On s’interroge ici sur la possibilité d’élaborer une notion « d’auteur » adéquate au champ du jeu vidéo. L’enquête commence par une réflexion sur quelques grands noms du domaine reconnus par une ...instance légitime du secteur. Il s’avère que ces créateurs sont peut-être moins des auteurs que des créateurs géniaux d’outils numériques, des architectes ou des raconteurs d’histoires – sans atteindre au statut d’auteur complet. Pour cela, il leur faudrait non seulement avoir réalisé plusieurs jeux marquants auxquels leurs noms seraient associés, mais avoir en outre ambitionné la transmission d’un certain message (politique). L’auteur complet serait alors celui qui réussirait à imposer sa vision singulière à une industrie surpuissante affamée de productions calibrées. Leur heure est peut-être encore à venir. Vingt ans plus tard, un regard rétrospectif permet de confirmer l’intuition. Le secteur a mûri, s’est énormément développé et a donc libéré de la place pour des créations en marge : jeux d’auteur, retrogaming, art game et jeux indépendants.
Where do computer games »happen«? The articles collected in this pioneering volume explore the categories of »space«, »place« and »territory« featuring in most general theories of space to lay the ...groundwork for the study of spatiality in games. Shifting the focus away from earlier debates on, e.g., the narrative nature of games, this collection proposes, instead, that thorough attention be given to the tension between experienced spaces and narrated places as well as to the mapping of both of these.
For half a century, digital machines have lent their computational power to mediate text-based, diegetic worlds, in the shape of software that we call games, video games, or sometimes interactive ...fiction. Perhaps the first such was Gregory Yob’s simple labyrinth-monster game Hunt the Wumpus (1973), but ever since then the games (if that is what they should be called) have become larger and far more complex, and, in recent decades, a single such work can contain more text than, say, Shakespeare’s collected plays. Given this massive textual content, as well as the often experimental and innovative nature of these works, they can also be considered a new form of novel; a kind of text that has much more in common with literature than with other digital games such as Candy Crush Saga, Age of Empires or Counterstrike. In these ‘games’, we find complex characters, difficult ethical choices (left to the player), imaginative landscapes and mythologies, and thousands if not millions of lines of carefully crafted prose. Teams of writers work collectively to stich these textual universes together, under production conditions that might remind us of multi-season TV series, but which are structured and consumed very differently – in fact, more like literature than TV. The claim made in this article is that the perspective of the novel (or supernovel) is a productive one for understanding the nature of these artistic works of ludic software. Should they be considered Literature? Through a discussion of the notions of literature, novel, and fiction and through a close ludic reading of Fallout: New Vegas (2010) I will argue that these textual games are in fact Literature, a new kind of novelistic genre, and discuss the wider cultural implications of this assessment.
Digital Culture, Play, and Identity Corneliussen, Hilde G; Rettberg, Jill Walker; Rettberg, Scott ...
2008, 2011-09-30, 2011-09-23, 20080101
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Exploring World of Warcraft as both cultural phenomenon and game, with contributions by writers and researchers who have immersed themselves in the WoW gameworld.
Where do computer games »happen«? The articles collected in this pioneering volume explore the categories of »space«, »place« and »territory« featuring in most general theories of space to lay the ...groundwork for the study of spatiality in games. Shifting the focus away from earlier debates on, e.g., the narrative nature of games, this collection proposes, instead, that thorough attention be given to the tension between experienced spaces and narrated places as well as to the mapping of both of these.
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