Late last month Wired posted an article on India's burgeoning gamer population, suggesting that the country was poised to take off as one of the largest consumer markets in the world. Whilst this is fascinating from a business standpoint, what I found most interesting was the article's comment that there is little - if any - Indian cultural representation in the titles that are played and produced. That got me thinking about the games we've got and are making in this market.
As mentioned previously, the UK has undoubtedly produced some of the most well-received games in the world. The biggest franchises - Tomb Raider, GTA - have been celebrated from within for their great design aesthetic, and British developers have been given individual honours for their contributions to British culture. But what British culture has seeped back into the products that are made on these shores?
Arguably, games are created for an American market. I've discussed the depressing fact that our business development is behoved to the US distribution machine. In Japan, the top selling games of all time feature only one or two non-Japanese developed titles. At last glance, the top games of 2005 in the US and the UK were all North American developed. Where's the British culture in there?
I'm not suggesting that we stereotype the Brits for this market by creating titles that emphasise bowler hats, RP accents and cups of milky tea, but surely it's important that British cultural identity - whatever that is - is represented in the products that are made for this, the European and the international markets.
Two main questions arise. First, what is British Cultural Identity? Can it be summarised in a handbook, as has been done for the British Citizenship Test? What do you do when you accidentally spill someone's pint in the pub?
Second, how has it been incorporated into gaming? How can you incorporate spilling a pint into a game? Furthermore, if looking at existing "British" products I wouldn't consider Tomb Raider to be a shining example of Britishness; apart from Lara's plummy English accent, the rest of the story is based upon an American movie franchise. Nor do I think of GTA as being Scottish.
Where have you seen the Great British Sense of Humour in any game? Rare's Conker's Bad Fur Day/Live & Reloaded? Are Brits particularly good at developing Empire-builders (a la Peter Molyneux OBE's Populous?) Where have the ancient traditions and folk stories gone? Cultures like China and Korea regularly incorporate these elements into their products, to great success. What is Britain's USP in the world market?
