Occidental, or Oriental?

[ShiraiJunichi]

I get the impression that most people think that a game's culture is incredibly obvious. While this may be true for longer, commercial games, I think that for smaller, fan made games, it won't be so obvious. I mean, names of people and places will give you an obvious idea of where it's set, but actual cultural aspects may be very subtle, or even non-existant.

On one hand, I think it is impossible to write a game that is completely 100% authentic Japanese culture, no matter how much research you do- at least for me. You can't replace cultural experience with simple research. But on the other hand, I think it would be fairly easy, even without research, to create a game that could possibly be set in Japan, simply by avoiding things that you know are country specific- such as voting age (it would be a big error to set your game in Japan, and have one of the characters talk about voting when they turn 18 >_<). Although, concrete things, such as voting age, are easily researched- so they could even be included without much effort.

Also, I think we're neglecting the fact that countries aren't completely uniform. So even if you do restrict your game to a certain country, there's still a bit of flexibility

[mikey]

Usually, I would probably name characters according to the culture. However, you could try against this and see what happens.

Kind of like Moonlight Walks, Amgine Park vs. Kasuka, River Trap...
I guess it doesn't make a huge difference. I go for the mixed version, but I think MW & AP had their own kind of atmosphere because the names were culture-true.

I get the impression that most people think that a game's culture is incredibly obvious. While this may be true for longer, commercial games, I think that for smaller, fan made games, it won't be so obvious. I mean, names of people and places will give you an obvious idea of where it's set, but actual cultural aspects may be very subtle, or even non-existant.

I absolutely agree.
It will also depend on just what kind of cultural issues your game will tackle (if any).
And if you focus on love, I guess there's not much that can be different in all those cultures ^_^ .

[PyTom]

Hm... some thoughts on this topic. I've been watching anime for about a decade now, so take this with a grain of salt.

In general, I don't see anime as very Japanese. I mean, I do when I see things like girls who wear the kimono all the time, or Shinto shrines, or stuff like that. But by and large, when watching anime, I don't get the "foreign" vibe from it. Even when there are fairly large cultural differences present ("Onegai Twins" would have been a non-issue in the US), I generally don't see them.

Now, I guess part of this may be that, as mentioned above, I have been watching Anime for over a decade, so little things don't faze me. But I think there are two other issues in play.

The first is that anime and game characters are fundamentally cartoons in nature, and fairly abstract. This reminds me of something McCloud points out in "Understanding Comics"... the more abstract characters are, the more we can put ourselves in their place. I don't see anime characters as having race unless it is explicitly pointed out, for example. So it's very easy to ignore such things with anime, in a way it is not for live action stuff. (This tends to break down a bit with more-realistically styled manga.)

The fact that, in many cases, caucasians and asians tend to be drawn the same in Anime reinforces this.

A second thing is that, as far as I know, anime-Japan has about as much to do with the real Japan as the America people see in the TV and Movies has to do with the real America... not much. So it's not like either media culture is a massively authentic version of the real culture... And to some extent, the two are more like each other than their respective real cultures.

So, from a game player's perspective, I don't think the culture really affects my appreciation of the game much. Culture mixing can... I recall being suprised that TT mixed people who I mentally classified as Chinese and Japanese... In my experience, everybody in east-Asia seems to hate everybody else in east-Asia. (Random observations on small samples, of course.)

That being said, I think that the choice of setting and environment is an important decision a game-maker needs to make. I think that opening up the setting can lead to different games, which can make for varying stories. IIRC, mikey once pointed out that the language a story is told in can affect the story itself.

So I think my argument is that setting doesn't really matter from the user's perspective, it can really matter from the story's perspective. And so I think that since there are about 192 countries out there that aren't Japan, I think it would be a shame to set every game in anime-Japan.

Finally, let me make a mercenary point. If an OEBG developer were to one day try to target the Japanese market, my gut feeling is that a game that uses a Japanese setting would be less well recieved than one that used the creator's home country.

[mikey]

I recall being suprised that TT mixed people who I mentally classified as Chinese and Japanese...

ummm... it was all because Hiroka had to be in a foreign country, but the names I wanted to stay at least Asian nevertheless.

But by and large, when watching anime, I don't get the "foreign" vibe from it.

^_^ it's a common joke that anime girls are everything the Japanese girls aren't. Long legs, huge eyes, hair like a shampoo commercial, and also certain other attention-grabbing body parts...

If an OEBG developer were to one day try to target the Japanese market, my gut feeling is that a game that uses a Japanese setting would be less well recieved than one that used the creator's home country.

Yeah, people seem to be quite critical when someone tampers in their environments - Noir (the anime) had one episode where Kirika meets a guy from (former) Czechoslovakia, and he says in a melancholic way he can't remember whether he was from the one or the other country. Technically, this is almost impossible (he's Czech), and every Noir review Czech or Slovak always mentions this little thing with a smile.

Though I can very well understand when someone goes to a different country for some time and comes back, of course that person is full of new ideas and inspired by his experiences, and wants to share it. It also applies to the anime newcomer and it's the source of the many overjapanized fanfictions and anime slang. I'm not at all against these enthusiastic productions, everyone's been there at some point, but IMO you'll soon realize it's mostly copying and when you want to say something with your game and it really matters to you, you'll be less and less inclined to use elements that are not the "true you".

And that's why I think the Asian flavor is best if it's just a flavor, a certain extra. And to get back to PyTom's quote, that's mainly the reason I coincide with his views - people will respect you more if they see your game stands for something.