Of worlds and avatars: a playercentric approach to videogames

UnrestrictedA study of the medium-specific properties of videogame discourse, this dissertation considers the videogame situation as the interaction of four component parts: a PLAYER, participating in a formal SYSTEM that projects a fictional WORLD, via the mediation of an AVATAR, and these four components form the basis for the four chapters of this project.; Chapter one begins by looking at the SYSTEM of a videogame -- the formal structure of rules and aesthetics that comprises the thing itself. Questioning what sort of "thing" a videogame is, this chapter proposes the conceptual model of a game-text, a unique object combining the discursive properties of texts with the spontaneous activity that is a game.; Chapter two examines the WORLD of the videogame by suggesting a diegetic model of videogame discourse, one rooted in narration's ability to "mentally transport" its audience to an imaginary space. Videogames are virtual activities, occurring apart from the player's here and now, and as such, require a mode of discourse capable of projecting the player into a non-existent (that is, fictional) time and space. In this regard, narration is addressed as a manner of "spatiotemporal projection."; Chapter three is concerned with the most fundamental device of the videogame interface: the AVATAR. Probing the avatar's relationship to the player (and vice versa), this chapter proposes a dual-positioning model of videogames, wherein the player is always positioned in two places at once -- inside the game, as a diegetic participant, as well as outside the game, as a disembodied observer, experiencing the game through both roles simultaneously.; Finally, chapter four considers the videogame PLAYER by addressing the medium as manner of second-person narration. Unlike conventional narration, which has long centered on first- and third-person address, videogames privilege the narratee rather than the narrator, suggesting the audience as the central actant in the game's fiction. Ultimately, then, this dissertation offers a "playercentric" approach to videogame discourse -- one that examines the discursive situation not via its author or designer, but rather through its receiving audience: the player