Cultura Transduction and Intertextuality in Video Games

Contemporary Research on Intertextuality in Video Games Christophe Duret Université de Sherbrooke, Canada Christian-Marie Pons Université de Sherbrooke, Canada A volume in the Advances in Multimedia and Interactive Technologies (AMIT) Book Series Published in the United States of America by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global) 701 E. Chocolate Avenue Hershey PA, USA 17033 Tel: 717-533-8845 Fax: 717-533-8661 E-mail: [email protected] Web site: http://www.igi-global.com Copyright © 2016 by IGI Global. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without written permission from the publisher. Product or company names used in this set are for identification purposes only. Inclusion of the names of the products or companies does not indicate a claim of ownership by IGI Global of the trademark or registered trademark. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Duret, Christophe, editor. | Pons, Christian-Marie, 1954- editor. Title: Contemporary research on intertextuality in video games / Christophe Duret and Christian-Marie Pons, editors. Description: Hershey PA : Information Science Reference, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016010965| ISBN 9781522504771 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781522504788 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Video games. | Intertextuality. Classification: LCC GV1469.3 .C6464 2016 | DDC 794.8--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016010965 This book is published in the IGI Global book series Advances in Multimedia and Interactive Technologies (AMIT) (ISSN: 2327-929X; eISSN: 2327-9303) British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. All work contributed to this book is new, previously-unpublished material. The views expressed in this book are those of the authors, but not necessarily of the publisher. For electronic access to this publication, please contact: [email protected]. 143 Chapter 9 Cultural Transduction and Intertextuality in Video Games: An Analysis of Three International Case Studies Enrique Uribe-Jongbloed Universidad del Norte, Colombia Hernán David Espinosa-Medina Universidad de La Sabana, Colombia James Biddle University of Georgia, USA ABSTRACT This chapter addresses the relationship that exists between intertextuality and cultural transduction in video game localization. Whereas the former refers to the dual relationship established between texts and previous texts available to the potential readers and the bridges that are consciously or unconsciously established between them, cultural transduction refers to the conscious process of transforming audiovisual content to suit the interests of a given cultural market. Three case studies are presented to explore the relationship that exists between the place of production, the internal cultural references to other texts within the games and the intended market where the video game is distributed: Finally, the importance of intertextuality as part of the cultural transduction process is highlighted. INTRODUCTION: THE LOCALIZATION OF VIDEO GAMES Video games have quickly become the ‘new’ media of interest in terms of their economic worth and impact upon users/players. Economic prospects for video games at large are very high. They are one of the fastest growing areas in the creative industries discourse, and as part of the new media concept, they have shown an international growth of 60% in exports world-wide between 2002 and 2008,largely thanks to developing economies such as China and Mexico (UNCTAD & UNDP, 2010, p. 160). DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0477-1.ch009 Copyright © 2016, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Cultural Transduction and Intertextuality in Video Games This growth applies two pressures directly onto video game creators from the whole globe. On the one hand, they have to generate products that can be easily consumed in the growing market, sometimes including localization processes aimed at making a product understandable within specific markets to ensure that cultural barriers are overcome (Consalvo, 2006). On the other hand, there is internal pressure for video games to develop from local successful media products and cultural capital to ensure internal consumption, or to draw from seemingly universal tropes or successful transnational products, to insert themselves within larger global markets (Yoon & Cheon, 2013). Though it is not difficult to understand why localization is carried out by all media production companies, we are still unclear of how this localization takes place (Waisbord & Jalfin, 2009). The analysis of the Kingdom Rush series, El Chavo Kart and South Park: The Stick of Truth presented here tries to address this question by engaging with both the ludic and the narrative elements of the products, their relationship with previous media texts and infer the particular cultural capital required by those on the receiving end of the communication process – the players. Furthermore, this chapter endeavors to work towards understanding the decision-making process that is evidenced by the specific uses of intertextual references within these products, following Consalvo’s (2006, p. 134) advice that “only by examining both culture and its production can we better understand the world of culture and its ever-shifting configurations”. Through this analysis we hope to exemplify some of the lessons that can be inferred through close examination of current examples of video games flow and counter flows between various audiovisual markets. The idea is that in the future the conclusions of this analysis added to those of further explorations may yield a set of tools, based on empirical experiences that can be used to better comprehend and develop the industrial practices surrounding the insertion and exchange of audiovisual products. These tools might prove useful to content producers and other professionals involved in content trade, adaptation and production, as well as academics that wish to explore these areas. LOCALIZATION AND CULTURAL TRANSDUCTION The concept of localization is used here in its “broader sense, which encapsulates any of a wide range of activities designed to adapt products to the perceived differences between local markets” (Carlson & Corliss, 2011, p. 65). Localization goes beyond translation (Bernal Merino, 2006) and aims at making a media product accepted and understood within specific cultural markets. From this perspective, localization is almost coterminous to cultural transduction. Uribe-Jongbloed and Espinosa-Medina (2014) developed the concept of cultural transduction to provide a framework to the flow of cultural products that transcend national borders. The framework looks at a variety of elements that interplay in the design and distribution of a product from the onset in a methodical procedure with four aspects: • • • • 144 Markets: Looking at the cultural proximity or distance between the market of the original product –or where it was created – and the insertion markets (see Bicket, 2005); Product: Analyzing conditions of the product, which may explain its appeal, or lack thereof, when crossing over cultural borders; People: Studying the people involved in the process of recognizing, trading and modifying a product to suit speciic cultural markets; Process: Classifying the mechanism through which the transduction is carried out. Cultural Transduction and Intertextuality in Video Games Constructing further on the process aspect, they present three types, drawing from concepts commonly used in recent debates, and they repurpose them for clarity: Hybridity (García Canclini, 2000; Kraidy, 2010), redefined as the process of altering cultural products under the decision-making of already established media companies (e.g. dubbing or format adaptations), which they contrast with Convergence (Deuze, 2007; Jenkins, 2006), using it to define user-generated content modifications, reconstructions and adaptations (e.g. fandubs). Through this separation between hybridity and convergence, they seem to have addressed the problem of thinking that video game production is, in itself, a convergent process, a critique levied by O’Donnell (2011). Finally, they introduce the possibility of a Transduction Laboratory, a space created specifically for the purpose of developing a culturally transductable product. Even though the framework was developed to address issues of adaptation and translation of television products from one cultural market to another, it can be extended to the case of video games. Carlson and Corliss (2011) have shown the importance of video game localization, which may be as simple as the translation of basic instructions in the manuals or words displayed on buttons in a casual game, but more often than not includes the modification of internal elements. Because of high quality concerns in this market, “the video game industry is a rare example of the way translation is not seen just as something to be carried out once production has been completed as a sort of unrelated and unimportant appendage” (Chiaro, 2008, p. 153), but as an integral part of the localizing process. This brings our attention to the idea of transduction from the initial stages of the development of the product. This situation is different from the more traditional case of dubbing films or television series. For instance, The Simpsons (Brooks, Groening, & Simon, 1989) is a finished product produced for the American market and then sold all over the world, dubbed or subtitled. There is quite a challenge when dubbing the show, since “[it] is a complex audiovisual product with multiple layers of meaning and its translation into other languages certainly involves a high degree of complexity” (Muñoz Gil, 2009, p. 143). Conceptualizing the potential users or audience at the source diminishes the difficulty to understand the product based on cultural or content expectations. Recent films, including Pixar’s Inside Out (Docter & Del Carmen, 2015), evidence a more nuanced interest in localization; not only do they dub the film, they also include modification of all texts that appear inside the film into Spanish in the Latin American version, Intensamente. Our capacity to give meaning, and therefore to enjoy, a text, whatever it’s form –visual, written, audiovisual, and interactive–, is contingent upon the relationships that can be established in the minds of the audience between the text and other units of meaning (Sakellariou, 2014). As explained by Sander (2006) using James Joyce’s Ulysses as an example, “an intertextual reading of Ulysses draws readers’ imaginations into the realms of Homer, Dante and Shakespeare, stretching far beyond its self-proclaimed horizons and cultural geography. The signifying field appears vast as a result”(p. 7). Inter-relatable elements between texts create meaning in the mind of the audience in diverse ways and it varies according to the context, because meaning is, at the end, a social construction (Allen, 2011, Chapter 1; 2014, pp. 36–37). Since one of the basic interests when inserting a cultural product into a new market is that it becomes understandable to the target audience, it helps to see how intertextuality plays a role in attempts to define whether and how the insertion is viable. For example, trying to predict the success of a product in a new market, cultural proximity states that if a product’s original market has cultural similarities to the target market, it is more likely to be understood there. These similarities might help people in the targeted market feel a close relation to the product and therefore might be more inclined to consume it (see La 145 Cultural Transduction and Intertextuality in Video Games Pastina, Rego, & Straubhaar, 2003; Straubhaar, 1991; Uribe-Jongbloed & Espinosa-Medina, 2014). Culturally specific elements, such as language, tradition, and religion may appeal to users of some cultural markets while ostracizing others. When cultural proximity is low, cultural distance is used to describe that dissimilarity in cultural traits. However, cultural distance is not the only element that hampers access to other cultural markets. There may be other barriers articulated within the legislation or working procedures of the destination market. In video games localization practices a variety of – at times unacknowledged – forces and pressures that frequently have little to do with how cultural divides (Carlson & Corliss, 2011, p. 70) account for these barriers. In other words, to access a market, there are cultural barriers, and political or economic ones. Even when those are related to one another – as in the case of quotas that are aimed at protecting local cultural products, or censorship of content considered culturally offensive – sometimes they are not necessarily cultural in their reasoning. CULTURAL LACUNAE AND INTERTEXTUALITY AS BEDFELOWS Cultural proximity tells us about the similarity between cultural markets, and serves as proxy when thinking of a potential market for a product created in a different one. However, the specific product, rather than the relationship between markets, may engender other types of acceptance or rejection beyond those expected from the cultural distance or market barriers. The impossibility to understand a cultural media product because of the elements that are integral part of it has been conceptualized by Rohn (2011) as cultural lacunae. She defines lacuna as … gaps or mismatches between the cultural baggage of the media producers, which influences the topics and the style of the content, and the cultural baggage of the audiences, which influences the kind of media content they select, how they understand it and to what extent they enjoy it. (p. 633) Rohn offers three separate categories for the cultural lacuna: • • • Content Lacuna: Refers to the impossibility of an audience to come to terms with the elements present in the product, because they may ind them ofensive or because they fail to make a connection between themselves and the product. Capital Lacuna: Addresses the fact that despite acknowledging the content, the cultural elements embedded in the product make it diicult or impossible to access; language is a clear example of capital lacuna. Production Lacuna: Refers to speciicities in terms of the style of the culturally foreign product. In this case it is not that they do not accept it, as in the case of content lacuna, or that they do not understand it, lacking the cultural capital, but rather that they do not like the way the product is made in formal terms. The general definition for lacuna matches the two perspectives of intertextuality presented by Ott and Walter (2000) in their description of the concept: “intertextuality has been used to describe both an interpretive practice unconsciously exercised by audiences living in a postmodern landscape and a 146 Cultural Transduction and Intertextuality in Video Games textual strategy consciously incorporated by media producers that invites audiences to make specific lateral associations between texts”. (p. 430) The unconscious interpretive practice on the part of the reader/audience/user may render a product irrelevant, since it may fail to match the ideological practice of the audience, the great scheme of unconscious expectations of what that cultural product should be, based on the myriad of previously interconnected texts, including genre predisposition, that have been experienced before. In that sense, Rohn’s (2011) content lacuna is similar to an intertextual barrier to the acceptance of a given text. Content lacuna means an inability to come to terms with the whole product, implying there are unconscious processes of rejection. On the other hand, the textual strategy mentioned by Ott and Walter (2000) refers to the inclusion of particular references as part of the text. Similarly, capital lacuna describes the impossibility to understand the specificity of the content presented, because of its references to unknown texts. The struggle presented above in regards to dubbing The Simpsons provides a case in point. Linguistic and cultural capital differences may make it difficult to understand a product, not in the sense that it cannot be recognized, but that it is not possible to make sense of the texts with which it builds connections. The third category introduced by Rohn (2011) deals with the enjoyment in terms of style and its possible reception. It is linked to the concept of taste, and whether a product manages to appeal to its audience regarding its aesthetic qualities. Although this may also be based on previously received products that create trends, it inherently deals with one of the two options mentioned above. Cultural capital lacuna goes hand in hand with the inherent intertextual choices of the text creators. Camarero (2008) draws on Genette to elaborate a typology of this type of intertextuality. He describes two types of relationships: 1. 2. Co-presence: a. Explicit: i. Citations. ii. References. b. Implicit: i. Plagiarism. ii. Allusion. Derivation: a. Transformation – parody. b. Imitation – pastiche (Camarero, 2008, p. 34). In the case of co-presence, he defines citations in comparison to plagiarism, because the former evidence in some way the precedence of the inserted text, whereas the latter obscures it, as an “undeclared borrowing yet absolutely literal, thus rendering heterogeneity or textual differentiation void” (Camarero, 2008, p. 37). The reference does not reproduce the original text, but rather provides a way to reach it and leaves the reader to insert the content of the reference into the text. Allusion is vaguer in the case of the link between the texts, “because it refers to an enunciate whose full intelligibility assumes the perception of a relationship between this statement and the other … it is a sort of citation, but it is neither literal nor explicit” (Camarero, 2008, p. 38). Derivation refers to the imitation of the style of a usually canonical text. Transformation is the use of the main recognizable elements of the classical text, subverted 147 Cultural Transduction and Intertextuality in Video Games by ridicule, whereas imitation is the use of the stylistic elements of a given author or authors but in the production of a completely different text. Along similar lines but focusing on media other than literature, Ott and Walter (2000) identify three intertextual devices applied in media texts: 1. 2. 3. Parodic allusion. Creative appropriation or inclusion. Self-reflexive reference. The parodic allusion is the use, albeit in a slightly humorous way, of elements of renowned texts. It merely “seeks to amuse through juxtaposition – a goal that is enhanced by the reader’s recognition of the parodic gesture” (p. 436). Parodic allusions are allusions in Camarero’s model, because they apply to textual connections that are not clearly marked, but that imply a reference or homage rather than poaching or plagiarism. Creative appropriation or inclusion involves the incorporation of a part of the original text with its stylistic conditions, modifying some aspect through either visual or audio editing. It may be closely related to plagiarism, because it implies the conscious use of material from another text, and sometimes it risks treading over copyright ownership, leading to complex lawsuits. Thus, inclusion seems more common in the case of franchise products, derived from previously existing texts, yet commissioned directly or under licenses. However, the distance between parodic allusion and creative appropriation is more difficult to draw in the case of audiovisual media than it is for the written texts of literature. Finally, self-reflexive references overcome the barrier of the text, by appealing to or evidencing the text itself. It may be through description of the conditions of the work as part of the narrative strategy or by bringing to the text information that relates to the producers or their role in the creation of the product. Because Ott and Walter’s (2000) classification applies more uniformly to media other than literature as is the case here, it has been privileged in the case studies presented. Since intertextual demands may increase or diminish the pleasure an end user experiences with a text, intertextuality as textual strategy plays a considerable role in the success of an audiovisual product. In other words, a lack of recognition of parodic allusions, inclusions and self-reflexivity, may turn people away from the product, due to cultural lacunae. VIDEO GAMES AND CULTURAL UNIVERSALS Video games are a growing area of economic exchange, and they are the media that is overtaking all others as international export and revenue source. New media, the category under which UNCTAD (2010) collects information about video games imports and exports, tripled from $8 billion to $27 billion dollars between 2002 and 2008. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC, 2015a) estimates the international video games business to reach over US$93 billion by 2019. Social and casual games are increasing their revenue generation and countries with a traditionally low consumption of video game consoles are a growing market for them (PwC, 2015b). In the specific case of mobile games, Latin America accounts for only a small fraction, below 5%, of the global revenue, yet they house more video gamers than the US and Canada combined (GMGC, 2015, p. 4). Thus, the potential for Latin American video game products within its geo-linguistic boundaries and beyond makes for a good scenario to study. 148 Cultural Transduction and Intertextuality in Video Games The question then would move towards the likelihood that games developed elsewhere would encounter an appeal in Latin America, or whether those developed in Latin America would be able to take advantage of the geo-linguistic market, or overcome cultural barriers and reach larger cultural markets. The strategy would be for those products to address the flip side of the cultural lacunae, namely cultural universals. Rohn (2011) presents three types of cultural universals in media products: content universals, audiencecreated universals and company-created universals. She defines content universal as the concept used … to refer to content attributes which can be enjoyed by audiences across cultures. The term is not limited to those attributes that are appreciated by all cultures around the world, but may also apply to attributes that make particular media content successful in a particular culture outside the culture of its production. (p. 635) This notion can be exploited to ensure the success of the product in the target market in various ways. The first of these alternatives is to try to generate the relations directly in the text, which in terms of cultural transduction could be seen from two perspectives: the content generator might try to make the content transparent, which means that the content can be read in many cultural markets, although the meaning of the text is going to vary from context to context (Olson, 1999); or the same content generator might opt to create the product including elements that point out to specific texts of a particular culture to try and appeal directly to it, making it more shareable within their target market (Singhal & Udornpim, 1997). In either case the people trying to insert the content appeal to a particular cultural flavor in an effort to make it familiar to the target audience (La Pastina & Straubhaar, 2005; Yoon & Cheon, 2013); to exploit its attractiveness because of it’s exotic flavor (Iwabuchi, 2002; Yoon & Cheon, 2013); or even to try to make the product culturally odorless (Iwabuchi, 2002) by avoiding or removing potential cultural lacunae. These different strategies of transduction are all based on trying to define what the target audience identifies as familiar, exotic or non-culturally-specific, which are notions defined intertextually. Expanding intertextuality beyond the text itself we can see how it becomes part of the cultural transduction framework. This may require delving deeper into the two other types of cultural universals named by Rohn (2011), audience-created universal and company-created universal. Simply put audience-created universals “refer to the phenomenon where audiences enjoy foreign-produced media because of the particular way in which they read it” (p. 636) and company-created universals refer to the elements that constitute a situation in which “foreign-produced media is successful because companies have managed to create a competitive advantage for it relative to other media in the market” (p.637). These universals can be connected to Intertextual Pleasure and to Paratextual Constructions. Intertextual pleasure can be defined as “[the appeal] to the ‘intellectual and aesthetic pleasure’[…] of understanding the interplay between works, of opening up a text’s possible meanings to intertextual echoing” (Hutcheon, 2012, p. 117) or, in other words, “the simultaneously pleasurable aspects of reading into such texts in their intertextual and allusive relationship with other texts, tracing and activating the networks of association” (Sanders, 2006, p. 7). Some particular audiences seek these allusions and even generate some of their own. A great example of this dynamic is the case of the television-show Lost and the “closed box” concept developed by J. J. Abrams as explained by Rose (2012): In his first TV series, the teen drama Felicity, the title character’s Wiccan roommate had a mysterious wooden box that kept viewers guessing for years. Nearly a decade later, in a 2007 talk at TED, the Technology-Entertainment-Design conference in California, Abrams described his lifelong infatuation 149 Cultural Transduction and Intertextuality in Video Games with Tannen’s Magic Mystery Box, a $15 cardboard box he had bought at a New York magic shop as a kid. He has never opened it, though it sits even now on a shelf in his office. ‘I realized I haven’t opened it because it represents something important to me,’ he explained at TED. ‘It represents infinite potential. It represents hope. It represents possibility. And what I love about this box, and what I realize I sort of do in whatever it is that I do, is I find myself drawn to infinite possibility and that sense of potential.’ Mystery, he went on to say, is the catalyst for imagination. What are stories if not mystery boxes? What is Lost if not a mystery box? (p. 143) As it turns out, the hatch in season 1 of the series is presented as a closed box and it ended up being the catalyst for the creation of Lostpedia, a Wiki-type page in which users can generate articles explaining their findings and, we can say, readings of the series (Rose, 2012). At the end, understanding intertextual pleasure is a key to unlocking audience-created universals. This is deeply related to the sort of strategies that Steinberg (2012, p. 167) identifies as Exocolonisation or extensive expansion in terms of audience consumption. In this sort of strategy the media company aims to surround and saturate the audience with content thus seeking to reach a larger public that will expand the consumer base. But the rabbit hole doesn’t end there. Companies also take advantage of intertextual readings as a strategy to help audiences come close to cultural products directly as well. This strategy is identified as Endocolonization or intensive expansion, through which the content generator tries to intensify consumption in every aspect of the audience’s life through ancillary products (Steinberg, 2012). This sort of strategy is related to the notions of intertextuality and to company-created universals if you take into account the way in which the text expands and develops not just as a self-containing unit of meaning, but as a web that encompasses all the material elements that a company can develop around it. These elements, such as trailers, posters, cover art, and merchandising, known as paratexts or paratextual elements, effectively condition the meaning of the text in many different ways (Gray, 2010) –e.g. trailers might generate expectations in the audience through the actors they show, and by establishing the genre of the film. In general terms, the appropriate use of paratextual elements leads to company-created universal. Video games can be analyzed according to the universals/lacunae present in their intertextual elements. These elements would serve as predictors of the marketing strategy, and evidence its strengths and weaknesses when inserted into a given market. Furthermore, those universals/lacunae may also help us understand how the producers themselves conceive the market for their products and how they position them, as well as the challenges that arise from their particular choices. THREE VIDEO GAMES AND THEIR INTERTEXTUAL STRATEGIES The following pages present and discuss three recent video games developed for different platforms. They are analyzed both through the lens of cultural transduction, from its cultural universals/lacunae, and that of the intertextuality both as a textual strategy, including the intertextual pleasure that may be derived from them. These games have been selected because they seem to address the question above, having been developed in either Latin America or the US, with the interest of distribution within or beyond Latin America. 150 Cultural Transduction and Intertextuality in Video Games Kingdom Rush Series The Kingdom Rush series comprises three separate games, Kingdom Rush – KR (2011), Kingdom Rush Frontiers - KRF (2013), and Kingdom Rush Origins – KRO (2014) developed by Ironhide Game Studio, a small independent game design company located in Montevideo, Uruguay. KR was first developed for Flash and sponsored by Armor Games. It was soon developed for iOS and a couple of years later for Android devices. It is a strategy game under the tower defense subgenre. It is sold at a reduced price on the Apple, Google Play or Amazon App stores. It includes in-app purchase options, but the game does not require them to be played, including the extra levels that come as updates. The first game of the series received favorable reviews, earning the game a gold medal for game of the year (Jayisgames, 2011) and over a million downloads from the Google Play store (Google Play, 2015). The two latter versions did not receive such praise, but have remained staple games in their subgenre. Visually, the game series is very cartoonish in style and it presents graphics in HD quality for both small and large hand-held devices. The game follows genre conventions with a variety of four towers that can be upgraded on four levels, the last of which allows for a selection of two options per tower type. Most instructions are provided in the way of comic book word balloons. Music and sound effects are epic and comedic at once – including grunts, sighs, clashing swords and fanfare. The game is based on decision-making from building with limited resources and using your fingers in a timely manner to deploy troops or execute actions appropriately when required. Whenever prompted, most towers or characters pronounce certain phrases that give the game a particular feel. These phrases add to the appeal of the game, as most of them have a familiar ring to them. During the gameplay, there are short periods when the player can look at the background and enjoy it while the enemy troops advance to meet the tower defenses. There are short cameos by characters from other media products and achievement awards to be earned throughout the game. The achievements are mainly cumulative effectiveness of specific towers (e.g. Change soldiers’ rally point 200 times in KR) but also include some that have nothing to do with the game itself, and require finding some of the Easter Eggs hidden at plain sight (e.g. Scrat’s meal – Find the elusive acorn in KR). Intertextual references, mostly in the form of parodic allusions, abound in the series. There are phrases from the characters or towers that relate directly to various sources. Here are some examples: The hero Malik Hammerfury (KR) says either ‘It’s hammer time’, ‘Can’t touch this’, or ‘I pity the fool!’ whenever prodded, with the former two phrases related to performer M.C. Hammer’s song, and the latter, a famous quote by Mr. T. in his role as Clubber Lang in Rocky III (Stallone, 1982). The Dwarf Hall in KRF has many quotes from Gimli, the dwarf in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Jackson, 2003), including the battle shout “Let them come!”. In KRF the Circle of Life power, at the Forest Keepers level of the Barracks tower when selected, is heard as shouting “Live long and prosper!” the famous farewell of Mr. Spock, the renowned character from the Star Trek franchise. Some of the levels include visual references to films (e.g. Anakin with his shadow in the shape of Darth Vader’s, as in the famous promotional poster of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in the Hammerhold Campaign in KRF), comics (e.g. Obélix from the French comic series Astérix by Goscinny and Uderzo in the Rockhenge Campaign of KRO), and cartoons (e.g. the Roadrunner from Warner Bros Looney Tunes animations in the Beheader’s Seat campaign in KRO). They also make references in the achievement section to other video games (e.g. Supermario in KR and KRF), television shows (e.g. Legen [wait for it]… from How I met your mother? Series in KRF), songs (e.g. “We are the champions”, including an image resembling Freddy Mercury at Wembley stadium in 1986 in KRO), films (e.g. “Never tell me the odds”, the famous 151 Cultural Transduction and Intertextuality in Video Games quote by Han Solo, alongside a picture of the Millennium Falcon, from Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back in KRO) and even table-top games (e.g. D&D in KRO). This large amount of parodic allusions serves the double purpose of complementing the game with the Easter Eggs hunt, and allowing for players to rejoice at capturing the various bits of references. It increases intertextual pleasure without affecting gameplay. This happens because “successful identification of parodic references allows readers to mark themselves as [in this case, culturally] literate and to identify themselves as part of a selective community” (Ott & Walter, 2000, p. 436). Thus, players of the KR series derive pleasure, not only in solving the game puzzles, and overcoming the strategy requirements of the interactive game challenges within the game, they also interact beyond the game, by discovering, sharing and debating the Easter Eggs found in the game with other players, via the forums on the Ironhide game Studio website or socially among friends. There is another aspect that we have not looked at yet. The product was developed by Uruguayans living and working in Uruguay. The Easter Eggs, however, do not relate to any form of Latin American, or – least so – Uruguayan cultural references. Spanish is not the language of the game, which is the majority language in Uruguay and most of Latin America, nor are there traceable references to Latin American pop culture. Most of the parodic allusions include films or television shows that travelled beyond the Anglo-American or English-only sphere, yet it would be daring to consider them Latin American pop culture. Intertextuality here is not only an aesthetic element, but also a strategic one that positions the game in a certain way for a larger market. By using fantasy elements, mostly from the Western tradition as presented in Hollywood films, the game reaches a certain transparency, using Olson’s (1999) definition, by bringing together the tropes of fantasy realms, and taking enough visual and audio cues from The Lord of the Rings franchise, a series of books, films and games that have been consumed world-wide. Regarding the film franchise Kuipers and De Kloet (2008) state that LotR [Lord of the Rings] is a profoundly cosmopolitan media text that is increasingly detached from its assumed origin – the United Kingdom – also because of the particular production circumstances in which the United Kingdom, Hollywood, and New Zealand are involved. The text is deliberately detached from national and local contexts, which explains its transnational appeal. (p. 147) However, Poor (2012) takes a different stance and criticizes the supposedly transnational appeal of fantasy as something that is not culturally bound. He states that Fantasy games are based on earlier fantasy tropes, which, for English speakers in the United States and the United Kingdom, are based on European history and historical fantasy. It is predominantly a world of White people. Although that may be historically accurate to some extent, today’s world and the gaming industry are much more multicultural and international. (p. 390) It is precisely the case in point. There is no doubt about the general intertextuality of the KR series, and particularly KRO, to a mythology of Celtic origin, European fairytales and to the works of Tolkien, including their adaptations. Ironhide seeks to clasp onto that market as a conscious strategy of its intertextual references both in the narrative level of the characters and gameplay, and in the parodic allusions within the text. Bearing in mind that the mobile game market is considerably larger in Europe and the English speaking world – often conceptualized as the West –, and that English is the most widely learnt second language, it does not seem to be a bad strategy to give the game a more universal appeal. 152 Cultural Transduction and Intertextuality in Video Games El Chavo Kart From 1971 to 1980 Roberto Gómez Bolaños, or as many Latin Americans would come to know him ‘Chespirito’, directed and produced the successful television comedy El Chavo del 8 (Gómez Bolaños, 1972) that has been broadcast in over 20 different countries and dubbed into various languages –including Portuguese, English, Japanese and Russian– (Díaz Moreno, 2011). The show told the stories of El Chavo, an orphan, that lived in La Vecindad, a small urban Mexican neighborhood, and the people who lived in it. El Chavo is still broadcast to date in some Latin American countries. Due to its success, in 2006 Televisa and Gómez Bolaños created the animated version of the show, El Chavo Animado (Gómez Bolaños, 2006), that has run ever since and has been broadcasted in multiple markets as well –including Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and the US. In 2014 the game publisher Slang launched the game El Chavo Kart, produced by the Colombian game studio Efekto Studios. The game is a kart racing game that mimics many conventions of the genre that encompasses games as Crash Nitro Kart, Didi Kong Racing, Sonic and Sega: All-star Racing and Mario Kart (Masser, 2012). This game was launched in the context of Gómez Bolaños’ 85th birthday (AP, 2014) and is based upon the characters, locations and plots of the animated series. The game was launched in Spanish and Portuguese, and has optional subtitles in those languages and in English. Originally the game was available for PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles, but a light version has been launched for Samsung mobile devices as well. The interest on studying this game comes from the fact that the game has been distributed across Latin America as well as in parts of the US. Since the game is a direct adaptation of an animated series, itself an adaptation of the original TV show, it is useful to identify its elements of intertextuality and hypothesize how those elements may affect the international distribution of the Kart game. First of all, it is interesting to see what the potential audience for El Chavo Kart might be, based on the choices of distribution, genre, ESRB ratings and narrative elements made by the developers. From the original series to the animated series there was a clear change in the way the show addressed the audience – the original show reached children and adults alike, criticizing the Mexican society of the time with puns that were aimed at adults and a language, expressions and characters developed for children. The animated series on the other hand has not included any adult references and has included dreaming sequences that show the active imagination of El Chavo and the other children from La Vecindad, even in episodes based on story lines from the original comedy series. The similarity between the two shows is based upon keeping most of the original characters and settings, particularly during the first season of El Chavo Animado. It could be ventured that, even though the series exploits the nostalgia of the original show’s audience, its target audience is not as wide and it is more children-oriented, making the animated series a perfect show for the former audience to share with their children. Following this line of reasoning and since the game is based on the animated series it would seem to be appealing to its audience, hoping that they will play the game looking to identify the elements shared with the series. In this sense, it is useful to identify those elements that relate to both products and that ultimately translate into content lacunae or universals, capital and production lacunae, or that are expected to result in company-created universals through intensive and extensive expansion. The most noticeable of these elements is the characters. Each character rides a car that evokes his or her personality traits, style and place in the animated show. The characters use some of the catch phrases or expressions that they have used since the original show, such as Quiko’s ‘Chusma, chusma’, 153 Cultural Transduction and Intertextuality in Video Games Profesor Jirafales’ angry ‘Ta, ta, ta…’ and many others that have also been adopted as running gags in the animated series. However, many of the sound bites that accompany gameplay are brand new and have very little relationship with the shows that came before it other than keeping the voice talents that accompany the animated show in Spanish and Portuguese. Moreover, other elements point to a targeting of the original show’s audience or even to a complete new segment. Firstly, PS3 and Xbox 360 are two high-priced game consoles that aim for a teenage, young adult and adult demographic. This demographic is in part established by the game titles related to these consoles and even with the ergonomic design of the device. In the case of PS3 from the ten top grossing games that have been produced for this console, six are rated M (for mature audiences) and none were targeted at children (“10 best selling PS3 games of all time,” 2014) and in the case of Xbox 360 the list of top selling titles includes at least six titles rated M, including two of the Grand Theft Auto franchise and three Call of Duty titles (Thorne, n.d.). Second, in terms of the console design even though both Microsoft and Sony have done great efforts to approach alternative control mechanisms –Microsoft’s Kinect works with Xbox 360 and Move Controllers– that aim to compete with the successful Nintendo Wii motion controls,, their main controls are still designed with a teenagers size hand in mind, which makes playing children’s games in those consoles harder. In general terms, it can be stated that, despite that the game and most other games in this genre are rated E, for everyone, the console itself generates a distinction of the audience to, at best, tweens. Other elements that point to an older demographic than that of El Chavo Animado are the reinterpretation of some of the classic themes from the original series by La Gusana Ciega, a Mexican rock band that created rock adaptations of the music for every track in the game, and the use of direct references to the 2014 Brasil World Cup. In this respect, it is interesting to note that intertextuality generates meaning with the context in which the text is being inserted as well as through the relationship with other texts. Although the world cup is not adult content in itself, references to the Maracana stadium through which one of the tracks of the game passes while Mexican and Brazilian flags are waved in the tribunes can be seen as a reference that is not particularly children-related. However, it is a reference to an episode of the animated series in which Profesor Jirafales manages to get tickets for the whole cast to go and watch a soccer match between Mexico and Argentina. These are examples of attempts to produce companycreated universals through the use of intertextual references that might have inadvertently ended up as capital lacunae. This latter point brings us to the last element of the analysis. The track scenarios are references for former and newer audiences of El Chavo, because they point to elements of both the classic show and the animated one. For example, the track Chavopulco refers to the episodes filmed in Acapulco which were particularly renowned since they were the only episodes where El Chavo and his gang left the studio set. This same plot was developed in the animated series. For the audience of the classic show there is a track in Tangamandapio the home town of Jaimito, el Cartero, that was always referenced by the character of the same name in the original show, and that the whole cast visits in the animated series. Finally, the space track is a reference to one of El Chavo’s dream sequences in the animated series. The tracks are a good example of a content universal generated through the use of elements recognizable by the target audience that help construct the meaning of the text, as well as a company-created universal given that the relation is planted and exploited by the content producers to appeal to the target audience. All of the elements above point to the intricate relations between audience, contexts, text and other texts that finally help build meaning and hence make the content understandable and ultimately enjoyable. This is a clear example in which the developers try to get close to the audience through the cultural 154 Cultural Transduction and Intertextuality in Video Games capital that they themselves have helped establish and thus could be seen as an example of companycreated universals. South Park: The Stick of Truth Based on a concept proposed by the writing team of Trey Parker and Matt Stone in 2009, Ubisoft released the game South Park: The Stick of Truth – TSoT–for XBOX 360 and Playstation 4 in March 2014 in the United States. The introduction to the game came after a three-episode-run on the Comedy Central series South Park in November-December 2013 in which the main characters participate in a war over obtaining a Playstation Four with the theme of the episodes based on the Red Wedding of the HBO series Game Of Thrones (Benioff & Weiss, 2011). While many gamers were aware of the problems behind the release of the game, the introduction to it at the end of the three episode run (Parker, 2013) identifies the theme of the game, and the potential for its gameplay. What seems to be the most telling of the experience of the game is the monologue delivered by Eric Cartman at the end of the episode. Still dressed as the wizard character, Cartman laments that the war to determine which game system is better had been a pointless war, and he states that The last few weeks we’ve been too busy to play video games, and look at what we did. There’s been drama, action, romance…I mean, honestly, you guys, do we need video games to play? Maybe we started to rely on Microsoft and Sony so much that we forgot all we need to play are the simplest things. Like… like this [grabs stick from the ground]. We can just play with this. Screw video games, dude. Who fucking need them. Fuck ‘em! (Parker, 2013) As he holds up the stick, the announcement and graphic present, ‘Coming soon, South Park: The Stick of Truth’, a moment that viewers of the program expect from South Park and the writing team of Parker and Stone: an almost nihilistic approach to stating that the series has been used to promote the game, which could result in the label of selling out. It is an evident instance of self-reflexivity connecting the new franchise product, while at once seeming to complain about the strategy. The characters and the viewer collide in the town of South Park. Before the design of the game, an actual map of South Park did not exist. The geographical location of common places such as South Park Elementary, City Wok and Cartman’s house had never been defined. Until the map of South Park appeared in season 17, we could only assume the characters experienced the town as a location while the audience had to experience the town of South Park only through the actions of the characters. In this way, Cartman’s speech could be reflexive of the reality that in order to have a video game experience for XBOX and Sony, the imagination the audience had of South Park had to be redefined into an interactive experience. TSoT interface is built upon a turn-based, fantasy roleplaying game. When the South Park characters played the game Lord Of The Rings (Parker, 2002), this was fantasy play using the town of South Park as the location, unlike re-envisioning their world (Parker, 2004) or having their world re-envisioned for them (Parker, 2006). To participate in the game world, a player must play the role of ‘new kid’, a reference to many characters from South Park that includes Damien and Tweek. As with the series, the new kid is expected to prove him or herself to be one of the team. The series and the game interconnect with the playable character constantly being challenged with ‘Who’s side are you on, kid?’ and ‘You wanna be part of the group, right kid?’ 155 Cultural Transduction and Intertextuality in Video Games The gameplay delves deep into the intertextual knowledge the player has about video games and South Park. Nothing is off-limits to challenge and, often, offend. This bit of company-created universal is maintained and promoted throughout the game. For instance, players of TSoT will notice the familiar ‘Name Your Character’ event at the start of the game - an intertextual reference to the RPG genre. Within a few moments, the player realizes that despite going through the procedure to name the character, the only name allowed is ‘Douchebag’ – a common term used by the characters in South Park. This practical insult and destruction of the genre convention is the ultimate company-created universal by making the player subject to the character’s lack of political correctness. Furthermore, mini-games familiar to video game players also exist in TSoT, but based on situations relevant to South Park watchers. For instance, in a version of the game Simon can be played to remove an anal probe from Randy Marsh, Stan’s father (based on Episode 1 of Season 1), and similar mini-games involve giving abortions –an obsession of the character Eric Cartman – to Randy Marsh and Mr. Slave, and bosses such as Al Gore. These instances provide the player with a familiar gaming experience, but with what could be called a crude and offensive theme, similar to the South Park series being a familiar (perhaps classic) cartoon with crude and offensive themes. This is clearly their company-created universal that comes from franchising the show as a video game. Finally, TSoT and the series interconnect in an endocolonization aspect only understood by those who regularly or casually watch South Park. With too many references to list that connect the game to the series, the writers and designer seem to appeal to intertextual pleasure by fostering a need for viewers to start conversations with, ‘I love that episode where….’ followed by describing the episode and repeating its lines. South Park, as a franchise, brings out this need to discuss what has been seen and simply ‘re-tell the tale’. It can be rationalized that the writers know this is how viewers relate to South Park: an ownership of the adventure through re-telling it to others and finding those who listen and re-tell as well. It paves the way to audience-created universals. An interesting caveat is that the game distribution beyond the US and other English speaking countries does not seem to keep up with the same desire of grooming the audience. In Mexico and Spain, two countries with an ample following of the dubbed version of the series, there was an understandable disappointment when they noticed the game did not include it. The company-created universal, so fondly treasured in the game among the English-language viewers of the series, was broken when the game transcended the linguistic boundaries. This fact had an impact on sales, and evidences a lack of localization which could have proven successful in a relatively simple way. FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS As the three cases above demonstrate, intertextual references are part and parcel of the game localization strategy and, as such, are a fundamental part of the design and development of video games. They are key elements to ensure impact and access for products as they enter particular cultural markets. Latin America, both as market for video games and as creative grounds, has still a long road ahead in the localization and cultural transduction processes, but it is certainly suited for it. Paying more attention to the cultural transduction process tells us about both the expected cultural capital of the consumers, about the trade-offs of video game producers, and their respective idea of their target audience. Certainly, intertextuality helps bring audiences to specific products, by the intertextual 156 Cultural Transduction and Intertextuality in Video Games pleasure that they can provide, particularly in the case of endocolonization strategies. Gameplay is also intertextual in the same way as narrative genres, and hardware also defines targeted markets. But intertextuality may serve to appeal beyond the group targeted originally by the hardware or gameplay genre. This possibility opens up a game, such as Chavo Kart, to two different audiences (children and parents alike) who have the reference to either version of the Chavo shows. On the other hand, Kingdom Rush not only reaches the younger generations with a tablet-based tower defense game, but also appeals to a broader audience who understand and enjoy the intertextual pleasure of the Easter Egg hunt. More research into other cases of localization strategies, whether successful or not, would help us understand the process even further, and lead us to design guidelines for growing markets, such as the Latin American video game market. If we consider that these growing markets are the new space for exocolonization strategies, then the appeal of cultural transduction becomes more evident. CONCLUSION The three cases presented show different ways in which video games have made use of intertextual references to appeal to specific markets. El Chavo Kart and South Park: The Stick of Truth connect with the originating works, following company-created universals and creating a strategy that grows out from previously existing audiences that can enjoy intertextual references. It is a clear endocolonization process, based on creative appropriation as the main intertextual strategy. This is different in the case of the Kingdom Rush series which does not draw from a franchise, but uses many pop culture references to suit an Americanized market in an exocolonization strategy. El Chavo Kart fits within the already large markets of the geo-linguistic region of Latin America, yet is so concerned to be faithful to the series as part of the franchise, that it limits the scenarios to those that may be related to the show. Similarly, TSoT remains faithful to the series to such an extent it almost considers usual viewers as their only target, but at the same time loses on a market opportunity by neglecting the dubbed version for the game sold overseas. Both prefer cultural proximity and companycreated universals, basing their strategy on the continuous franchise. For the Latin American market this strategy proved positive for El Chavo Kart, and detrimental for TSoT. In that same vein, the Kingdom Rush series forgoes cultural proximity to its similar markets and embraces plenty of cultural lacunae, with the aim of reaching a larger market, dominated by Western media and their references. The intertextual strategy includes parodic allusions to those elements that are culturally universal to that market, erasing all traces of Latin American media influence, and diminishing Latin American appeal. 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International Journal of Cultural Studies, 17(5), 469–483. doi:10.1177/1367877913505172 160 Cultural Transduction and Intertextuality in Video Games KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Creative Appropriation: The conscious and evident use of discernable elements, including characters, from other texts as part of the narrative in a way that may or may not suit the aspects of the original text. Cultural Lacuna: Culturally specific references that would not be easily understood in other cultural markets. Cultural Proximity: The similitude in terms of cultural traits (e.g. religion, language, history) between different cultural markets. Cultural Transduction: The processes through which a given text goes when being altered to suit a different cultural or national market from the one where it was originally conceived. Cultural Transparency: A quality of a product that implies there is very little to no cultural references within the text, thus easy to understand despite cultural differences. Endocolonization: A strategy for promoting consumption through the generation and distribution of ancillary products. Exocolonization: A strategy for promoting consumption by expanding the consumer base through saturation of the product. Intertextual Pleasure: Enjoyment derived from recognizing elements that refer to other texts. Localization: The process of altering an audiovisual product to make it more appealing to a given local audience. Parodic Allusion: Hints to references, citations or quotes from well-known texts, with a good deal of humor, that seek to amuse through juxtaposition. They are not usually verbatim or identical renditions, but their relationship to the source text is easily spotted. 161