Understanding Player Elimination in Boardgames as a Form of Permadeath

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Rogerson Melissa J. Gibbs Martin Carter Marcus Allison Fraser
2018 DiGRA ’18 – Abstract Proceedings of the 2018 DiGRA International Conference: The Game is the Message

 

A History of Voice Interaction in Games

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Allison Fraser Carter Marcus Gibbs Martin
2016 DiGRA/FDG '16 - Abstract Proceedings of the First International Joint Conference of DiGRA and FDG

 

Whose mind is the signal? Focalization in video game narratives

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Allison Fraser
2015 DiGRA '15 - Proceedings of the 2015 DiGRA International Conference

In this paper, I explore instances in which video games convey an experience of subjectivity, utilizing an appropriation of Gérard Genette’s (1980) concept of focalization. Through an analysis of The Sims 3 (The Sims Studio 2009), Top Spin 4 (2K Czech 2011), Mirror’s Edge (EA Digital Illusions CE 2008) and Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar North 2014), I demonstrate that internal focalization can be made apparent in a video game through its audiovisual presentation, its selection and restriction of private knowledge, and its ludic affordances. I provide a framework for analyzing games that seek to present a diversity of perspectives, and to allow players to access modes of thinking that accord with a perspective other than their own. This framework can assist researchers, critics, and designers to identify ways in which video games express elements of internal focalization that communicate the mental patterns of a perspective character.