Czech Appeal: Use of Local Themes and Settings by a National Game Industry

This paper examines how Czech game developers have incorporated local themes and settings into recent titles, and what this reveals about the relationship between national culture and game production in a peripheral region. Its central argument is that, despite the global distribution of games and the historical pull toward erasing local markers in favor of a generic international appeal, production decisions remain strongly shaped by local support networks, tastes, and game culture opinion leaders. The authors situate their work at the intersection of research on local game development scenes and debates about what makes a game national, and they connect it to cultural policies that treat game production as part of national and European cultural heritage.

The study is based on developer interviews, close analysis of the games, and a review of press interviews and promotional materials. Its selected corpus includes seven recent or upcoming Czech titles, among them 1428: Shadows over Silesia, Hobo: Tough Life, Hrot, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Last Holiday, Scarlet Deer Inn, and Someday You'll Return. At the time of writing, the authors had completed two interviews and analyzed part of the press material, with the remaining interviews planned for the first half of 2023. The work is therefore presented as preliminary, and its findings should be read as early observations rather than final conclusions.

Among the preliminary findings, developers often describe local settings as practical, since they offer easier access to reference material, and as creatively valuable because they enable more personal storytelling. Kingdom Come: Deliverance appears to have inspired some projects, and the authors identify a notable obstacle for indie developers relying on asset stores, which frequently lack distinctly local assets such as Hussite battle wagons. Although nearly all selected games target international markets, much of their initial encouragement, support, and crowdfunding comes from the Czech community, leading developers to prioritize resonance at home before seeking wider sales abroad.