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New Media & Society http://nms.sagepub.com/ Console video games and global corporations : Creating a hybrid culture Mia Consalvo New Media Society 2006 8: 117 DOI: 10.1177/1461444806059921 The online version of this article can be found at: http://nms.sagepub.com/content/8/1/117 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com Additional services and information for New Media & Society can be found at: Email Alerts: http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://nms.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://nms.sagepub.com/content/8/1/117.refs.html Downloaded from nms.sagepub.com at Universite du Quebec a Montreal - UQAM on June 17, 2011 ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ new media & society Copyright © 2006 SAGE Publications London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi Vol8(1):117–137 [DOI: 10.1177/1461444806059921] ARTICLE Console video games and global corporations: ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ Creating a hybrid culture ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ MIA CONSALVO Ohio University, USA ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ Abstract This article argues that the contemporary console video game industry is a hybrid encompassing a mixture of Japanese and American businesses and (more importantly) cultures to a degree unseen in other media industries, especially in regard to US popular culture. The particularities of the video game industry and culture can be recognized in the transnational corporations that contribute to its formation and development; in the global audience for its products; and in the complex mixing of format, style and content within games. As an exemplar of this process, the Japanese game publisher Square Enix is the focus of this case study, as it has been successful in contributing to global culture as well as to the digital games industry through its glocal methods. That achievement by a non-Western corporation is indicative of the hybridization of the digital games industry, and it is examined here as one indicator of the complexities and challenges, as well as future potentials, of global media culture. Key words computer games • game industry • globalization • glocalization • Japan • localization • popular culture • Square Enix • videogame 117 Downloaded from nms.sagepub.com at Universite du Quebec a Montreal - UQAM on June 17, 2011 New Media & Society 8(1) INTRODUCTION In the USA, one of the most anticipated video games of 2002 featured a blond, blue-eyed hero reluctantly set on a quest to aid a dark-haired, kimono-clad young woman ‘summoner’ and her band of friends, including a Jamaican-like beach bum, a powerful mage in a dress made of belts, a wise quasi-Samurai fighter, a humanoid lion-beast with a broken horn and another young girl that was adept at making powerful mechanical weapons. Set in a Polynesian-like world, that band of travelers had to overcome ‘Sin’ to save the world. Promotional posters of the two leads, Tidus and Yuna, resembled movie posters featuring star-crossed lovers. The game featured professional voice actors, stunning cinematics and an intricate storyline. Upon release, it received rave reviews, and less than two months later, it had sold more than a million units. The game was Final Fantasy X, the (then) latest installment of the Final Fantasy series created by the Japanese corporation Square Enix.1 The game was actually released in Japan first, on 19 July 2001, and sold more than 2 million units in its first four days of release. Blending Tidus’s western ‘surfer boy’ looks with Wakka’s Jamaican accent, and faux-traditional Japanese styles such as Yuna’s revealing kimono, the game appeared a blending of world cultures, down to the trade winds and tropical islands characterizing the world. Square had created another successful game, one that defied easy categorization as a ‘Japanese’ game, or any other nationality or ethnicity. That success was only the latest in a string, however, as Square is an exemplar of the global digital games industry, a hybrid composed of mostly Japanese and US firms that carefully intermix Japanese and US culture in their games. The resulting hybrid is now a standard for the game industry, and that industry and its games have become a normal part of American culture – accepted and welcomed into living rooms near you. Fears of cultural invasion have marked Japanese ‘incursions’ into the USA as recently as the 1980s, although since the economic troubles of the Japanese and Asian economies of the 1990s, those fears have eased, or become more muted. Yet the current popularity of a pan-Asian style or culture in the USA would suggest that culture does not flow down a one- way street. The growing spread of pan-Asian culture is one indicator of how transnational culture can move in many directions – even into the ‘dominant’ nation of the West, the USA. This development immediately makes sense, if you are a reader of contemporary science fiction, particularly the genre known as cyberpunk. In that world, the future is largely Asian, with dominant cultural markers drawn from the East, rather than the West. William Gibson’s highly influential (to academics as well as science fiction writers) 1984 novel, Neuromancer, is perhaps the best known of this genre, set as it is in the Japanese ‘Chiba City’ and heavily inflected with an Asian pastiche of culture, business, and language. Beyond print, influential and 118 Downloaded from nms.sagepub.com at Universite du Quebec a Montreal - UQAM on June 17, 2011 Consalvo: Console video games popular films such as Blade Runner and The Matrix also trade in Asian images and influences, in their cityscapes, food, and modes of fighting. Those futures are dystopian, if stylish, decorated in neon and kanji characters. However, it is difficult if not impossible to determine a singular national source for these cultural products (much less gauge their accuracy), given the transnational nature of corporations as well as ‘native’ peoples. As Ow (2000) found in his analysis of the video game Shadow Warrior, to the West, at least, there is little distinction made between what is Japanese and what is Korean, Chinese or Taiwanese in origin, and they can all blend together unproblematically to ultimately represent a pan-Asian (or faux-Asian) style. Yet, despite the growing popularity of these pastiche images and products, charges of cultural imperialism, although critiqued by many academics but still popular in other forums, are usually leveled at western creators of the usual suspect products: Coke, Disney, McDonald’s – the USA in general. Yet, there is one industry where Japanese products and corporations are the dominant if not hegemonic influence. That industry is console video games.2 In this article, I focus on the development of the console game industry (which I will term ‘video games’) and bracket the development of computer games. While the histories are intertwined to some extent, the console segment has become the dominant force in the industry sales-wise, and has historically targeted a market somewhat distinct from computer games. A history of the development of the entire game industry could comprise a book-length project. Therefore, although this history is admittedly truncated, it focuses in greater depth on a particular segment of the industry that has great significance. A basic history of video games involves acknowledging the profound integration of Japanese and US businesses, technologies, cultures and individuals involved. Such a history can be read as either a competition or collaboration (sometimes both). Looking more deeply, even seemingly unique or singular Japanese or US developments are not free of crossnational influences. For example, one of the first video game companies in the USA, Atari, was named for a move in the Japanese game of ‘Go’. The Japanese corporation Nintendo almost single-handedly revitalized the game industry in America, yet earned suspicion for its ability to mesmerize children with its colorful games featuring the character ‘Mario,’ named (in America) after the corporation’s landlord (Sheff, 1999). The Japanese Taito corporation’s arcade game Space Invaders was such a hit in Japan that it caused a nationwide coin shortage, and its creator, Toshihiro Nishikado, admits that his inspiration for the game’s aliens was drawn from the US film Star Wars as well as sea creatures from the local market. These anecdotes challenge us to ask where Japanese influence ends and American culture begins in understanding the video game industry. Just as technology developments have fueled the competition between East and West economies, so too have 119 Downloaded from nms.sagepub.com at Universite