Cultural differences in game appreciation: A study of player game reviews

Do players in different cultures have different ways of appreciating games? What aspects of games do players of a particular culture like or dislike? We describe the results of a study that examined a large body of user-submitted game reviews and scores on two prominent gaming websites: one based in the US and the other in Japan. We examined the reviews by applying statistical and computational methods and manually reading selected review texts. We found that, while preferences in the both cultures are generally similar, they are sensitive to different aspects: for example, American players emphasize the replay value of a game, whereas Japanese players are less tolerant of bugs and emphasize overall polish. Also, while Japanese players rate yoge (Western) games favorably, they seem to have lower expectations of overall quality. Finally we describe some observations regarding the style and unique characteristics of user-submitted game reviews that suggest future research directions.