Cultural Differences in Games--12-13-2008

This topic was just starting from a Character named Faith which comes from first-person-parkour game Mirror's Edge. And the game was newly getting a Japan released on Decomber 11th.

The language localization of Mirror's Edge will be processed efficiently, but it may not work to the character design. This causes a huge complain from Asian gamers whenever Western developers design Asian female characters...

From Kotaku.com

Original

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People complained:

"How can we japanese accept the concept design!?"

"There are few paints of asia female look like beauties!"

"To be honest, western people may can't find the difference between asians who like sauce and pickled vegetables."

"The developer's idea must be that only ugly girl measures up to a difficult feat."

They even made a beautified edition for it, with plump body and charming eyes.

Fan Art

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Now let's have a look with what's the opinion of Western gamers:

"I like generally like the "Asian" face better, though it's a little too young and too round for my tastes. The "Western" boobs are more to my liking though. "

"I actually think she looks very Asian and not at all westernized Asian. There are characters that look westernized Asian but I don't think she falls into that category. "

"Wow, that is really well done. I definitely prefer the second picture a lot more, something about the face. They shoulda kept the black mark over the eye, but imo it trumps the original."

It's not important which views is the best, but we should admit there is a difference between Eastern and Western, at least on the female aesthetic. That also could used to explain why lots of people love WoW while others prefer Aion.

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