124263 KO Critical Media Analysis (2024S)

The point of contention within the field of game studies 25 years ago, whether video games are a ludic or narrative medium, seems rather quaint in 2024. Yet even today, the popular imaginary of video games as simply a fun pastime, in which stories are a dispensable add-on, seems to persist – a depoliticizing portrayal that is challenged by scholars, game creators and certain players alike. For those, more intriguing inquiries are how video games create meaning and transport beliefs and values, how they might influence individuals and online communities (as well as vice versa), and how to interpret video game narratives despite their interactive, multimodal nature.

These are some of the questions we will be dealing with in this course by close-reading free and/or inexpensive video games outside the AAA mainstream. We will be looking at the content, context, and formal qualities of ‘narrative indie games’ – defined here as games that are independent in a financial, aesthetic and/or cultural sense created by small teams or single developers to express personal experiences or political visions.

It is not necessary to have prior play experiences with video games or to own expensive hardware but bringing a laptop to class is highly advised.

Students will get to know methods to put their play experiences into writing, train their understanding of the narrative and persuasive means of video games, and develop the analytical skills to close-read selected titles through cultural studies perspectives.