Video games and culture

Since culture influences the very way we perceive the world, it’s natural that it should also affect the way in which video games are designed and constructed in different countries.  Aleks Krotoski of gamesblog (via Cross Cultural News) examines this topic on her site and looks at some of the differences between Western and Asian video games.

One obvious difference is in the types of characters and situations.  She uses a wikipedia entry as a reference to determine that:

Western RPGs are set in a fayirie fantaysie type of environment, with bawdy barmaids and lots of rats. They tend to be dark, brooding, and the action often takes place in a location where at least one of the main characters has to be English. Tolkien-obsessed. …

Far Eastern RPGs, on the other hand, are often set in colourful spaces which feature a mix of traditional “Eastern history and mythology”. They also take manga and other highly stylised content as their inspiration, whereas we take elves, warriors, etc.

Even more interesting, I think, are some of the differences that are based on our cultural perceptions of the world.  Her sources here include a blog entry from Terra Nova and research done by Prof. Richard Nisbett of the University of Michigan.  Krotoski writes:

…there’s some evidence to suggest that people from the West and people from the East differ on more than game content; we also differ on what we pay attention to. This may have implications for the types of games we each prefer. (Terra Nova) eloquently explains findings of a study by Prof Richard Nisbett:

“One of conclusions of Nisbett’s work is that given an image a Westerner will tend to focus on prominent details where as someone from Asia will take in the images as a whole and the relationship between things – they tend to give a more overall, complete account of a scene.” …

“Another point that Nisbett makes is that Westerners tend to assume linearity but Asians assume circularity. For example he gave in a recent interview was a stable set of circumstances a Westerner will tend to think that this signified a trend and that things will continue in the same fashion but an Asian will tend to think that it is indicative of the potential for change and ultimate return to some pre-existing state.”

Cross-cultural specialists regularly note that Westerners view things according to their component parts and see time in a linear fashion, whereas Asians see the world holistically and view history as being more circular.  So it shouldn’t be a surprise to see these perceptions also show up in video games.  One more indication of the importance of culture in understanding the world.

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