While many games are set in fantasy scenarios, and thus typically do not belong to any specific existing culture they are still inevitably embedded in the culture in which they were produced. Game designers belong to specific cultures and reflect certain values and beliefs, to a greater or lesser extent, in their work. For Di Marco, the text of a video game does not consist primarily of language, but of culture with "verbal and non-verbal representation being, in effect, a vehicle of the social and moral background from which a video game is produced" (2007, 2). Zhang also emphasizes the impossibility of dissociating games from the values governing the societies in which they are produced:
Culture, ideology and even philosophy are embedded in games through storylines, rules and interfaces. The features in a game are conceived by the developing team (game designers, script writers, graphic artists and others), and their set of values and beliefs is in the products they create. All cultures have the concept of "entertainment", but what it means to different people around the world or what is regarded as funny and exciting is not necessarily universal. (2008, 47)
It would be difficult to find a completely acultural game, devoid of any overt or covert references to the culture in which it was produced. For example, culture-bound humour and intertextual allusions are often found in games across a wide range of genres other than narrative-oriented RPGs or adventure games. With the use of motion-capture and the recent motion scan technology in computer graphics applied in some games, the body language of the game characters may also reflect the gestures and facial expressions characteristic of the original culture, rendering them in a way which is not always familiar to players from a different cultural background. In particular, given the pronounced cultural distance between Japan and Asia, on the one side, and, on the other, North America and Europe, there are usually abundant culture-specific references that may require attention, especially when localising Japanese or other Asian produced games. For example, in the Japanese original version of Final Fantasy VIII (1999), one of the villains, Seifer Almassy, wears an overcoat with a left-facing swastika symbol, which represents good luck in Buddhism. However, this could have been misconstrued as a Nazi symbol in Europe, so the localization team advised the localization coordinator to change it. The development team agreed and they designed a new symbol similar to a fleur-de-lis for the international versions (Di Marco 2006). Another example of a covert culture-specific reference included in the visuals of a game is found in Final Fantasy XI (2002). There is a cut-scene where an Elvaan prince sneezes while his men are gossiping about him. This is based on the Japanese folk belief that when one sneezes somebody is talking about them behind their back. As such, the meaning is immediately clear to those who are familiar with the local context and the scene has a somewhat comical function in the original. In an attempt to make the reference understandable and funny to the US audience, the localized version made it a particular habit of Elvaan people to sneeze when somebody is talking about them (Edge Online 2006).
While cultural issues have been identified as also creating localization problems in productivity software, they are far more pronounced with game localization, given the more visual, affective, and occasionally even deliberately controversial nature of video games. The process of cultural adaptation in games is a particularly significant dimension of the localization process, and it is referred to by some authors as "cultural localization" , and "culturalization" . Di Marco (2007, 2) defines cultural localization as:
[A]daptation of visuals, sound and scripts conceived in one language by members of one culture to another language and another culture, in such a way that they seem at once fully consistent with the assumptions, values and other boundaries and outlooks of the second culture, and internally consistent within the semiotic strategies of the original video game text, visuals and sound.
Mangiron (2008) in turn defines cultural localization as the "adaptation of the cultural content of a game to be able to market it successfully internationally". Chandler (2005) uses the term "culturalization" to describe any cultural issues that require attention, and usually adaptation, for the internationalization of the game. Citing Trainor (2003), Dietz (2006, 9) defines "culturalization" as the adaptation of games “to account for certain cultural conventions and preferences", mainly related to the areas of sex, violence, and religion. For Edwards (2008, 26) culturalization "helps gamers to potentially engage with the game's content at a much deeper, more meaningful level". Expanding this definition she also adds that culturalization is "the ability to discern and resolve potentially problematic issues before the game title goes out the door" (ibid., 27).
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