Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

This paper examines yōgē (洋ゲー), a Japanese vernacular term for Western games, in over 800 Japanese-language user reviews, using inductive qualitative content analysis to explore how the term is used, associated with stereotypes, and deployed in evaluative discourse in the Japanese gaming context.

Paper long abstract

The Japanese digital game market is one of the largest in the world, both in exports and domestic consumption. However, in contrast to Western films, Western games are consumed only marginally. In the console game market, which is the best documented in terms of sales, only one non-Japanese game appears among the 100 best-selling games of all time. This creates a degree of self-sufficiency that has few clear parallels in other free gaming markets.

While Japanese players’ preference for domestic titles has been widely noted, this phenomenon has received limited focused attention in academic work. Koyama briefly mentions this issue, for example in relation to differences in visual styles that contribute to a divide between Japanese and foreign games (2023), but no detailed analyses are currently available.

This paper focuses on the so-called yōgē (洋ゲー), a vernacular term for Western games that has been in use for decades. In its early usage, particularly in the formative years of computer and console gaming, the term was often negatively affected by the quality of localization and differences in game design approaches. The paper explores the term in contemporary user-created discourse and maps the sentiments connected with its use.

To this end, the study analyzes a corpus of over 800 Japanese-language user reviews from the digital game distribution platform Steam in which the term yōgē is explicitly employed. While Steam primarily hosts PC games, which are not the driving force of the Japanese market, the platform provides a rare body of user-generated commentary suitable for examining evaluative discourse whose exploration helps uncover the users’ (often stereotypical) stances towards Western games.

The study employs inductive qualitative content analysis to identify common themes in the discourse. The findings will demonstrate the functions served by the term yōgē, the preconceptions commonly associated with it, and the contexts in which it appears. These results may also provide practical insights relevant to game marketing and localization strategies.