CBM Guide: Video Game Entries Preproduction: July 1, 2008
Step 3:Ask and answer the Inquiry questions throughout the production process. The answers can be recorded in writing and orally through repeated meetings and discussions. The collection of notes or minutes of production meetings should best serve any project.
Step 4:Determine the pros and cons of internationalized (generic) versus localized (specialized). A generic design is one that can be used by all the youth in the different countries, with little to no changes. Typically, the localization efforts of games have been minimal. Publishers may make considerations that include language translation, not hard coding text boxes, the length of animations for cut scenes to match lip-syncing with second-language dialogue, organizing of source codes in file folders based on categories such as text or images, and changes to the stories content (Bates, 2004). These considerations are somewhat haphazard and do not probe the depths of specialized designs.
Step 5:Apply CBM Elements to the design. Within game design or any fictional design, content development takes on a double-edged approach of addressing the physical and virtual worlds. In addressing the physical world, determine who is the target audience or users of the product and gear the product towards their needs. This means that the selected components of CBM that deal with the physical world should be applied as done inTables 1-5. In this case study, the goal is to create three specialized products from a generic product. The target audiences are American, Chinese, and Japanese youth. Use CBM Elements to acquire data about the cultures of these youth groups. Apply CBM Elements separately to each culture. Choose those design factors under CBM Elements that best serve to enhance content development. Then create a CBM Guide for American youth using CBM Elements, create a CBM guide for Chinese youth using CBM Elements, and do the same for Japanese youth culture. These separate guides provide a resource for building future products.
In addressing the virtual world, determine the add-ons needed to enhance the product’s design. Use CBMs ID-TABLET. Use Inquiry and Elements for content development. Look at CBM Elements to flesh out and build onto the existing video game environment. The checklist of design factors and subfactors may look like the following example:
CBM ID-TABLET - Elements
Cultural aesthetics
√Art
√Beauty
Cultural artifacts
Cultural capital
√Production
√Distribution
√Consumption
Next, apply CBM Elements to the existing information in the video games. Record this information into the CBM guide for the video game, The Phases of Purgator. This guide is a repository of existing information about the video game, and it contains all the new data that will be added or considered in the development of the new versions of the video game (bold italics). When adding on to an existing video game, a combination of a diagnostic evaluation and design applications happens. First, evaluate what data exist in the video game. This means input information based on the design factors into the CBM guide. Second, using the team’s creativity, add on to the existing design to build a more complete culture. The add-on areas are illustrated in bold italics. The final result is the rebuilding of the content for the video game. This content can then be transferred from the CBM guide—The Phases of Purgator into the video game animated format. Adding on specialized content with the target audience should be considered throughout this process; however it is not explicit in these examples.
This case study example of the CBM guide—The Phases of Purgator is provided for the following design factors: Cultural Physiology; Cultural History and Cultural Artifacts. These illustrate add-ons in content development using CBM Elements.