Spatial Instabilities and Cultural Circuits: Comparing Videogame Distribution in Japan and South Korea
This reaction essay scrutinises the spatial and infrastructural topographies of East Asia’s digital‑game industries by way of a comparative investigation of Japan and South Korea. It explores Martin Roth’s notion of “multilayered spatialization” and places it in juxtaposition with the divergent industrial trajectories of Japan and South Korea. Methodologically the study is comparative and infrastructural, blending metadata‑informed cultural analysis with the regional policy frameworks to evaluate how platform constraints, localisation regimes and state intervention configure game production and circulation. The comparison reveals distinct strategies of global engagement and regulatory design, thereby problematizing simplistic binaries of global versus local in East Asian cultural industries.
Japan: Metadata and the Persistence of Regional Logics
Roth’s central argument dismantles the assumption that Japan’s console‑game industry is either a wholly self‑contained national domain or seamlessly subsumed within global entertainment markets. Instead, he shows that Japanese games circulate within overlapping circuits of domestic production and transnational distribution: this dynamic—termed by Roth “multilayered spatialization,” which involves the convergence of infrastructural constraints (such as platform region‑locks), economic strategies (publisher partnerships) and linguistic localisation regimes. (Roth 2025)
Analysing metadata drawn from repositories such as MobyGames and MADB, Roth identifies a persistent regional segmentation, particularly in the mid‑tier console and handheld markets. Even as certain flagship titles (for instance, Dark Souls and Elden Ring) adopt global release strategies, much of Japan’s output remains anchored domestically, reinforcing what Roth describes as spatial instability in the uneven, fragmented and contingent geographies of cultural distribution (Gerteis 2025).
A recurring case study is FromSoftware, whose evolution from Japan‑first releases (e.g., King’s Field) to simultaneous global launches (such as Elden Ring) epitomises infrastructural transition. Yet, even here, Roth cautions against assuming global uniformity: FromSoftware retains core production in Japan and continues to craft region‑specific content, reflecting a dual orientation that blurs the conventional national–global dichotomy (Roth 2025).
Roth observes how Japan’s industry exhibits a tension between outward‑looking global release strategies and inward‑oriented regional logics that persist via infrastructural, economic and linguistic mediations.
South Korea: Platform Governance and State‑Led Acceleration
By contrast, South Korea’s gaming sector has emerged via a distinct constellation of infrastructural and policy mechanisms. From the late 1990s the Korean government invested proactively in building a digital‑content ecosystem: supporting broadband expansion, establishing rating systems and funding export‑oriented content development (Chung 2015). These interventions formed a critical backdrop for the rise of online gaming, e‑sports and mobile‑first development patterns.
Unlike Japan’s console‑centred industry, Korea’s domestic market is dominated by PC and mobile games, facilitated by ubiquitous access to PC bangs (gaming cafés) and state‑backed initiatives promoting content export. Major firms such as NCSoft and Nexon have thrived in this environment, embracing live‑service models, international franchising and platform analytics as core design logics. Here, spatialisation manifests less through region‑locks and delayed localisations and more through platform governance and accelerated global release cycles (Na, Kim & Kim 2022).
In this schema, Korea’s industry exhibits what might be termed “infrastructural convergence”: production is tightly coupled with export‑readiness, supported by robust localisation pipelines and monetisation strategies tailored for global audiences. Yet this convergence is not without its frictions: as Na, Kim & Kim (2022) demonstrate in their COVID‑era analysis, the industry remains vulnerable to systemic shocks, thereby highlighting structural dependencies on platform infrastructures, labour models and global distribution channels.
Thus, Korea’s model emphasises a different modality of spatial logic that is less about fragmentary regional segmentation and more about integrated global‑facing production, albeit one that remains shaped by infrastructural and policy contingencies.
Shared Regional Challenges: Localisation and Cultural Mediation
Although the national infrastructures of Japan and South Korea diverge, both industries grapple with the centrality of localisation as a spatial and functional process. Roth treats localisation not merely as translation but as a mechanism of cultural and infrastructural adaptation whereby access to global markets is mediated.
Decisions about which titles are localised, when and how. They are inseparable from platform affordances, legal regulation and publisher strategic priorities (Roth 2025).
In the South Korean case, localisation likewise functions as a strategic tool: the lifting of Japan’s game‑import ban in 2004 compelled Korean firms to recalibrate competitive strategies and simultaneously invest in global‑ready IPs capable of bypassing domestic saturation (Chung 2015). Thus, localisation operates as a threshold mechanism structuring not only access but the assignment of value in transnational circuits.
In both contexts we observe that global circulation is not automatic but is mediated by infrastructures that encode spatial hierarchies: games do not simply “go global”; rather, they are routed, delayed, adapted or foreclosed through technical, legal and cultural filters. These constraints become especially visible in mid‑tier or niche releases, which often remain region‑locked or poorly localised, thereby reinforcing the uneven geography of global gaming.
Toward a Comparative Infrastructural Method
What emerges from this comparative vantage is the value of infrastructural and metadata‑driven methods for understanding East Asian media industries. Roth’s application of metadata analytics to trace patterns of production, platform and localisation offers a model for treating games as both cultural texts and industrial artefacts. In contrast, South Korean scholarship and industry analysis foreground policy instruments, broadband infrastructure and platform design as the key vectors of transformation (Chung 2015; Na, Kim & Kim 2022).
These perspectives are not mutually exclusive. Their convergence signals a methodological imperative to treat media industries as assemblages of code, labour, policy and infrastructure. Whether via the absence of platform compatibility in Japan or the ubiquity of global‑facing design in Korea, both systems reveal the contingencies of cultural production in the digital era.
Thus, a comparative infrastructural method can illuminate how differing national legacies, technological architectures and policy regimes shape cultural circuits—without recourse to teleological narratives of globalisation.
Concluding Thoughts
Japan and South Korea present two structurally distinct yet interlinked models of videogame production and circulation. Roth’s spatialisation framework enables us to see Japan’s industry as defined by infrastructural frictions and selective globalisation, while Korea’s model emphasises state‑facilitated convergence and export logic. Both cases challenge teleological schemas of globalisation and underscore the necessity of comparative, infrastructural methodologies in media studies. As digital media continue to traverse borders, the circuits through which they move, and stall, remain central to understanding East Asia’s position in the global cultural economy.
References
Chung, Pei-chi. 2015. “South Korea.” In Video Games Around the World, edited by Mark Wolf, 333–351. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9658.003.0034
Gerteis, Christopher. 2025. Unboxing Japanese Videogames: A Metadata-Based Approach to the Production and Distribution of Spatial Instability By Martin Roth. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2025. 192 pages. Ebook, open access, ISBN: 9780262382892. Paperback, ISBN: 978-0262552226. International Journal of Asian Studies. Published online 2025:1-3. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479591425000026
Na, Jae-Hyun, Kim, Eun-Jung, and Kim, Joon. 2022. “Data Analysis of the Impact of COVID-19 on Digital Game Industrial Sustainability in South Korea.” PLOS ONE 17 (12): e0278467. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278467.
Roth, Martin. 2025. Unboxing Japanese Videogames: A Metadata-Based Approach to the Production and Distribution of Spatial Instability. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/15321.001.0001