自由論題［研究論文］

Japanese Digital Games in Germany
A Case Study of Gameplay Across Cultural Borders

ドイツにおける日本のデジタルゲーム受容
異文化間に発生するゲームプレイの分析と考察

Stefan Brückner

Doctoral Program, Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University

ステファン ブリュックナー
慶應義塾大学大学院政策・メディア研究科後期博士課程

Shuichi Kurabayashi

Technical Advisor / Director of Cygames Research, Cygames Inc.

倉林 修一
株式会社 Cygames 技術顧問 / Cygames Research 所長

Ikumi Waragai

Professor, Faculty of Policy Management, Keio University

藁谷 郁美
慶應義塾大学総合政策学部教授

Abstract:

Despite the increasing globalization of the digital games market, differences in
the way games are selected, experienced and evaluated exist across cultural borders,appearing most salient between East Asian and Western countries. This paper reports
the results of a case study, aimed at examining how localized Japanese games arereceived by German players. Using think-aloud protocol, we gathered and analyzed
more than 25 hours of commented gameplay footage, by two German participants
across four games. We identify and discuss game elements, that affected theparticipants’ player experience.
デジタルゲーム市場の国際化が拡大しつつある一方、ゲームのセレクション
やゲーム体験、評価には文化圏によって差異があり、特に東アジア - 欧米間で見られる違いは顕著である。本研究の目的は、ローカライズされた日本のデジタルゲームがドイツのユーザに受け入れられるその受容プロセスを探求する点にある。思考発話法を研究手法とし、ドイツの実験協力者 2 名に対し 4 種
類のデジタルゲーム体験を実施した。収集・分析対象としたのは 25 時間以上のプレイデータである。本論では協力者のユーザ体験に干渉するゲームの要素を特定・考察する。

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Keywords: digital games, gameplay, cultural borders, think-aloud protocol
デジタルゲーム、ゲームプレイ、文化圏、思考発話法

1

Introduction
Digital games have grown to become the most prominent entertainment media

in terms of market revenue. In 2019, an estimated 2.9 billion people worldwide
frequently use digital games (Statista, 2019), generating approximately 137.9 billion
USD in revenues (Newzoo, 2018). The spread of games and related phenomena, suchas e-sports or live streaming, is aided by, and simultaneously reinforces, trends
towards the globalization of the digital games industry, market and player
communities (Consalvo, 2009). Despite such tendencies, differences in the way
games are selected, experienced, interpreted and evaluated by their players areevident across cultural borders (Zagal and Tomuro, 2013). These differences arguably
appear most salient between “ the East” (i.e. East Asia) and “the West” (i.e. North
America and Europe; cf. Consalvo, 2016) , posing substantial challenges for gamedevelopers and publishers (Byford, 2014).
While the inﬂuence of cultural factors on user experience and user centric design
receives growing attention in the area of human-computer-interaction and user
experience research (e.g. Santoso et al., 2017), the complexity of games and theirfundamental differences when compared to utility software or websites make it
difficult to directly adapt these results (Wiemeyer et al., 2016). Although gamescholars increasingly examine the globalized production and circulation of games(Consalvo, 2009), their cross-cultural reception (Consalvo, 2016 ; Zagal and Tomuro,2013) and their adaptation and localization for foreign markets (Mangiron, 2018 ;OʼHagan, 2015), current research on digital games in global contexts is still limited
by a lack of systematic, empirical cross-cultural analyses of game cultures andplayer-game interaction (cf. Elmezeny and Wimmer, 2018, p. 81). This makes it
diﬃcult to examine how games, created in speciﬁc cultural contexts, are received,
experienced and evaluated by players across cultural borders.

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Figure 1 Relationship between game, player and their respective cultural contexts

This paper reports the results of a cross-cultural case study, aimed at examining
how German players experience and evaluate localized Japanese digital games (seefig. 1). Japanese digital games are consumed globally. However, their production
process is often primarily centered domestically, with predominantly Japanesedevelopment teams. The resulting product of such a development environment isargued to showcase uniquely Japanese elements in respect to a gameʼs aesthetics,
narrative and ludic aspects (Schules, 2015). This supposed “Japaneseness” isreceiving increased attention by scholars and fans (Consalvo, 2016) and warrants thequestion of how Western users experience and interpret Japanese games, i.e. games
produced by a developer based in Japan, with a mostly Japanese staff, as indicated in
the gamesʼ credits. As we endeavor to understand, how Japanese games are received
in the West, we focus on Germany, the largest games market in Europe and thesecond largest market among Western countries after the US (Newzoo, 2019),
because of its market size and maturity. We decided against focusing on the US in
this survey, because of the strong inﬂuence local companies have over it. Germany,on the other hand, is a prime example of a mature games market, open to a variety ofcontents from a wide range of countries (game - Verband der deutschen GamesBranche, 2019).
We recorded more than 25 hours of play sessions with two German users,
playing four different Japanese games chosen based on a set of theoreticalassumptions (see chapter 2). We utilized think-aloud protocol (TAP), i.e. players were332

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asked to constantly voice their thoughts during play, to create a set of analyzable text
documents, depicting the participants experiences during play. We also conductedfollow-up interviews after the play sessions.

Figure 2 Relationship between game system, player, the surrounding (cultural) contexts
and player experience over time. Capturing player’s momentary experience
provides the highest quality of data through the absence of time lag and filtering
processes

We employ TAP as a method to holistically analyze usersʼ momentary player
experience1), i.e. the experience during the actual period in which a product is used
(Vermeeren et al., 2010, p. 527, cf. Marti and Iacono, 2016) while interacting withdigital games created in a different cultural context (see ﬁg. 2). “Holistic” here refers
to a comprehensive analysis of usersʼ experiences in concern to both, a gameʼsnarrative and audio-visual elements, its “shell”, as well as its underlying “core”(Mäyrä, 2008, p. 8) of systems, rules and mechanics, often colloquially referred to as“gameplay”. Although narrative and mechanic elements are strongly interrelated(Ang, 2006), prior studies show a tendency to focus only on specific aspects ofplayer-game interaction, such as narrative (Qin et al., 2009), immersion (Ermi and
Mäyrä, 2007 ; Nacke and Lindley, 2008) or playability (Sánchez et al., 2009) and aremainly conducted from a design viewpoint and within a single cultural context.
The contribution of this paper is thus two-fold. First, we provide empirical
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results on how games are adopted and interacted with across cultures through an indepth examination of the reception of Japanese games by German players. Second,
we carry out a holistic analysis of the player-game interaction, considering core andshell elements. We find that several narrative and gameplay elements common in
Japanese games pose potential barriers for the immersion of German players into thegames. Furthermore, Japanese games tend to be evaluated by players based on
different criteria than Western games.
In the following section 2, we discuss our methodological framework for thiscase study and provide a detailed overview of our dataset and the selection criteria
for participants and games in this study. In section 3 we report the results of therecorded play sessions and our survey of game reviews. We discuss, compare andcontextualize the results in section 4 and provide our conclusions in section 5.

2

Method

2.1

Overview
To understand, how German players interact with and experience Japanesegames, we recorded over 25 hours of commented gameplay footage by two German
players of four games. We transcribed the footage and carried out a computer-assistedqualitative data analysis of the resulting documents. The games were chosen based on
an examination of German and Japanese game reviews, and theoretical criteria, inconcern to their contents and gameplay elements. User reviews from the German andJapanese Amazon stores (https://www.amazon.de/; https://www.amazon.co.jp/), andofficial reviews from German gaming media websites (https://www.gamestar.de/,https://www.4players.de/, https://www.maniac.de/) have been used to assess theselected games in concern to overall quality and supposedly Japanese elements.
Participants had no prior experience of playing these speciﬁc games but had playedsome prior entries in the respective franchises. Below, we describe our specificadaptation of think-aloud protocol, elaborate on our method of analysis and detail thecriteria for our selection of games and participants.

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2.2

Think-Aloud Protocol, Experimental Set-Up and Analysis
Originating from work on cognitive psychology (Ericsson and Simon, 1980)

TAP is employed in a wide range of disciplines, such as translation studies(Jääskeläinen, 2010), second language education (Bowles, 2010) or usability testing(van den Haak et al., 2003), to enable the analysis of participantsʼ thought processes.
In digital game studies and game user research, TAP has been frequently referenced
as a means of gathering qualitative data on player-game interaction (Drachen et al.,2018), but has thus far mostly been used for usability and playability testing (e.g.
Olsen et al., 2011), predominantly by large-scale game developers (Brown, 2010, p.
82).
The advantages and disadvantages of using TAP have been broadly discussed(e.g. Jääskeläinen, 2010). It is a valid instrument to gather qualitative data on
momentary game user experience. It is also the only viable method to gather data onuserʼs cognitive processes during play (i.e. momentary experience), in contrast tomethods used to measure affective and behavioral dimensions of the play experience,such as quantitative measurements of physiological data (Tan et al., 2014). TAP istherefore ideally suited to explore the thought processes and experiences of German
players interacting with Japanese games in our study. There are, however, several
potential drawbacks associated with conventional applications of TAP. The mostprominent problem is the burden it puts on the player. The constant vocalization of
their thoughts potentially interferes with their immersion into the game world,
inhibiting them from reaching the “flow” (see Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi,2014), i.e. the complete absorption into what they do. This can negatively affect thequality of the gathered data (Ribbens and Poels, 2009).
One way of alleviating such diﬃculties is the use of retrospective think-aloudprotocol (RTA). In RTA, players are recorded during play and only later asked todescribe their impressions while being shown the footage of their session (Ribbens
and Poels, 2009, p. 5). While this possibly allows for increased immersion by the user
during play, it also temporally removes the point of data gathering from the actual
period of use. Another caveat of using TAP lies in the laboratory setting, inﬂuencing
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player experience, as players are asked to play a game they might otherwise not play,in an environment foreign to them.

Figure 3 Picture of play session and schematic overview of the experimental set-up

We designed a modiﬁed version of TAP for this study (see ﬁg. 3), to provide amaximum of high-quality data on momentary player experience, while minimizing
the burden it places on the player. This is based on the results of a pre-survey, from
July 2018, with two German participants in a laboratory setting in Germany. The
main findings in concern to the realization of TAP in this pre-survey were (1)diﬃculties for players to voice their thoughts during periods of stress, such as during
combat, and (2) the negative effect of the lab-setting on the immersion of players.
Consequently, in this study, participants were encouraged to constantly voice theirthoughts, but also instructed to prioritize their play experience, and remain silent if
necessary. Additional post-play interviews were carried out, to ﬁll in the gaps andprovide participants with a chance to present their overall thoughts on the games.
This effectively combines the benefits of concurrent and retrospective think-aloudprotocol approaches. The combination of TAP and post-play interviews also enables
players to reﬂect on their play experience and provide new insights or clariﬁcations.
We recorded the participants in their home environment, providing them withthe game software, a game capture card to record their screen data and a headset torecord their voice. Using cloud storage, we set up a system which allowed players the
comfort of playing in their homes, while enabling us to keep close track of their336

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progress and generated data remotely. Participants were instructed to play at least twohours per game in total and play for at least 30 minutes per session. They were asked
to record a minimum of 10 hours of data but were free to play longer.
The audio-visual data (game footage overlaid with the participantsʼ voices) andpost-play interviews were transcribed, to enable a computer assisted qualitative data
analysis of the documents, via MAXQDA. Participantsʼ utterances during play werecoded and categorized inductively, to facilitate a holistic analysis, without
preconceptions. The coding process is based on Grounded Theory approaches(Strübing, 2014). Resulting codes, often in the form of in-vivo codes, are categorized
by a method of constant comparison, to discover structures evident in the think-aloudprotocols.
In detail, the study is comprised of the following steps: 1) semi-structured
interviews with participants to clarify their attributes, e.g. gaming history, related
hobbies, etc.; 2) instruction for TAP and ﬁrst supervised session, to assure the qualityof the recording; 3) actual recording of screen and voice data; 4) post interviews, i.e.
RTA; 5) transcription of the data; 6) analysis, employing a coding process based on
Grounded Theory, also taking into account the emotional state of players by
simultaneously examining the video footage during the coding process. To clarify the
influence of cultural aspects on participantsʼ player experience, we consideredutterances in which participants themselves mentioned the cultural background of agame (i.e. describing it as Japanese) or framed game elements as culturally speciﬁc(e.g. an “anime-like user-interface). We also discuss utterances, that can be interpreted
as being related to specifically Japanese elements of game design discussed inprevious research (Schules, 2015).
2.3

Game and Participant Selection Criteria
The four games chosen for this study are the PlayStation®4 versions of: Ni no
TM

Kuni

II (Level-5 2018, below NK2), Kingdom HeartsTM III (Square Enix Business

Division 3 2019, KH3), Tales of BerseriaTM (Bandai Namco Studios, 2017, TB) andDragonʼs DogmaTM: Dark Arisen (Capcom, 2013, DD). These games are commonly
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classiﬁed as Japanese role-playing games (JRPGs), arguably the most iconic genre ofJapanese games in the global market (Schules, 2015). They feature similarities intheir basic gameplay elements, such as a real-time battle-system, although theconcrete implementation differs.
NK2ʼs artwork is inspired, and partially created, by Studio Ghibli (see https://de.bandainamcoent.eu/ni-no-kuni/ni-no-kuni-ii-schicksal-eines-königreichs), which isfrequently mentioned in German reviews of the game (e.g. Bischoff, 2018). The
gameʼs Japanese origin is strongly emphasized in German review articles. On theother hand, KH3 is part of the Kingdom Hearts series of games, combining charactersand worlds from various Disney franchises with JRPG elements (see https://www.
kingdomhearts.com/3/de/home/) . In contrast to these two games, TB and DD haveno close ties to existing trans-media franchises. TB is the newest entry into the longrunning “Tales of ” series of digital games, beginning with the 1995 release of Talesof Phantasia. It is a representative of traditional JRPGs and received and marketed assuch in Germany (see https://www.bandainamcoent.com/games/tales-of-berseria).
DD incorporates various elements popular in Western games, such as an open-world
design and a more photorealistic graphic style (see http://www.dragonsdogma.com/) .
All games are critically acclaimed and well-received by German and Japaneseusers, as evident in user reviews on the German and Japanese amazon stores. They
belong to the same genre but show differences in concern to their content andmechanics. NK2 and TB employ a visual design typical of manga and anime. KH3
merges Japanese and Western (Disney) visual design, while DD adapts thephotorealistic graphics common in Western games. The latter is also implemented in
an open-world design, clearly showing the influence of Western game design
practices.
In figure 4, we compare German and Japanese Amazon user reviews,
transformed into percentages for easier comparison. German reviewers tend towards
higher review scores than Japanese. Japanese reviewers might generally be morecritical in their evaluation or exhibit a tendency to avoid giving a full score (cf. Zagal
and Tomuro, 2013), while German reviewers are less hesitant. Potentially, the338

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selected games are evaluated by a broader, and more diverse, player base in Japan,
while they are mainly bought and reviewed by existing fans of JRPGs in Germany.
One interesting feature lies in the size of the gap between the German and Japanesescore of each game. The difference is smallest (10%) for DD, the game reminiscentof Western games, and biggest (20%) for TB, a typical JRPG, that is not part of amajor globally recognized transmedia franchise. TB however also garnered the mostpositive reaction by German users.

Figure 4 C omparison of German and Japanese Amazon reviews, transformed into
percentages, with 100% as the best score (data from April 21, 2019; taken fromhttps://www.amazon.de/ and https://www.amazon.co.jp/)

The differences between the selected games, allow us to examine the reaction ofGerman players towards different practices of game and art design in Japanesegames. Participants for this study did not play any of these games before. Participant
A is male, 26 years old and identifies himself as a “core gamer”. Participant B isfemale, 25 years old, and regularly plays games for enjoyment but does not selfidentify as a core gamer. Both have played JRPGs before but stated no preference forthem. A had experience with the Tales of Series and the ﬁrst two Kingdom Hearts
games, while B had seen online playthroughs of the first Ni no Kuni. Both werefamiliar with Japanese Anime and had watched several Studio Ghibli productions
before but did not identify themselves as particularly engaged with or knowledgeableof Japanese pop culture.
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3

Results

3.1

Overview
A, who self-identiﬁes as a core gamer chose to spend almost three hours on DD,

while B, who can be described as a casual gamer, chose to spend more time on KH3.
Both spent the most time with NK2, again more than four hours. A recorded a total of
12.3h (739 minutes; NK2: 243; KH3: 152; TB: 171; DD: 173), while B recorded a
total of 13h (781 minutes; NK2: 259; KH3: 251; TB: 141; DD: 130), leading to a totalof 25 hours and 20 minutes of commented gameplay footage. Post-play interviews
lasted for approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes per participant. Aʼs commented video
footage amounts to 88 GB of data and 30,070 transcribed words (NK2: 13,337; KH3:
4,049; TB: 6,888; DD: 5,751). B generated 84 GB of data and 27,057 words (NK2:12,579; KH3: 6,806; TB: 4,194; DD: 3,478).
Most of the participantsʼ utterances during the play sessions and comments
made in the interviews focus on three different aspects of games, (1) their audiovisual style, (2) narrative, and (3) gameplay. We identiﬁed various ways by which theparticipants referred to the cultural background of the selected games, for example byemphasizing their Japanese origin or status as JRPG (49 times), likening them toanime or manga (18 times), or commenting on their J-Pop soundtrack (4 times). We
also considered instances in which participants described feelings such as confusion
or bewilderment with certain game elements (e.g. a “visually oppressive userinterface”) which can be attributed towards established principles of Japanese gamedesign (Schules, 2015). We summarize the results of the analysis of think-aloudprotocols for each element below and discuss our ﬁndings and their relation to thestudyʼs cross-cultural approach in section 4.
3.2

Audio-Visual
The participants did not show any aversion towards the anime like visual style,displayed in TB and NK2. NK2ʼs art design was frequently praised, both participants
describing it as “cute” and “coherent”. B saw it as “the most memorable feature of thegame”, calling it “beautiful”. A described it as “being like an Anime, in a good way”.

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Similar reactions were observed for TB. In the post-play interview, A professed tohave enjoyed the “orderly” and more photorealistic graphic style of DD the most. A
and B both disliked how the female main character is displayed in TB. B felt she was“too sexualized” and claimed that this made it hard to identify with the character. In
the post-play interview, she argued that this was worsened by the gameʼs third-person
perspective, as she was constantly “forced to watch her”. A felt that the main
characterʼs clothes were “too revealing” and wondered about her age. B made similar
remarks about female Disney characters in KH3, arguing that their graphic
presentation differed from the movies.
B criticized NK2ʼs user interface as “too plain” and not reﬂecting the gameʼsoverall art style. She disliked the change of graphic style during travel on the gameʼsworld map. A found DDʼs menu unwieldy and “confusing”. Both remarked negatively
on TBʼs user interface, especially during combat, calling it visually oppressive, with“too many colors and information displayed”. Both emphasized this during the postplay interviews, B describing it as a “sensory overload” which made it hard for her tocontinue playing. A argued that each gameʼs graphic was outdated, when compared tocurrent Western games. He found that TB “looks like a PS3 game” and argued thatNK2ʼs graphics were “not innovative enough”.
3.3

Narrative
A and B expressed diﬃculties of following NK2ʼs story during the early stagesof the game. After the ﬁrst cutscene, B lamented that she doesnʼt “understand whatʼsgoing on”. Although she professed to have at least a passing familiarity with the ﬁrst
Ni no Kuni game, and both gamesʼ stories are not directly related, she wondered
whether she would have needed to play the ﬁrst game, to understand the story. During
his post-play interview, A emphasized his diﬃculties with the story, calling it “hard tofollow”. A and B strongly criticized the storyline of one of the early characters in thegame, who sacriﬁces herself so that the player characters can survive. They described
this as the “unnecessary waste of an interesting character” and a “premature sacriﬁce”.
KH2ʼs story was viewed negatively by A, whose impression solidified early
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during his play session. While he described the gameʼs intro as “beautiful”, andpositively likened it to the Final Fantasy franchise, he was unsure about its purpose.
During his session, he started to remember elements from prior Kingdom Hearts
games he played and claimed to experience nostalgia but felt negatively about thehigh frequency of cut-scenes. He started skipping them approximately 20 minutes
into his play session and did not make any further comments on the story. B focusedon the way Disney characters were integrated into the game. She felt that they did notstay true to their characterization in the Disney movies, and were portrayed asstereotypes. She expressed aggravation at the portrayal of the character Megara from
Disneyʼs Hercules, whom she felt to be oversexualized, illogical and weak.
TBʼs story was evaluated more favorably. A felt “positively surprised” at its
depth and the way the main characters interact with each other. B generally enjoyed
the interaction among characters and liked the portrayal of the gameʼs main cast,describing them as “interesting” and “deep”. She commented favorably on the female
main characterʼs personality, which she “liked, despite her oversexualized exterior”.
In the post-play interview, B expressed trouble at immersing herself in the story
because of the main characterʼs looks and evaluated the gameʼs premise, which sheinterpreted as a revenge story, as too stereotypical for a game largely driven by its
narrative. DDʼs story was not mentioned at all by B, while A only remarked that heenjoyed the “darker tones” of the “somewhat ambivalent” story. In the post-playinterviews, A explained that he did not think the story of the game “matters” and was
focused on its gameplay.
3.4

Gameplay
A more frequently referenced gameplay mechanics and elaborated on suchelements during his play sessions than B. A and B criticized the pacing of NK2 and
TB. They expressed their dissatisfaction at the lack of a function to skip cut-scenes
and dialogue, especially in NK2, as they did not want to read through them. A
mentioned that the high frequency of cut scenes and dialogue made him feel “like aspectator, not a player”, and criticized the lack of influence the player has on the342

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story.
In TB, A recognized two patterns of how the player is led through the gameworld. He positively evaluated the scenes in which the gameʼs main character spoke
to herself, to provide hints on what to do in the game, seeing it as a natural and unobstructive way to provide information and insights into the thoughts of the main
character. But he criticized that this was not implemented more consistently, as heexperienced phases in which he had to talk to various NPCs to gather information on
how to proceed, leading him to label the game as “a stereotypical JRPG”, as evident
in the use of “as few resources as possible” to heighten proﬁts.
A and B constantly referred to the gamesʼ combat systems. A criticized thecombat system of KH3 as “remaining in the PS2 era”, while B mentioned that she
found it enjoyable, but hard to execute. B disliked the limited control over the player
characterʼs party members in NK2. Both generally evaluated TBʼs combat system
positively. B emphasized that she found it easier to approach than the combat system
in KH3.
The most salient difference between A and B was observed in DD. B had great
trouble with the combat system, ﬁnding it too diﬃcult. Participant Aʼs reactions to
DD provide a stark contrast to this. Initially, he disliked the early phase of the game,in which he was conﬁned to the starting area to familiarize himself with the gamemechanics, interpreting it as too restrictive. However, this gradually started to change,
after the ﬁrst 20 minutes in his play session. During the ﬁrst battles in the game, heperceived the combat system to be “clunky” and “not fun enough”. This shifted into avery positive impression of the combat system and general gameplay. After 30
minutes in the game, he perceived the combat system to be “really good, butsomehow ridiculous”. After one hour, he exclaimed that “the gameplay is awesome”
and “incredibly fun”. He also commented positively on the gameʼs open world
design, which B contrasted positively to the linear level design of NK2. A and B
enjoyed the ability to determine the look of the player character.

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4

Discussion

4.1

Linkages between core and shell
The above-mentioned categories are closely interlinked, and it is their dynamic

relationship, that ultimately leads to the overall evaluation of a game. How different
elements of a game were experienced, influenced the way other elements were
evaluated. Bʼs problems with the main character of TB were emphasized by thegameʼs third-person perspective. Participant Bʼs inability to adapt to the combat
system of DD led to frustration and her wanting to quit. A initially seemed critical of
the game, but gradually started to praise various elements of it, such as the visualdesign, after he started enjoying its gameplay, especially the combat system.
Based on our observations, overall experience of a game seems to be morestrongly inﬂuenced by gameplay elements, than by its story. Opinions in the postplay interviews were conclusive with these ﬁndings, arguing that “as long as it is fun
to play”, deﬁciencies in the narrative could be forgiven. However, this also appears tobe dependent on game design choices. In NK2 and TB, waning interest in the story
by the participants clashed with the emphasis both games put on (un-skippable)
cutscenes and dialogues, leading to a negative experience.
4.2

Japanese games across cultural borders
Throughout the play sessions it was apparent that the selected games were

attributed with different levels of “Japaneseness” by the participants. NK2 and TB
were interpreted as “being like an anime” or a “typical JRPG” from an early stage,
based on the audio-visual style and gameplay. A associated this with “outdated
graphics” and “non-innovative gameplay”. However, he also professed to sometimes“enjoy playing such games”, partially because of their “deep characters”. On the other
hand, DD was not linked to its Japanese origin in any of the participantsʼ utterances.
Reactions to KH3 were more ambivalent. B predominantly commented about its
Disney elements, while A focused on the gameplay, which he framed as “veryJapanese” and being like a “PS2 game”.
In the post-play interviews, it was evident that both participantsʼ preconceptions

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about Japanese games let them to employ different standards of evaluation whencompared to Western games. For example, both claimed to enjoy the “cute” visual
style of NK2, because it “fits the Japanese style of the game”. However, in theinterviews, they negatively commented on the “sensory overload” present in bothgames. Participant A claimed that this was “expected in a Japanese game” andalthough “it made it hard to see whatʼs important during combat”, he was used to it
from other JRPGs and did not see it as out of place. Participant B however argued,that this made it very hard for her to enjoy the combat system, especially in TB.
Several points of critic voiced in concern to narrative elements and character
design are the result of a mismatch between the participantsʼ personal values andcommon tropes in Japanese popular culture. The “oversexualization” of characters in
TB and KH3, and the way the story of NK2 is portrayed, was attributed by B to a“difference between Eastern and Western values”. Participant A explicitly touched
upon this during his play session of TB, saying he “had hoped that things like thatshould be viewed more critically in Japan by now as well”.
The contrast between the evaluation of “Japanese” and “Western” games wasmade clear by both participantsʼ reactions to DD. A and B did not interpret the gameas inherently Japanese. Instead, their evaluation of the game, when contrasted withhow they evaluated the others, makes it clear how frequently they remarked on such
cultural dissonances in the other games. Aside from Bʼs diﬃculties with the combat
system, and resulting bad overall evaluation, both participants agreed that the gameʼsopen world design, its presentation of story and characters and the graphic design felt
“more natural” and “less strenuous” to get into.
4.3

Transmedia franchises and differing media ecologies
Except for DD, all selected games are part of larger transmedia franchises (cf.

Koskimaa et al., 2018 ; Steinberg, 2012). NK2 has a predecessor and, although notrelated by story, is inﬂuenced by Studio Ghibli productions. TB is the latest entry in
the long running Tales series of JRPGs and, at least in Japan, also part of a transmedia
franchise, including manga and anime, while KH3 is part of the global Disney
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franchise. This also inﬂuenced the participantsʼ reception of and expectations towards
each game. Bʼs knowledge of an existing predecessor to NK2, led her to frequently
question whether her problems of following the gameʼs story were caused by her nothaving played the first game. A knew of the existence of other Kingdom Hearts
games, and wondered how they were related to KH3, negatively impacting his playexperience.
The reception of KH3 is inﬂuenced by its incorporation of Disney characters. B
was very familiar with Disney, identifying herself as a fan. This led to a dissonancebetween her interpretation of Disney characters, and the way they were portrayedwithin the game. She felt that characters like Hercules or Megara were portrayed in astereotypical and ﬂat way and was bothered by the speed with which the characters
were introduced and disappeared again.

Figure 5 Relationship between game and related media content in the source country.
Players in the source country are part of and aware of the broader context inwhich a game is embedded, while players of the localized version do not share thisframe of reference

We argue that different media ecologies (cf. Strate, 2004) are one factor,
inﬂuencing the way Japanese games are received in the West. The selected games are
not only part of larger franchises, they are part of the broader Japanese media ecology(see fig. 5), with explicit and implicit links to various other products of Japanese
popular culture. Japanese users experience these games from within this specificenvironment, which potentially differs greatly from that of German players. In ourstudy, A and B had a basic familiarity with Japanese anime but did not identify as

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Japanese Digital Games in Germany

dedicated fans. Their enjoyment of the selected games was hindered by the implicit
references to common tropes of Japanese pop culture, embedded in them, hindering
immersion. For instance, the “sensory overload” criticized by A and B is common in
Japanese media and less likely to pose a problem to Japanese players. The deliberatelack of such elements in DD was perceived by the participants to facilitate easieraccess to the game.

5

Conclusion
German players have different expectations towards and evaluate Japanesegames by different standards than Western games (Zagal and Tomuro, 2013).
However, the “Japaneseness” of a game is not a direct outcome of it being developedin Japan. Instead, it is the result of design choices in concern to audio-visualpresentation, narrative and gameplay, which the player interprets as “Japanese”. NK2
and TB are classic JRPGs, with core (combat system, linear design, slow pacing) andshell (audiovisual design, narrative) components common to the genre. Bothparticipants were unable to fully immerse themselves in these games, as theyfrequently experienced dissonances in concern to the concrete implementation ofthese elements. NK2 and TB were clearly identiﬁed as being “Japanese”. As the highevaluation in German Amazon reviews of TB, and the generally positive attitude ofboth participants towards these games suggests, this can also prove beneﬁcial to agame, providing it with an aura of being exotic, and making it stand out whencompared to Western titles.
KH3, with its blend of Eastern core and a shell inﬂuenced by Disney, was not
outright identiﬁed as Japanese by the participants. Bʼs impressions of the game were
mostly focused on the incorporation of Disney elements. When compared to NK2
and TB, the game appears less exotic to German users, leading to a stricter standardof evaluation and lower review scores. A was more critical of this game, than any
other, strongly criticizing its (Japanese) core, especially the combat system.
DD was essentially regarded as a “Western” game by the participants, because of
its open world design, photorealistic graphics and low-key narrative. Aside from Bʼs
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trouble with the combat system, the game was described as the most accessible of all
selected games. A found it the most enjoyable. DD is a successful case of a Japanesegame with Western shell and core, that maximized accessibility for Western players.
Our findings suggest, that Japanese games can either attempt to minimize their
Japaneseness (cf. Iwabuchi, 2002), to make them more accessible to Western players,or to emphasize it, to make them seem exotic and unique in the Western market.
Endnotes
1)

Player Experience is “an ensemble made up of the playerʼs sensations, thoughts, feelings,
actions, and meaning-making in a gameplay setting” (Ermi and Mäyrä 2007, p.37), for amore detailed discussion see e.g. Caroux et al. (2015), Sánchez et al. (2009)

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