Player and Avatar - David Owen

Player and Avatar

The Affective Potential of Videogames

(Autor)

Matthew Wilhelm Kapell (Herausgeber)

Buch | Softcover
240 Seiten
2017
McFarland & Co Inc (Verlag)
978-1-4766-6719-5 (ISBN)
36,15 inkl. MwSt
Explores concepts central to the design and enjoyment of video games, including affect, immersion, liveness, presence, agency, narrative, ideology and the player's virtual surrogate - the avatar. Gamer and avatar are analysed as a cybernetic coupling whose dynamics suggest a fulfilment of dramatist Atonin Artaud's vision of the “body without organs”.
Do you make small leaps in your chair while attempting challenging jumps in Tomb Raider? Do you say "Ouch!" when a giant hits you with a club in Skyrim? Have you had dreams of being inside the underwater city of Rapture?

Videogames cast the player as protagonist in an unfolding narrative. Like actors in front of a camera, gamers' proprioception, or body awareness, can extend to onscreen characters, thus placing them "physically" within the virtual world. Players may even identify with characters' ideological motivations.

The author explores concepts central to the design and enjoyment of videogames--affect, immersion, liveness, presence, agency, narrative, ideology and the player's virtual surrogate: the avatar. Gamer and avatar are analyzed as a cybernetic coupling that suggests fulfillment of Atonin Artaud's vision of the "body without organs."

David Owen teaches at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. He has written essays and articles on theater, digital performance and videogames in The Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds and The Canadian Theatre Review. Series editor Matthew Wilhelm Kapell teaches American studies, anthropology, and writing at Pace University in New York.

Table of Contents


Acknowledgments deletevi

Introduction

Chapter One. Digital Like Me

Chapter Two. The Gamer as Cyborg

Chapter Three. The Illusion of Agency in a Virtual Environment

Chapter Four. Winning the Hearts and Thumbs of the People

Chapter Notes

Works Cited

Index

Erscheinungsdatum
Reihe/Serie Studies in Gaming
Zusatzinfo notes, bibliography, index
Verlagsort Jefferson, NC
Sprache englisch
Maße 152 x 229 mm
Gewicht 322 g
Themenwelt Informatik Weitere Themen Computerspiele
ISBN-10 1-4766-6719-5 / 1476667195
ISBN-13 978-1-4766-6719-5 / 9781476667195
Zustand Neuware
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