Reiterative Presentation of the East in Western-Produced Video Games

Abstract

Today's video game industry is full of examples of games that showcase Oriental stereotypes repetitively and portray them with the typical passive, barbaric, and violent perception. The methodology of this study builds its structure on that problem by gathering data from a conducted survey that focuses on video gamers based in the Middle East, with the aim of exploring how the reiteration of the stereotypical portrayal of the Orient in video games produced by the West affect people's perception of the Orient. The data then gathered will be analyzed according to Carla Willig's approach of the Foucauldian discourse analysis using six stages: (1) discursive constructions, (2) discourses, (3) action orientation, (4) positionings, (5) practice, and (6) subjectivity. The analysis's main limits and strengths will then be taken into consideration, and recommendations will be suggested based on the results of the analysis.