20 - Open Worlds: Globalization, Localization and Video Game Music

Summary

Video games are an international phenomenon. That statement is true both in the colloquial sense – games are a tremendously popular media form enjoyed by more than a billion players around the globe – but also in the sense that they are profoundly international. Games on my phone, computer or shelf right now were created in countries including: Canada (Assassin’s Creed), Germany (Risen), Japan (Final Fantasy XV), Poland (The Witcher 3), South Africa (Desktop Dungeons), South Korea (Magna Carta), the United Kingdom (The Room), the United States (Fallout) and Uruguay (Kingdom Rush) – amongst others. Despite this diversity, however, relatively few video games are overtly identified as products of any particular geographic region. Instead, developers often deliberately eliminate or minimize region-specific identifiers through a process called localization, in which aspects of a game are adapted to fit the perceived cultural norms and preferences of a target market.¹ This process most obviously includes translation of all game text into different languages, which can be in itself a fraught process. Yet localization also involves a wide range of minor, or possibly major, alterations to game content.² The economic allure of localization is immense, and well documented. As Rebecca Carlson and Jonathan Corliss have noted, the fundamental concept is that ‘products must appear as if they were manufactured domestically, suggesting that consumers only want goods that feel familiar and “local”’.³ Moreover, in some cases developers must localize games to accommodate legal restrictions, as in the case of Germany, where certain types of imagery and violence are restricted in games.