Text

Atari to Zelda: Japan's Videogames in Global Contexts

---

"In the early days of arcades and Nintendo, many players didn't recognize Japanese games as coming from Japan; they were simply new and interesting games to play. But since then, fans, media, and the games industry have thought further about the "Japaneseness" of particular games. Game developers try to decide whether a game's Japaneseness is a selling point or stumbling block; critics try to determine what elements in a game express its Japaneseness--cultural motifs or technical markers. Games were "localized," subjected to sociocultural and technical tinkering. In this book, Mia Consalvo looks at what happens when Japanese games travel outside Japan, and how they are played, thought about, and transformed by individuals, companies, and groups in the West. Consalvo begins with players, first exploring North American players' interest in Japanese games (and Japanese culture in general) and then investigating players' DIY localization of games, in the form of ROM hacking and fan translating. She analyzes several Japanese games released in North America and looks in detail at the Japanese game company Square Enix. She examines indie and corporate localization work, and the rise of the professional culture broker. Finally, she compares different approaches to Japaneseness in games sold in the West and considers how Japanese games have influenced Western games developers. Her account reveals surprising cross-cultural interactions between Japanese games and Western game developers and players, between Japaneseness and the market."--Booki jacket.OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

---

Availability

No copy data

Detail Information

Series Title

-

Call Number

-

Publisher

: MIT Press Direct., 2016

Collation

1 online resource :illustrations

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

9780262332187

Classification

NONE

Content Type

text

Media Type

computer

Carrier Type

online resource

Edition

-

Subject(s)

Video games
Video games industry

Specific Detail Info

-

Statement of Responsibility

Mia Consalvo

Other Information

Cataloger

reva

Source

-

Validator

-

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/8853.001.0001

Journal Volume

-

Journal Issue

-

Subtitle

-

Parallel Title

-

Other version/related

File Attachment

Comments

---

You must be logged in to post a comment