This study seeks to discover how Mobile Legends gamers in Indonesia make their choices in using the hero characters and their perception to the representation of Asian heroes in the game. Furthermore, this study also aims to find out how Asian heroes in Mobile Legends are added and represented to enrich the characters of the game to follow the trends of the rise of Asian culture and set aside the popularity of Western heroes and popular culture which are the basic elements in the design of many characters of games. The design of the research is descriptive qualitative through employing participant observation and interview. This research is developed based on the problematic representation of the Asian heroes as the game characters since in the characters’ design it continues to hold American values in many aspects of representation, especially to the game mechanics elements. It raises questions whether the gamers are aware of the blurring values of Asian and American in the characters’ representation to meet the game-design elements and principles. While observing the participants playing the game, questions on their choice of the characters and enjoyment of playing are given to gain their perception of the Asian characters. Although they mention that they are familiar with American values and the different values between American and Asian, surprisingly that they are not bothered with the representation of the Asian heroes designed with adopting Western game principles in the games. Despite game-design element and principle are developed based on American values which have become standards of game development, the issues of conflicting values are neglected by the gamers. They feel happy because the Asian heroes are taken to develop the characters of the game. Surprisingly, this videogame becomes a new sensation in the scope of the videogame industry. This phenomenon, later on, trigger the new question whether American values are still the biggest influence in video games.
Keywords: Videogame, Americanization, Asian Representation, Asian Hero Characters, Mobile Legends
