25th Annual Student Research Conference
East vs. West: What do gaming differences say about each culture
Ramolaa R. Shah
Dr. Kristi Scholten, Faculty Mentor
Over the past few decades, there has been a decline in the popularity of Japanese video games in America. Similarly, though American music and movies are popular in Japan, American video games do not do well in Japanese markets. This is surprising since Japanese video games used to be very popular in America. One of the major reasons for this gap is the difference in the American and Japanese cultures. In America, gamers prefer newer, technologically advanced games. However, in Japan, consumers prefer sticking to older, traditional games. To further understand this, with a greater emphasis on American gamers, we made a list of the top 3 best-selling games in the USA and Japan, and closely examined numerous American video game discussion forums and Japanese game maker interviews to understand what individuals liked about these games. Through this, we hope to document the findings, and compare results for each of the countries. We can then be able to understand the reasons for difference between the preferences of Japanese and American video game consumers.
Keywords: video game, video, game, japan, east, west, bestselling games
Topic(s):Communication
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 315-5
Location: VH 1010
Time: 2:00