Final Web Project:

Audiencing and Visuality in Video Games

By Colin Malone

05/04/2012

malonec@southwestern.edu

A screenshot from the demo of the Fangame Mega Man 8-Bit Deathmatch.

A screenshot from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.

A screenshot from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Video games are a very unique medium; they allow for many things that other media do not. The agency of the users is what makes video games different; they give the users the ability to become a part of the game world, to influence it, to live within it. Visuality is an important part of how meanings are created within and outside of games. Through things such as rejecting and negotiating meanings, or the creation of visual fan works such as fan art or fan videos or fan works unique to the medium of video games: game mods, gamers can create and find meaning outside the game world as well as within. To be able to understand how users and fans react to game's visuals and how they understand, negotiate, and reject the meanings that come from them it's also imperative to understand the visuals that communicate with the player within the game itself and how they provide a frame of reference with wich to understand the game.

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If you're ready then,

Start Game!

 

 

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This Webpage was produced in COM 784: Visual Communication,

a class taught by Bob Bednar in the Communication Studies Department at Southwestern University