• International Journal of Contents
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.29-37
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• 2011

This research discusses the unique characteristics of Japanese video game from the cultural viewpoint of Japan's traditional play. It starts with the possibility that Japanese video game can share the characteristics of traditional Japanese play. Accordingly, this research first considers the connection between play and video game for a theoretical background, by comparing their theoretical definitions and characteristics. Particularly, it shows the research direction from the viewpoint of Ludology that approaches video game from the aspect of play. Second, the characteristics of traditional Japanese play are examined in connection with Japan's inherent animism culture. Based on such characteristics, the common characteristics and backgrounds of Japanese video game and traditional Japanese play are discussed from the 'spatial' aspect of game, from the 'identity' aspect of game characters, and from the 'motive' behind playing game.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.375-388
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• 2008

The early studies on the cultural industries had mainly emphasized the viewpoint of "efficiency" based on the "flexible specialization" theory, but they have gradually shed light on the viewpoint of "creativity": creative human resources and various networks generating creative energies. Despite the importance of these studies, it is impossible to explain every cultural industrial agglomeration phenomena from specific and few viewpoints due to the diversity of each cultural industry. This study describes the dissimilarity of agglomeration factors between the Japanese animation and home video game industries which form salient agglomeration in the same region. Both industries share similar characteristics with industrial agglomeration of SMEs in Tokyo and close inter-firm relationships. However, they differ in their historical development paths and each firm's behavior and strategy because of their own distribution systems and production processes. In particular, the difference in distribution systems clearly affects whether a company values "efficiency" factors of agglomeration advantage or "creativity" factors of that in case of locational choice. The distribution sector of the cultural industry, compared with the production sector, has a tendency to value profitability rather than creation itself. Therefore, a cultural industry with the strong distribution sector tends to form the industrial system emphasizing profitability. The Japanese animation firm is apt to choose its location from the perspective of efficiency, which easily contributes to profitability, because television broadcasting stations are strong distribution sector. Conversely, the Japanese game firm chooses its location from the perspective of creativity due to the absence of strong distribution sector.

• Journal of Korea Game Society
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.91-100
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• 2017

A player character has a significant influence on immersion. In order to understand the consumers, it is necessary to compare age and gender of player characters, which is the most basic feature of the player character. We selected a prize winning work of 15 years of USA and japanese as research subjects(in RPG and Adventure), classified age and gender of player characters and analyzed the result. In the japanese games, the ratio of pre-set player characters was 94.3% for age and 88.6% for gender. In the USA games, It was the order of the pre-set character which did not specify the age and the customized type character. In this research, we would like to contribute guidelines for player character setting to successfully advance into the USA and Japanese game market.