic versus Individualistic social cultural difference. Collectivistic cultures such as Japan put more importance on the interdependence of the group community instead of the goals of the individuals that make up the group community. America in contrast is built upon the idea of freedom, individuality and self-expression that leads our culture to a more Individualistic way of thinking. For example let’s suppose you received a failing grade and your parents were disappointed in you. In a collectivistic culture the responsibility and feeling of fault for your failing grade would have been shared by everyone even though they themselves may have done nothing to cause it. On the other hand in an individualistic culture you as an individual would be held at fault for your grade.

How exactly does this apply to videos games? Well, since individualistic cultures encourage and attain fulfillment through self advancement rather than group goal advancement, a connection can be made for America’s preference for First Person Shooters, Sports games, and Sandbox games like Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row where the actions and decisions of the players are the leading force in creating what happens in the game. If you want to go steal a car and blow up a building you go do it, nothing is stopping you except yourself. Alternatively RPGs, Dating Sims, and Visual Novels stress the idea of character relational development and complex storylines, a way in collectivist cultures to strengthen ties to one’s community. Further more because collectivistic culture emphasizes the significance of groups they tend to distinguish in-groups and out-groups more so than individualistic cultures, which would explain their social norm for brand loyalty.

To further my research I would like to do a mini study where video game avid Americans would demo a small translated version of the Tokimeki Memorial game either on the DS or PS2, along with a choice of it being playable on the PC during a game convention such as E3 to see if there is market for the Dating Sim genre once and for all. This study would demystify for the most part the illusive fear Japanese Game Developers have of shipping Dating Sims overseas without risking millions of dollars translating it. I also have a hypothesis that if the game was ported to the PC more people would be willing to try the game because the PC base is much larger than video game consoles and handhelds in America. Perhaps Tokimeki Memorial may become the next Phoenix Wright maybe not, but we won’t ever know until we take action and actually test the waters.

Culture is easily the biggest influence in games, whether it is intentional or unintentional. It is foundation that drives the art, social interation, communication, style, platform, target audience, and pretty much everything to some degree. By becoming more culturally aware, countries are beginning to widen the diversity of their games in an effort to broaded the market. Games like Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, and Super Smash Brothers are a testament to this and are bridging the gap between all cultures where everyone everywhere could enjoy them for the fantastic games they are.

Works Cited

Dan. "A Study of the Influence of Culture on the Video Game Market." Japanese Game Sales and Demographics. 2008. De Paul University. 7 Jun 2009 http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/noriko/JapanTrip08/pretrip/StudentPresentations/finalPres.ppt.

"History and Culture of Video Games in Japan." 2008. 7 Jun 2009 www.owlnet.rice.edu/~cds3824/japa102/JapaneseCultureProjectFinal.rtf.

"Dating Sims." Wikipedia. 8 June 2009. 7 Jun 2009 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_sim.

Niizumi, Hirohiko. "Survey Unmasks Japanese MMORPG Gamers." Gamespot. 27 Jan 2004. 7 Jun 2009 http://www.gamespot.com/news/6087074.html.

Fireylight, "Intro." Seaside Sketch. 5 Nov 2008. 7 Jun 2009 http://hanegasaki.piyo-piyo.org/intro.php.

"Tokimeki Memorial." Wikipedia. 26 May 2009. 7 Jun 2009 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokimeki_memorial.

Greenhough, Chris. "DS Overtakes PS2 Lifetime Sales in Japan." Nintendo Joystiq. 28 Dec. 2007. Nintendo. 7 June 2009 http://nintendo.joystiq.com/2007/12/28/ds-overtakes-ps2-lifetime-sales-in-japan/.

Matos, Xav De. "Famitsu: Only one Xbox 360 game made Japan's Top 100 in Sales." Joystiq Xbox. 21 Jan. 2009. Joystiq. 7 June 2009 http://xbox.joystiq.com/2009/01/21/only-one-xbox-360-game-made-japans-top-100-in-sales/.

Final Project Synopsis: Week 9

As everyone is beginning to corner down what they want to do for their final project, I've decided to do my final on what speaks to me the most; import games. Specifically my question of focus will be "What is the relationship between games & culture?" or even "How does culture influence games?".

The game I will be focusing on for my question is a Japanese import DS game called "Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side 2nd Season". It is under an asian import exclusive genre called Otome. This genre is the most abundant in Japan, though there are some Korean games with Otome gameplay aspects as well. The goal of these games are to develop a relationship with one of the several chasable male characters. To do this you must perform certain actions, and choose specific response dialogues to raise your affection with your preferred character.

Having been playing exclusively import games in the last few years it isn't hard to put together why I prefer them over the games I could easily acquire in the United States. I was mainly lured in by the unique genres, and overall special stylization of the games, beyond just esthetic. To me the asian import games were more willing to take risks with obscure concept game designs, which is such a breath of fresh air compared to the many cookie-cutter games we have in the USA. The games were meant for a drastically opposite target audience, even more so a different culture all together. Which means a different set of cultural social norms & stereotypes to follow, which in turn largely influences the games we make and thus play. How this idea can be connected and applied to Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side 2nd Season is what I will be exploring.

Now here's a short preview for the game Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side 2nd Season.

Games in the Military: Week 8

I still remember the first time I picked up a first person shooter game was back when I was only 11 years old. It was the original Counter Strike (CS) game that reeled me in along with my brother's constant support to play. The thrill of being the hunter and the hunted was so exciting and was something no other type of genres could pull from me. However within 6 months my grades began to drop from pulling all nighters playing Counter Strike and thus I had to quit playing.To this day my brother on the other-hand continues to play first person shooters, and now plays it on a professional level for tournaments around the United States.

Just last weekend for the first time I went paintballing with 20 other students from Highline Community College. More than 3/4 of the people that went were going for the first time. The fields we played at were filled with foliage, small forts, wrecked cars, and debris to hide behind. Though paintballing was in my opinion more realistic than CS, I had the same adrenaline rush playing CS as I did paintballing, it was just more physically painful being hit.

From this very reason I have never been all that suprised that the military decided to go with video games as a method to promote interest as well as simulate training and being in the army. The same thing can be applied towards arcade racing games, Go-Karts and actual driving. Now driving schools use virtual driving for students to simulate driving before hopping into a real car. If anything it seemed like common sense for them to reach this generation of young adults, and teens. In 2008 NPD, a New York based market research firm revealed that 72% of the U.S. played video games, up 8% from 2006. Keeping the game America's Army free for download on the PC was an even more clever decision in order to reach as many people as possible.

As said in "Military Training is Just a Game" and "Wii All You Can Be? Why the Military Needs the Gaming Industry" it just makes sense for the Military to go ahead and use what the newest generation of recruits will probably already know before being recuited, a game controller. Doing so would build upon the foundation of what they are already are familiar with, expediating the learning while easily distributing the game to the online community through the internet if they release it to the public. If they do release it to the public, they would have the oppotunity to play and talk to real soldiers who play as well. The military is continuing to find ways to make the simulation games more immersive and realistic of war such as putting in the training aspects of the army and dealing with real situation scenarios soldiers has experienced previously in war.

"Atomic Games' Tamte Defends Six Days' Relevance" spoke of using games as a medium to make their game "Six Days in Fallujah". Where the point of the game is to re-tell the true stories of the marines who returned from Fallujah. Though it treads a thin line as propaganda to side on one opinion of the war. It's conflict like this that feed the ongoing controversy of using war or military in video games. Even though as discussed in "History of Military Gaming" war and military has been a concept used in games and for simulation long before the creation of video games. "US Military Recruits Children: "America's Army" Video Game Violates International Law" argued that the military is using video games knowingly as propaganda to recruit children by visualizing being in the army as only a "game". However the military has been using advertising for recruiting by means of television, billboards, magazines, radio, t.v. shows, and toys. All of which don't really make the negatives of being in the military prominient. But their purpose is to recruit and or promote interest in the military. So why would they advertise the negatives? Companies selling flouride toothpaste aren't going to say "Beware Buyers May Experience Stomach Discomfort If Swallowed" on a gigantic billboard.

If anything having played some of the games, the military are trying their best to simulate everything about war, including the pain and loss. They have generals die in the middle of scenarios as well as betrayers. There are civilians which can turn out to be not civilians at all and attack you. But nothing could ever adequately simulate the true war experience unless you see it first hand anyway. Though a person may watch movies likes "Black Hawk Down" and "Saving Private Ryan" through out their lives, it's certainly isn't the same as seeing real people die everyday. There is only so much we can simulate. Children everyday are being bombarded by the media to live up to certain expectations and setting scenarios as what is right and what is wrong when in real life there is alot of grey. Not to say that it's entirely okay for the military to just reinfoce that either. But there is only so much you simulate before it just simply that, a simulation. Simulations can only prepare you so far.

Gaming, Ethics and Democracy: Week 7

Previously to reading this week’s article, I had watched an interesting documentary specifically about gold farming ethics as well as the real world money exchange in online games. The program followed a couple who together played City of Heroes and their usage of a Gold Farming Company to power level the wife up to the same level as her husband because she herself didn’t have as much time as her husband to play. She wanted to have fun playing with him and her lower level prevented that.

“Current Analysis and Future Research Agenda on “Gold Farming”: Real-World Production in Developing Countries for the Virtual Economies of Online Games” discussed the growing business of Gold Farming in games. How Gold Farming was outsourced to developing countries with lower dollar value such as China and providing jobs for those countries, in turn profiting the economy in those countries that then profits the countries hiring them to gold farm, also the ethical “cheating” conflict behind the usage of gold farming to advance players ahead of others. And lastly what actions the game companies are taking to stop the underground business of gold farming.

As for my experience of gold farming, in the recent years most Asia based games such as Fly For Fun and Gunbound are effectively putting a stop to gold farming by converting to become part of it in order to profit from it, since they cannot stop it anyway. They rather regulate it than have it be “underground” so to speak. Those familiar with Gaia Online are sure to recognize how they have taken measures to do this as well with their system of Gaia Cash and special highly valuable Monthly Collectables sent to only paying players. This to me seems like the most effective way to deal with the gold farming. It gets rid of the all the time to determine and ban gold farming players, it profits the game company, prevents the players paying for the gold farming getting scammed, while allowing the other players to still continue enjoying the other features of the game if they choose not to. It seems as though in Asia that the mentality is that it is alright for paying players to advance since they are paying real money to pay so they have the right to advance. At the same time non-paying players can choose to pay at anytime if they want to receive the same advantages. The paying players are happy playing the way they are and do not inhibit the other players from enjoying their games any differently either, everyone is happy.

I’d have to propose though that I can see this way of thinking is more common in Asia for their collectivistic culture unlike more western cultures which are more individualistic in thinking. Which I can see, would lead them to see it as more acceptable with this method taken by game developers as long as “everyone can have fun playing the game” no matter how they play it. In contrast individualistic culture would probably be more from the perspective of individual advancement, which could be a reason to cause the difference in the acceptance of allowing other players to advance because they pay more. It is more desirable for individualistic cultures to achieve renown by becoming better than the other game players through means of legitimate playing. This can tie in with “The Social Network Game Boom”, where it discussed the lightened ramification of cheating between friends. Where in collectivistic cultures others besides ones-self are always acknowledged, we can connect this to how they don’t take the cheating in the games as seriously as long as they are playing the games for just fun. Much like is said in “Cheaters: A Special Report” by Bowling, “game designers design the games to have the players feel awarded by self achievement felt reaching the top level. Those who choose to cheat are more so cheating themselves out of the reward of the game rather than ruining the experience of others”.

When the purpose of a game is to compete with one another, “cheating” with bots and patches are just not accepted anywhere for the whole point of competing would then be to match the player against each other to see who is the better player. However another question is raised, through reading “Computer Game Modding, Intermediality and Participatory Culture”. What are acceptable forms of modification of a game until it is considered cheating and not modifications meant for enjoyment? I myself have used cheat codes placed inside the The Sims franchise as well as patches made by the online community for enhance my own enjoyment of playing the game. With or without the cheats I can still have fun; it all depends on how I wish to play since the cheats do change the game play in order to make it fun to play as it is said in the article.

All in all games I think that games’ main purpose is to be used to have fun, and that no matter how you play are playing as long as you are having fun and are not preventing others from the same right, the game serves its purpose. In competition though where the point of the game changes to instead compete, it isn’t really fair for any kind of outside advantage such as faster internet, a supped up computer, not just bots and usage of glitches for self advantage, or anything else beyond the achieved skill of the player.

Gaming as/in Life: Week 6

In this week’s topic of Gaming as/in life, our articles discussed how the internet and gaming has influenced real life issues. Beginning with “Introduction: The Digital Revolution, the Informed Citizen, and the Culture of Democracy” by Henry Jenkins and David Thorburn, the article mainly discussed and argued the internet’s affect or rather future affect on politics, a real life issue.

Race In Games: Week 5

As we continue on to week 5 we began to discuss race and its place in video games. The first article "In Video Games the Bad Guys come in All Shades of Stereotypes" by Lynda Lin was about college student Robert Parungao and his study on race representation in games. His thesis was based on four games; Kung Fu, Shadow Warrior, Warcraft 3, and Grand Theft Auto 3. I found Parungaos section of the article to be a case of simply put “Only seeing what you want to see”. His examples from each of the four games displaying stereotypes of Asians to me seem flawed. Like in Kung Fu how it is so stereotypical that “the main character chops and kicks his way through a temple to save his lover”, well the game is based on a movie following that storyline…And in response to the aesthetics chosen for Kung Fu, it may seem stereotypical that it is set so you play in Chinese temples, but I think this can be easily reasoned for a way the Japanese game designers wanted the game to be associated with the movie (a Hong Kong action film). The makers of Shadow Warrior even called their game “an attempt to parody all of those low budget kung fu movies we loved as kids.” Do we take the Scary Movie Parodies as truth to how all African American men are like, or how all Caucasian women are like? No, I really don’t think so. The characters were made to exaggerate the stereotypes for comedic affect not something to actually take seriously as a way to judge a specific race. The same intention went into the making of Shadow Warrior. In Warcraft 3 there is a race called the Pandaren Empire, as the name suggests a race of panda humanoids. The creation of this race was originally meant as an April Fool’s joke by Blizzard artist Samwise Didier, but then they received massive positive response from Warcraft fans so then were included in the Warcraft 3 expansion The Frozen Throne. In fact the Pandaren originally wore Japanese Samurai Armor in the Warcraft 3 beta but then was fixed to more Chinese styled garb since there were political correctness complaints that the Panda is native to specifically China. Had there been any people offended by the stereotype of the Asian pandas (Japanese or Chinese), I think that they would’ve changed the Pandaren design from the Japanese Style to something more ambiguous to not offend any of the Asian cultures. Lastly, Parungao mentions how Grand Theft Auto 3 depicts the Chinese Triad and the Japanese Yakuza, but doesn’t seem to acknowledge all the other races GTA 3 stereotypes. What about the Italian Mafia that appears throughout the GTA series? Though I found the rest of the article with Parungao arguable, I really connected with the final quote from Lee, the student from UC San Diego, “As an Asian American who grew up playing lots of video games, I have to say that none of it ever felt racist to me and I don’t think I’ve met anyone who thought less of me because of something he saw in a video game.”

“Why I Didn’t Buy GTA: Chinatown Wars” by Jaime Kuroiwa was an article that explained (you guessed it) the reason why Kuroiwa didn’t buy GTA Chinatown Wars. In this short article his main defense for not buying the game is because of its overdone cliché plotline summary. Well, honestly when the last time any type of entertainment had something completely new and different, especially video games? If I wanted to make a three sentence plot summary to fit on the back of a DS box, I could break down any game out there and have it seem like a clichéd game too (even though that might not be the case at all). It’s not too difficult because all games are based on one familiar clichéd storyline or another if you analyze it enough. Anyway, plot summaries are suppose to be quick and straight to the point about what games are about, just compare to all other game summaries. The purpose is because the normal average consumer takes less than 30 seconds to scan the back of a game to decide if he wants to seriously consider buying it. You can’t have some overly complicated plot summary advertising your game. He also explains other reasons such as not being impressed by GTAs depiction of mature content (illicit drugs, violence) that has been always controversial in the GTA franchise (and one of the big reasons what makes the game stand out). Which makes me wonder has he himself ever bought a single GTA game, if he is so unimpressed by its tactics to “shock” its players? His third reason was the game makers’ non-creativeness in using the DS systems capabilities to full advantage in making the game. However I think that the majority of DS games don’t use the systems capabilities to full advantage either (if not at all), so I really don’t see his point...(a DS game can still be good even though it doesn't use DS capabilities). Overall I think that Kuroiwa is simply giving any reason he can think of not to buy GTA: Chinatown Wars, because he unconsciously doesn’t want to sell out to Asian stereotypes (how stereotypical is it for an Asian person to buy a game with the word “Chinatown” in it is probably what he is thinking). That or he doesn't buy the GTA series anyways and continues to not buy them.

In “Opinion: Resident Evil 5 – How Does This Make You Feel, ‘Partner’?” by Tom Cross, Cross basically went on and criticized RE5 for using xenophobia as a new “horror”. To him RE5 stereotyped the African tribe of Kijuju in a way to invoke fear, using tactics such as poverty, uncleanliness, and foreign practices of African people. Though I have yet to play RE5, I would think that a rotting head of a pig in the game environment was intended to just show how the now virus infected people of Kijuju are no longer human and leave things to deteriorate. Similar to how in the previous Resident Evil games the same type of atmosphere was created by showing how things (buildings, cars) were on fire, as well as decrepit after the spread of the virus within just a few years (buildings falling apart, windows boarded up, wallpaper destroyed and torn/falling off, gigantic spider webs the size of humans everywhere, not a working light bulb to be found except in save spots, the works). Except since in truth the depicted African Tribe (we assume) was impoverished to begin with before the spread of the virus, so in order to show how Africans have changed due to the virus, they now leave things to decay (like the butchered pig head as well as the buildings and places they now inhabit) and are now more violent (cause they weren’t like that before the virus) as well as wear odd clothes and exhibit even odder animalistic behavior than before. Having played all the RE games before RE5, I can tell you that thought out the games the scattered journals depicting the degeneration of being a human and then infected with the T-Virus into a zombie all follow a similar pattern, except they weren’t African they were mainly Caucasian Americans and African Americans. Cross also comments on how RE4 & RE5 could have achieved the same horror affect by placing the setting in any impoverished place, specifically America. But doesn’t mention how the previous RE games to RE4 & RE5 were however set in America (well fictional cities in America that is). And in those previous games you as the player “cleanse” the area of zombies as well. I think that if the makers of RE set the game in some remote village in China we would still be having the same discussion of negative race representation, even though they went through the exact same process of zombification as the ones previously shown in America.

The Game Developer Demongraphics Report just reinforced my belief that Game Designers make games in connection to themselves; they make games they themselves want to play (cause of course who wants to design a game they hate?). And with the statistic that 88.5% are male, 83.3% are White, and 92% heterosexual (umm...I'm guessing this report is just for the USA cause I know there are lots of Asian game designers in Korea and Japan...), no wonder most protagonists in games originating from America are white and male and heterosexual. I'm sure that if the report was done in Japan or Korea they would find that most are Asian males (but a higher percentage of females than America in the field) around the same age. And it's no suprise games originating from Asia have more main characters with Asian descent/features or the game as made in an recognisable Asian style of art (I'm also counting all the hundreds of games that don't even get translated to America since the target audience is different) (Random factoid but there alot more games I know of originating from Asia depicting homosexual main characters as well, since there is more of a market for them in Asia towards girls, its a video game genre called BL). I'm sure that if more African or Hispanic/Latino or other ethnicities were to make games they would make more games featuring main characters sharing their own ethnicity and characteristics. It's almost to be expected for game developers to ace their own ethnicity in the games they make because there is a need to feel connected to the characters they develop and play. Admittedly it is sometimes a factor in what even makes a game more enjoyable. Even though I think it would be awesome to see more ethnicities being represented in a positive way in games the bottom line is it really helps that if they want to see more of their own ethnicity shown in games they are going to have to themselves become a larger part of the industry.

Reading the articles written by Cross and about Parungaos study just makes me think that there really is no pleasing all people whenever you have a Caucasian protagonist up against any non-Caucasian type of enemy. Which I think honestly cuts down on the creativity leeway of designing games. Automatically these few read into every little thing as being racist or showing the race in a negative way or being stereotyped. Game developers have to be on their toes to make sure to not upset anyone when depicting any other ethnicity besides Caucasian. At least MMORPGs have it easy; they can just depict ambiguous non human people (except pandas, that's a no no), or allow for customization to any type of human you want and call it a day. But at the same time if they don’t show any other ethnicities in games some people still won’t be happy because “the real world is made up of more than just a single skin color”. The makers of RE even put Sheva in RE5, a woman of obvious African descent, but of course this isn’t enough for Cross because she’s too “light”. No matter what game developers do these people are still going to be unhappy, because it seems they are looking for any reason to pull the race card and say the game can be better in representing race. As said before in my previous post about gender, even though there are stereotypes in games, most people don’t use the games as reason to actually be racist or hold serious prejudiced beliefs against that depicted gender or race. We as a society are getting better to racially diversify ourselves in all enterainment persuits (think of for example all the films like "Slum Dog Millionare", "Pan's Labyrinth", "Curse of the Golden Flower" that are big right now) including video games beyond stereotypes (PeaceMaker, MMORPGs, Resident Evil franchise [yes, I believe the makers of RE are trying the best they can to diversify race in their games], Mirrors Edge). Just like gender its up to society to really put a foot down and change how race is being represented in order to see a change in games as well.

Gender in Games: Week 4

For week 4's main subject topic we discussed gender in computer games. Before I begin the synthesis one of beginning observations of gender in games I have before reading the articles is how little female targeted games there are and if there is a female targeted game, the females are nearly always put into a very female stereotyped design or role (the damsel in distress; Princess Peach, the bimbo that always gets herself in the worst situations; Silent Hill, Fatal Frame, Dead Rising, or the promiscuous femme fatale;007 girls, the perfect mother teresa; Aerith, and the emotional drama queen;Jade Empire)? And if the character doesn't fit into one of our stereotypes of female behavior or roles then they are made up for in visual character design (for example a more voluptuous figure or maybe more revealing clothing; Tomb Raider, Heavenly Sword, any fighting game like Soul Caliber or Mortal Combat or Guilty Gear or Street Fighter)? Then there's the last category for female characters that don't fit into either category, but usually they are just back up and NPC characters for comic relief or game stuffing (characters designed just for the sake of having another character to choose from). Are the game designers conciously doing this to shape our idea of how women should be or just a reflection of feeding in to how our society expects our women to be.

Anyhow, the first article I decided to read was Playing with Fire: Trouble in Super Macho World? written by Gonzalo Frasca, which discussed and analysed Nintendos Super Princess Peach for the DS. Gonzalo main point in his article was pointing out whether or not the game should be praised for the first time in the Mario Franchise having Princess Peach as a protagonist instead of just a damsel in distress however enforcing female stereotypes. Most notably for example, how in Super Princess Peach, Peach's method of super powers is using her emotions against foes and to heal herself. Gonzalo also brings up from this that what actions you are able to do with a character in a game adds to another dimension of the characters personality. So not only is Peach's looks quite stereotyped (blonde, blue-eyed, pink dress, high heels, and a parasol, come on!), but her actions are also (intentional or not Peach comes across as a highly emotionally unstable girl).

I agree with Gonzalo in what he conclusionally states by saying that it is great to see more high production rate games targeted towards the female population but Nintendo can still do a better job in giving its female characters such as Peach more depth and personality in playable game actions beyond being bi-polar. However I won't blame Nintendo too much since Peachs persona has already long been established and to change it now would be bizzare. For example for me it would be the same as Apple all of a sudden deciding to change their white and sleek marketing look toward something more dark and punk like Hot Topic. Would Peach be the same Princess if she had laser eye beam powers? Now think, if you could think of a better super power for Peach that is less stereotyped but still within the boundries of her already built character persona what would it be? Honestly I can't really think of anything, but then again I'm not a team of people paid to build upon a already iconic character. On a marketing stand point, sure it's probably not a great message to be sending out to to pre pubescent girls but it's not as bad as making an iconic character out of character. Also I think that if anyone takes a game like Super Princess Peach seriously as an adult as something they strive to become then I think something is really wrong with them. Yes, children do imitate what they see from games to an extent but it's also normal for them to grow out of it (which is what is called play stage in sociology BTW) as well and distinguish it as just a game.

Now on to the next article I read which was Got Game by John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade Chapter 2. The chapter mainly was about how games influence on people (young persons especially) who play them and whether or not they really are influencing them in regards to gender roles, violence, and isolation. In aspects of Gender Roles, yes, males do show to have a more favor towards games with a "fast-twitch factor" (how the book describes them such as racing, sports, FPS, games etc.) while girls tend to favor more mind stimulating puzzles and quizes. But overall games seem to be an activity anybody (male or female) this day and age can pick up and not have it be abnormal in the bit least. Also the chapter also adds that games even allow more gender role experimentation without consequences like in the "real world" where you can't as easily see what it's like to dress up an avatar or take care of a baby or have facial hair. In violence no official word has been released proving once and for all violent games correlate with violent behavior. Except that data does show that crime statistics have dropped after the large introduction and popularity of games depicting violence. Isolation in games have been a worry for many non-gamers beliving it is a way for player to escape from the real world thus losing real world social interaction, but the chapters take on it is that gamers can differentiate what is the real world and what is just a game. Also that the large majority of youth actually play video games and so it really isn't such an isolating thing but rather normal. Many are using games as a way to bond as well with others.

While reading chapter 2 I find that it echos my sentiments exactly as I had with the article on Super Princess Peach in that, as well as touched on some thoughts I had in a previous blog about how most gamers once playing a game recognise this "game reality" and never really mix it up with actual reality. Once the game is over it's really over, they don't really go and continue playing the game in real life after turning off the system. Just like with Super Princess Peach and how I said that once people grow up we tend to not really take the game seriously into our lives but rather it is just a game meant for our entertainment. We can cheat on our wives in The Sims but that doesn't neccessarily mean we are going to go out and cheat on our spouse in real life. It's just a game however we play. Yes there are those who for them games become their obsession and choose their escapist life over reality but those are few and far inbetween just like sociopaths(media just loves to publicize it though). And yes games do allows us to experiment things or atleast have a remote idea about things we would have otherwise have not known was like such as raising a child, being a hero or a villain, saving the princess, winning a soccer game, building a city, designing a house, dressing up, etc. But to go as far as blame games for causing people to have violent behavior I think is like blaming casinos for people having gambling additions. The resposibility should lay on the individuals not the items or activites their behaviors latch onto for excuses. Stereotypes in my opinion are defined by each individual, there are only there if you believe it's there and it is their choice to follow them or not. For example in Harvest Moon DS Cute you play a female avatar and she portrayed visually as a blonde blue eyed girl with long hair. Yes you can say the designers were stereotyping woman by making her have long blonde hair, when she could have had lets say short brown hair (Like Elle if you are familiar with Harvest Moon 64 on the Nintendo 64) or red short hair and a serious face (Like Nami from Harvest Moon A Wonderful Life on the Gamecube). But when I play I see a girl regardless of what stereotype she supposedly is following, because that's all she is to me, a girl. If she looked more like a boy, she would still be a girl to me nothing would change. In the game you can do everything the boy main character in Harvest Moon can. But neither thinking is entirely wholely "right". Each thinking is correct to that single individual. So shouldn't it be the individuals choice to follow the stereotype or ignore it?

Perils of the Princess: Gender and Genre in Video Games by Sharon R. Sherman, was out of all this weeks article the most frustrating to read which was prompted by the subject matter. Sharon's article analyzed the game Super Mario Bros. in terms of Marchen (the fairy tale format) and Myth (the format followed by real world common myths). Though half of what Sharon wrote I could say was valid points and analysis (mostly the hero's evolutionary journey in comparison to Mario's journey to save Peach), the other half was what I saw as (un?)intentional biaism from being so uninformed. Something I would typically see done in a high school newspaper by journalism students who take zilch time to actually research their topic. A good example of this was when she wrote that drug culture was a subtle role in some of the games, like Marios ability in some of the games to change size just like Lewis Carolls book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Super Mario Brothers Game Designer was Japanese (Shigeru Miyamoto) and so I highly doubt the use of mushrooms and the ability to change size was alluding to drug use since in Japan they weren't affected by the 60s drug culture as dominately as the USA at all. She also presented alot of opinions as if they were facts (which made it even more frustrating to read). Namely in page 8 & 9 of the article where she interviewed and quoted from serveral different boys and girls on the matter of sexisim and gender roles in games. She uses their quotes as if they give her side of the argument as validity without also actually stating hard evidence and facts for her theories/assumptions. The ironic and sad thing is I feel that it's writers like Sharon that just enforce the stereotype of gamer girls Sharon speaks of.

Gender in Video Games is always one of my favorite topics to speak about since I myself am trying to get into a statisticly male dominated field. And after reading all three articles I still continue to hold my opinion that what types of game produced and are popular really just show what type of society we have at the moment. Compare games from back 10 years ago or 20 years ago, and you can see a shift in what we see women and men portrayed as (not only in games but all forms of entertainment) and more freedom to choose what gender you are in games as well as how you express their genders (Fable 2 allows for cross dressing). Yes, some game men are still portrayed as the overly masculinized hulks and barbarians, but there are now equally a number of men portrayed as having qualities we would recognise as feminine in quality, and some characters as ambiguous. The same goes for woman, there are less and less damsels in distress waiting to be rescued and more independant woman figures propelling games. But there will always be some damsels in distress, bimbos, and scantally clad woman as well but isn't that what our society is made up of? A mixture of all types of people?