Tag Archives: storytelling

The Wide Variety of Video Game Studies

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Video games are an interesting field of study in today’s academic world. For a while, they were thought of as mindless garbage (okay, to be honest, there are probably tons of people who still think this i.e. my grandparents), yet the recent developments of video games have garnered more attraction from all walks of life and scholarly research into these games. Andrew Ervin even sets out to understand the explosive popularity of video games. No longer are they simplistic ideas of trying to get a frog across a highway or a yellow circle earing up dots. Theses games have stories as compelling as books.

Now that these games are more accepted they allow scholars to analyze and explore how these games affect our understanding of the wider world. In Gaming the System, Gunkel explores how philosophical traditions, put forth by thinkers like Plato, Descartes, Kant, etc., can help us explore and conceptualize recent developments in video games, game studies, and virtual worlds. Surprisingly, these games cross disciplines as well. Serious Games in Physical Rehabilitation demonstrates how videogames can be a valuable tool in clinics and how clinicians can use them in physical rehabilitation for various pathologies. And The Rhetoric of Videogames as Embodied Practice offers a critical reassessment of embodiment and materiality in rhetorical considerations of videogames.

No longer are games thought of in a vacuum, if they ever were. Not only has the ivory tower of universities started to realize that video games are a worthwhile field of study, but this field is also one that is crossing into other subjects and areas of thought. It truly shows you can’t judge a book…or a game…by its cover.

What is Game Writing?

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“An actual serious question. For many years, even decades, it was virtually an oxymoron. Games. Writing. Some game companies dabble with writers, others used people drafted from their development team who may have seemed to have a “flair” for writing, or story, or dialogue. But a few games’ success and critical acclaim showed that a game that used a professional writer could not only elevate the story, not to mention the dialogue but also lead to something even more important. Nothing less than the integration of gameplay and story into a new narrative entity. And not just a new narrative entity, but a new art form. Writers have come along to not only write the games but to build interactive experiences in a dramatic and exciting way” (Costello, xx).

This insightful, revised book explores the challenging and evolving world of the games writer. Especially useful reading for novice game writers, its chapters cover a broad range of topics including contracts, NDAs, creative collaboration, narrative design, editing, adaptations, and environmental storytelling. Packed with practical samples, case studies, and exercises, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in the world of games writing.

Call Number: 794.8 S942V 2017

May the Stories Never End

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When it comes to academic analysis, mainstream humanities research seems confused about what to do with videogames. The problem is one of the classifications, in the first instance: ‘is it a story, is it a game, or is it a machine?’ After weathering many controversies with regards to their cultural status, video games are now widely accepted as a new textual form that requires its own media-specific analysis. Despite the rapid rise in research and academic recognition, video game studies have seldom attempted to connect with older media and to locate itself within broader substantive discourses of the earlier and more established disciplines, especially those in the humanities. Video games and Storytelling aims to re-address this gap and to bring video games to mainstream humanities research and teaching.

Call Number: 794.8 M953V

We Are All Stories in the End

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In the past decade, video games have risen to one of the most popular forms of entertainment. There problem-solving skills, quick thinking, design, and even storytelling have grown exponentially that scholars have turned their attention to a love they once had as a kid and something that became only a hobby in adulthood.

Amy Green is one of those people who video games were never approached as “serious” by those around her, so she went on to a PhD in literature. Her emphasis was on Shakespeare and the novels of Henry James. Yet, video games couldn’t be ignored “it was during the time in which I was a doctoral student that my love of video games began to become more of a central focus for me professionally” (1). Not only had times change in forms of entertainment with the invention of video games but the games themselves were changing. No longer were they the simplicity of Pac-Man or Galaga, but a game with a fleshed-out story and characters that have come to life. Green could no longer ignore the draw she had to games but was still afraid “that a leap into a narrative study of video games would be something akin to professional suicide, I remained on my relatively safe scholarly path for a bit longer, at least so far as publications and projects were concerned. Then BioShock Infinite was released in 2013 and it was clear to me that I could not ignore the powerful storytelling in this game, and in the many others I had played” (2).

In Storytelling in Video Games: The Art of the Digital Narrative, Green begins to look at the structure of design and play, as well as the compelling examples of story-telling and important cultural artefacts that are present in these games. Her hope is this book will appeal to the gamer as well as the academic to the enthusiast and the one who has never played a game before. After all, we are all trying to escape realism.

Call Number: 794.8 G795S