My proposed thesis for this paper is that any plot or story-driven video game is essentially a form of remediated film. My goal is to deeply analyze the relationship between films and video games and how they've worked off of each other.
My outline is as follows:
Introduction broadly connects how we consume and digest media; what we seek out of it, what we get, how we get it, and show how these things might obviously tie film and video games together. Ultimately talk about the connection between film and video games, especially concerning their narrative.
aybe an extended introduction or the first part of the body might involve a more intense looking at remediation and really reifywhat it means for something to be remediated. Or compare/contrast it with evolution. This could possibly be saved as the last part of the body, and should be brief because it's not the main point behind the paper.
In the body video games would need discussing in detail. Not necessarily games themselves, but sort of the mechanics of the storytelling, the narrative they use, the messages they can convey, theatrics in games, and the relationship films and games have.
Ultimately I would try and show how video games have borrowed a lot of production values in film, and how they convey a plot, and through their own production values they can be especially theatrical But as in remediation, they are more and different than film in that they engross the player on a more intimate level. The control of a character(s) can provide an intimate relationship with the plot unlike films, and of course interactivity is a very different medium all around.
Works Cited
Bolter, J. David, and Richard A. Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2000. Print.
This class reading is the defining work on what exactly remediation is, and will prove crucial to understanding the difference between remediation and evolution, and is necessary to differentiate what video games do versus what films do.
Galloway, Alexander R. "Social Realism in Gaming." Game Studies 4.1 (2004). Web. 2 Dec. 2010.
This article discusses the realism developers strive for in many games of this and last generation. Though he refers not only to poly counts and anti-aliasing, he discusses the tendency to make cultures, locations, and peoples represented in games as accurately as possible. This is vital to the idea of video games and films being close relatives.
Hanson, Matt. "Film Futures in the Digital Age." The End of Celluloid: Film Futures in the Digital Age, by Matt Hanson. RotoVision. Web. 03 Dec. 2010. <http://www.endofcelluloid.com/>.
This is the website of the book by Matt Hanson that allegedly challenges and redefines film. It mentions video games several times in relation to film, and discusses the relationship between the two; what I seek to do as well in my paper.
Ryan, Marie-Laure. "Beyond Myth and Metaphor." Game Studies 1.1 (2001). Web. 2 Dec. 2010.
Marie-Laure Ryan describes narrative in detail, specifically its function in digital media. As the majority of this paper will be analyzing just that, this article is perfect.
Sisler, Vit. "Digital Arabs: Representation in Video Games." Digital Islam. Web. 2 Dec. 2010. <http://www.digitalislam.eu/article.do?articleId=1704>.
This article discusses representation, the construction of meaning through words or symbols. It's mainly a cultural studies article about how American and European games portray Arabs, but underneath that meaning is a secondary subtext that describes the power of video games to represent and convey meaning through narrative, a powerful tool for this paper.
