Order to be invoked, but the game encourages the meaning-making process with different means

The research question of this study is: What are dynamic game characters? Through reader�response theory adapted for cybermedia phenomena such as games, this study approachesĬharacters as a player-constructed phenomenon, in which the game character needs the player in Influence other character manifestations within a broader media ecology in which characters This study addresses the struggleįor interpretive authority by explaining how the player constructs the identity of dynamic gameĬharacters in digital games, and by discussing how dynamic game characters connect to and Medium in particular: a character does not require a specific medium to come into existence.Īuthoritative forces try to shape the overall interpretation of circulating characters transmedially inĬomics, television series, films, games and more through different venues of control, such asĪuthorship, canonisation and ownership or intellectual property. Characters do notĪppear only in games, they migrate from one medium to another. Which characters are constantly produced and reproduced in a variety of media. This study presents a theory about dynamic game characters within a broader character ecology in Having established these basic distinctions, we proceed to analyze their realization and interrelation by reference to the character of Martin Walker from the third-person shooter Spec Ops: The Line (Yager Development 2012), the highly customizable player-controlled characters from the role-playing game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda 2011), and the complex multidimensional char-acters in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic (BioWare 2011-2014). We propose to distinguish, first, between narration, simulation, and communication as three modes of representation particularly salient for con-temporary video games and the characters they represent, second, between nar-rative, ludic, and social experience as three ways in which players perceive video game characters and their representations, and, third, between three dimensions of video game characters as ‘intersubjective constructs’, which usually are to be analyzed not only as fictional beings with certain diegetic properties but also as game pieces with certain ludic properties and, in those cases in which they func-tion as avatars in the social space of a multiplayer game, as representations of other players. This essay develops a method for the analysis of video game characters based on a theoretical understanding of their medium-specific representation and the mental processes involved in their intersubjective construction by video game players.

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