Doctoral Dissertation Academic Year 2020 Play Across Cultural Borders: An Explorative Cross-Cultural Study of Digital Game Player Experience by Analyzing User Reviews and Think-Aloud Protocols Keio University Graduate School of Media and Governance Stefan Walter Brückner Abstract Digital games are the fastest growing medium of our time. Their proliferation and prominent role in society have sparked public debates and led to the development of “game studies”, an academic field of research examining games, players, their contexts, and their interactions. However, regional differences in the production and consumption of games are empirically evident and pose challenges to the games industry and academia. A lack of systematic cross- cultural research within game studies significantly limits our ability to ascertain the applicability of empirical and theoretical contributions across regional and cultural divides and impedes our understanding of the transregional aspects of games, players, and play. This lack also results in a substantial gap in our knowledge on whether and how players’ cultural contexts influence player-game interaction and their experience and evaluation of games, making it difficult to explain differing patterns of player preferences and to model the processes of meaning-making during play. To close this gap, this thesis (1) develops a theoretical and methodological framework for the cross-cultural comparison of player experience and (2) uses this framework in an approximation of a most-different case design to compare German and Japanese players’ experiences of 18 selected Japanese games. The framework integrates ontological models of games and player-game interaction with an analytical differentiation of player cultures, and combines two highly synergetic methodological approaches, the analysis of user reviews and recorded play sessions using think-aloud protocol. 21,359 German and Japanese user reviews and 207 hours of think-aloud play sessions with 20 participants were analyzed, following a grounded theory approach. Based on the results, a dictionary for a quantitative analysis was constructed and utilized to verify the findings. Results indicate that players’ national cultural background influences their experience of audio-visual and narrative game elements but not of game mechanics. Overall, sub- and transnational player culture appears more influential on the experience of game elements than national culture. This leads to an empirically grounded model of how culture influences player-game interaction and can be used to explain and predict patterns of user preferences and game evaluation across cultural borders. The framework and dictionary developed for this study can serve as a model for a broad range of comparative studies on media cultures and audiences. Keywords: Digital games; player experience; comparative cross-cultural analysis; user reviews; think-aloud protocol i Acknowledgments This thesis is the product of more than three years of continuous research. It is also the product of more than three years of warm and continuous support by my academic advisors, fellow students, friends, and family. First, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my supervisor Prof. Ikumi Waragai, for her patience and kind encouragement throughout my PhD studies. Without her open mind and unwavering support on academic matters and beyond, it would never have been possible to finish this thesis. My sincere gratitude also goes to the members of my academic advisory group. Prof. Yasushi Kiyoki inspired me through his passion for research and encouraged me to constantly widen my perspective. Prof. Takahiro Kunieda’s insightful comments and questions have helped me in clarifying my own thoughts and the contribution of this thesis. I am especially grateful to the final member of my advisory group, Dr. Shuichi Kurabayashi from Cygames, Inc., whose close guidance and dedication to academic excellence have helped me to constantly challenge myself over the last three years. My research benefited greatly from it. Further thanks go to Dr. Yukiko Sato, for her persistent support throughout this journey since our time as master’s students. Without her, this thesis would not have been written. As a research assistant in the Keio University Global Environmental System Leaders Program (GESL), I received generous financial and ideational support, while the system of international trainings made it possible to gather material and search for participants directly in Germany. I would like to thank the academic and administrative staff and my fellow GESL students for the fantastic experience these three years have been. I am particularly grateful to Prof. Shinnosuke Obi for his guidance in my minor research project. I gratefully acknowledge that parts of this thesis were financially supported by Cygames, Inc. the Yamaoka Memorial Foundation, the Taikichiro Mori Memorial Research Fund, the Keio SFC Academic Society and the Keio University Doctorate Student Grant-in-Aid program. I was also supported by a MEXT Honors Scholarship for the first two years of my PhD studies. I am indebted to the nine German and eleven Japanese participants who agreed to contribute their time for this study and would like to thank Prof. Martin Roth and the jLab staff at Leipzig University for letting me use their facilities for part of the play sessions, and Riina Kuno and Akiko Miyazaki for their support in the transcription of the Japanese think-aloud protocols. Last, but certainly not least, I am grateful to my family and friends, who have been extraordinarily supportive and tolerant of me throughout these years. Without you, this thesis would never have taken shape. Thank you! ii List of Related Publications Peer-reviewed journal articles • Brückner, Stefan, Shuichi Kurabayashi, and Ikumi Waragai. 2020. "Japanese Digital Games in Germany: A Case Study of Gameplay Across Cultural Borders." Keio SFC Journal 19 (2):330-350. • Brückner, Stefan, Yukiko Sato, Shuichi Kurabayashi, and Ikumi Waragai. 2019. "Exploring Cultural Differences in Game Reception: JRPGs in Germany and Japan." Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association (ToDIGRA) 4 (3):209-243. Peer-reviewed conference presentations (full paper) • Brückner, Stefan, Yukiko Sato, Shuichi Kurabayashi, and Ikumi Waragai. 2018. "The Handling of Personal Information in Mobile Games." In Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 10714, edited by A. D. Cheok, M. Inami and T. Romão, 415-429. Cham: Springer. Peer-reviewed conference presentations (short paper) • Brückner, Stefan, Shuichi Kurabayashi, Yukiko Sato, and Ikumi Waragai. 2019. "Analyzing Random Reward System Mechanics and Social Perception." Proceedings of the 2019 DiGRA International Conference, http://www.digra.org/wp-content/ uploads/digital-library/DiGRA_2019_paper_169.pdf. Oral conference presentations • Brückner, Stefan. 2019. “Chartering the Context: Player Experience Across Cultures.” Presented at the DiGRA 2019 Doctoral Consortium, August 6-10, Kyoto, Japan. • Brückner, Stefan. 2018. “Examining Differences in German and Japanese Player Experience: A Grounded Theory Approach.” Presented at Replaying Japan 2018, August 20-22, Nottingham, UK. iii Table of Content List of Tables ............................................................................................................................ vi List of Figures .......................................................................................................................... vii List of Abbreviations and Acronyms ........................................................................................ ix 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Overview ..................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Digital Games and Game Studies ............................................................................... 9 1.3 Gameplay Across Cultural Boundaries: A Research Overview ................................ 13 2 Theoretical Framework .................................................................................................... 16 2.1 An Ontology of Digital Games ................................................................................. 16 2.2 An Ontology of Player-Game Interaction ................................................................. 19 2.3 Players, Games and Culture ...................................................................................... 22 2.4 Player Experience – Concept and Epistemological Framework ............................... 28 2.5 Digital Games and Localization ................................................................................ 33 3 Method ............................................................................................................................. 36 3.1 Methodological Framework ...................................................................................... 36 3.2 Selection of Games and Target Cultures ................................................................... 40 3.3 Grounded Theory ...................................................................................................... 46 3.4 Analysis of User Reviews ......................................................................................... 50 3.4.1 Data Collection and Overview of the Corpus