Exploring Reasons for Differences in Gaming's Implications on Japanese and Korean Youth and Society
A recent study from Spil Games reports that 1.2 billion people are playing video games worldwide, with 700 million of these people primarily playing online games (GeekWire). Gaming’s ability to connect people of various backgrounds to facilitate the spreading of ideas has never been higher and today’s gaming industry wouldn’t be where it is now without the influence of Japan and Korea, two of gaming’s biggest superpowers. Japan initially revolutionized the gaming industry through popular arcade games such as Space Invaders and Street Fighter and mobile gaming consoles such as the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 while Korea was instrumental in taking the MMO genre to the worldwide stage (Game Studies). Throughout the semester in AMES 316S, Korea’s gamer culture and its implications on youth identity both regionally and globally have been discussed heavily. While Japan’s gaming industry has also been discussed, it has usually been relegated to the background during discussions of Korea. I wish to more deeply explore Japan’s gaming industry in order to highlight differences between Japan and Korea’s gaming industries and their implications on youth identity and socialization. The historical and societal differences between the two East Asian countries lead to a phenomenon in which the problems discussed in class of gaming addiction and breakdown of traditional Confucian family values observed with Korean gamers aren’t as readily observed with Japanese gamers. Japan’s eventual decline in the gaming realm is intricately tied to Korea’s rise, which leads to global ramifications as a component of the “Korean Wave.” In elucidating this argument, I will discuss the anime, Sword Art Online, to highlight its role as a product of East Asian cross-cultural regional flows and subsequent cultural hybridity.
Citations:
Game Studies. (n.d.). Retrieved April 26, 2015, from http://gamestudies.org/1302/articles/picard
Study: 1.2 billion people are playing games worldwide; 700M of them are online - GeekWire. (2013, November 25). Retrieved April 25, 2015, from http://www.geekwire.com/2013/gaming-report-12-billion-people-playing-games-worldwide/
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