Video Games and Storytelling
Video Games and Storytelling Reading Games and Playing Books Souvik Mukherjee Presidency University, Kolkata, India
Souvik Mukherjee 2015 S o f t c o v e r r e p r i n t o f t h e h a r d c o v e r 1 s t e d i t i o n 2 0 1 5 9 7 8-1 - 1 3 7-5 2 5 0 4-8 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-58014-9 ISBN 978-1-137-52505-5 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9781137525055 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Contents Acknowledgments vi 1 Introduction: Video Games and Storytelling 1 Section I Machine 2 Machinic Stories: The Literature Machine, Technicity and the Computer Game 25 3 (W)Reading the Machinic Game-Narrative 48 Section II Game 4 Reading Games and Playing Books: Game, Play and Storytelling 75 5 Shapeshifting Stories: Reading Video Game Stories through Paratexts 103 Section III Story 6 Ab(Sense) of an Ending: Telos and Time in Video Game Narratives 123 7 Playing in the Zone of Becoming I: Agency and Becoming in Video Games 146 8 Playing in the Zone of Becoming II: Becoming as Identity-Formation in Video Games 174 9 Concluding Remarks: Video Games versus Books, and Other Egg-Endian (Non)Debates 209 Notes 219 Bibliography 222 Index 236 v
Acknowledgments Video Games and Storytelling owes a great deal to the immense support that I received from my family, colleagues and friends. My partner, Dr Amrita Sen, and my parents have been simply amazing in the way they supported me through extremely trying circumstances. Amrita, Mum and Dad, Ido not have enough words tothank you. Amrita, thank you for being a rock-solid source of support in extremely difficult times and for being the long-suffering first reader of everything that I write. The two people whose help has been absolutely invaluable are my supervisors, Dr Phil Leonard and Dr Dave Woods. I am more than grateful for their encouragement, insights, criticism, their support in everything else and finally, for always making our supervisory sessions so enjoyable. I would also like to thank them for having introduced me to two of the most exciting videogames in human history: Phil, for properly introducing me to Half-Life 2, and Dave, for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I am very grateful to other members of staff in Nottingham Trent University. Professor John Goodridge, Mr Mahendra Solanki and Professor Tim Fulfordhave been themost sympathetic andsupportiveof friends. I have learnt a lot while working with Professor Sue Thomas and Professor Rukmini Bhaya Nair respectively while doing my postdoctoral research at De Montfort University and IIT, Delhi. I would also like to thank all my professors in Calcutta, especially Professor Amlan Dasgupta of Jadavpur University for his encouragement. I am also extremely grateful to Professor Stephan Guenzel, Professor Mathias Fuchs and other members of the Ludotopia workshops for the many discussions that we have had on various things related to game studies. I would like to specially thank Dr Mark Butler for his extremely helpful insights. It was a thrilling experience to be able to interview Dr Celia Pearce and Alexei Pazhitnov in GameCity 2007; I would like to thank them for their suggestions. I am also grateful to Mike Prescott who agreed to be interviewed by me about his work on After Action Reports. I would also like to thank the organisers of various games conferences for having given me the chance to participate and meet other researchers. I am also grateful to Writing Technologies for having published a shorter version of my sixth chapter and to all reviewers of my publications for their very helpful suggestions. vi
Acknowledgments vii Thisbook would not havebeen possible at all withoutthepatient help and co-operation of Felicity Plester, Global Head of the Film, Culture and Media Studies at Palgrave Macmillan. Sneha Kamat Bhavnani and her colleagues at Palgrave Macmillan have been extremely supportive at every step of the process of getting this book together. I am very grateful to Felicity and her team at Palgrave Macmillan for making this book happen. The research on this book project would have been a horribly lonely affair without my friends in Nottingham and elsewhere. I would especially like tothank Cristina Bermejo, Kalyan Das, Dr Koutilya Bhattacharya, Mahitosh Mandal, Dr Maria Marti, Tobias Mueller, Dr David Munoz, Juan Moreno, Liliana Maligłówka, Arijit Nag and Dr Jenna Pitchford for being such superb friends. I would also like to thank my friends from India and elsewhere, who are too many to list: you know who you are. Last but not least, I would like to thank Lorenzo, my artificially intelligent friend. Lorenzo, perhaps more than anyone alive, has helped me most in reading games and playing books, and of course, the reverse.