Culture

Fan culture

This is where fans have an impact of the production of a media product most likely an instalment of a franchise. Just to name some big franchise in media there are: Star Wars, The Lord of The Rings, Indiana Jones, James Bond and the Marvel universe. These franchise owe a lot to the fans as a lot of these wouldn’t be famous or then a franchise without it’s cult following. The fans have had a big impact on a lot of the decision of some of these franchise like Stars Wars episode a fan of franchise is now the director of its next instalment. For game a good example is ‘Half Life’ with fan creating films, art, and costume about ‘Half Life’. One fan even created a modding engine where the fans can create what they want within the ‘Half Life’ engine which has added to the franchise experience.

In my opinion the fan culture is such a big part of the gaming media and has helped a lot of franchise continue. I feel that the fan culture has had an influence on producers with setting up events like comic con and mcm expo with the fans get to meet the makers of their loved franchises. It also brings a lot more customers which is a big pulse. 

Cultural competence

This is the cultural differences of different countries and areas in the world other than our own. These cultural differences can often been showed in media products. Now the understanding of the different cultural product is becoming easier as global interwork gives all culture more access to anyone else’s.

For example there is a game genre called Role Play Games and there is a cultural between Western RPGs vs. Eastern RPGs. For western RPG there are games like ‘Mass Effect’, ‘The Elder Scrolls games’ and ‘Fallout’. While eastern RPG has games like ‘Dragon Quest’, ‘Persona’ and ‘Final Fantasy’. The cultural there are a lot of differences between these genres like East RPG are more about puzzles and very heavy on story, while western RPG are more about the exploration and fighting mechanics. This shows that two different cultures have different focuses when creating a game.

In my opinion having the ability of seeing and playing a product from a different culture is a great and unique experience as not all of it makes sense in my eye and the style and techniques are different to something my culture would do. This adds extra depth to the product.