Video Game Characters and Transmedia Storytelling: The Dynamic Game Character

Joleen Blom

book: Video Game Characters and Transmedia Storytelling

Open Access Published by Amsterdam University Press 2023

Video Game Characters and Transmedia Storytelling

The Dynamic Game Character

Joleen Blom

Volume 9 in the series Games and Play

https://doi.org/10.1515/9789048553495

Overview
Contents

About this book

Characters are a vital aspect of today’s transmedia practices. Combining theories on fictional persons from Japanese and Euro-American practices, this book discusses video game characters embedded in our popular media culture in which they are constantly produced and re-imagined.

This book introduces the dynamic game character, a type of game character with a development structure that consists of multiple outcomes in a game. Through their actions and choices, players can influence these game characters’ identities and affect their possible destinies.

Games subvert the idea that fictional persons must maintain a coherent identity. This book shows that dynamic game characters challenge strategies of top-down control through close readings of the Mass Effect series, Persona 5, Hades, Animal Crossing: New Horizons and more. It is directed to all scholars interested in the topics of transmedia storytelling, video games, characters, and Japanese narratology.

Author / Editor information

Blom Joleen :

Joleen Blom obtained her Ph.D. at the Center for Computer Games at the IT University of Copenhagen, where she was a member of the ERC Advanced grant project Making Sense of Games (MSG). Her research interests include transmedia storytelling, Japanese games and culture, characters, para-social relationships, and mediated intimacy.

Topics

Arts
Genres

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	1
Table of Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	5
A brief note on Japanese names and words Open Access Download PDF	7
1. Introducing the dynamic game character Open Access Download PDF	9
2. Characters in contemporary media Open Access Download PDF	41
3. How the dynamic game character develops Open Access Download PDF	69
4. Strategies to control a character’s transtextual identities Open Access Download PDF	97
5. Parasocial relationships with nonplayable characters Open Access Download PDF	125
6. The construction of transmedia game characters Open Access Download PDF	151
7. The future of dynamic game characters Open Access Download PDF	171
Glossary: A brief typology of characters Open Access Download PDF	179
General bibliography Open Access Download PDF	183
Index Open Access Download PDF	205

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 208
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 4
Keywords: Dynamic Game Characters; transmedia practices; game studies; reader-response theory

eBook

Published: October 30, 2023
ISBN: 9789048553495