ORIENTALISMUS V JADE EMPIRE.

Even though computer games have been around since the 1960s, and their developers can now make stories as powerful and believable as filmmakers and book writers can, computer games are still considered more a means of entertainment than a work of art. For this reason, certain issues depicted in games are still not given enough attention in academic sphere. One of these is the issue of Orientalism, which was addressed by Edward Said in his book Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient, and based on his article, I decided to research the orientalistic concepts in the game Jade Empire, created by the Canadian studio Bioware. This game, released on the Xbox in 2005 and on the PC in 2007, belongs to the genre of single player RPG (i.e., single player role-playing game). The game is set in a fictional realm called the Jade Empire, which is heavily inspired by Chinese historical realities and mythology. The player takes on the role of a martial arts student and sets out on a journey to rescue his master, who has been kidnapped by the mysterious Lotus Assassins and during his journey, the hero uncovers a vast conspiracy reaching to the Emperor himself. Given the setting of the game, a number of orientalistic concepts are present, namely the dualistic concept of complementary good and evil and reincarnation. Furthermore, this game was for a long time one of the few games created by Western game studio which story was set in purely Asian setting and included only Asian protagonists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]