Video Game Characters and Transmedia Storytelling

GROUP 1 (L - A)

GROUP 2 (P - A)

GROUP 3 (L - C)

GROUP 4 (P - C)

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 1

Characters in Contemporary Transmedia Practices

chapter 3 : How the dynamic game character develops :

Chapter 4

Strategies to control a character’s transtextual identities

3.5: the three types of dynamic game characters

The challenge to character identities

How (not) to control a dynamic game character’s identity

3.3: the development stuctures of dynamic characters

Ownership: An institutional paradox

Canonisation: A paradox in the digital age

The Imbalance of Transmedia Storytelling

3.2: possibility space of game

3.1: dynamic game character

3.6: conclusion

Authorship: The return of a God

CHARACTERS IN CONTEMPORARY MEDIA

Narrative agents: Shepard from the Mass Effect series

Performative agents: Animal Crossing: New Horizon’s kyara

Ludic agents: Link from Breath of the Wild

Ownership: An institutional paradox

  • owner of the IP (interllectual property) owns the character instead of the initial author now so the character can be passed around from one author to another author
  • This allows the the IP holder to gain profit but it creates a challenge to maintain the character identity.
  • A way for IP holder to solve this problem is to dispose previous characters and replace them with new one
  • example: tom holland’s spider man is the new version of spiderman and toby maguire and andrew garfield’s spiderman are the old ones by diffrent authors. all of these version of spiderman are owned by the IP holder
  • authorities create and control different character identities in which characters are treated as little more than commadities.

Conclusion

Conclusion

Transmedia practices lead to a constant shifting of character configuration, undermining the impression of characters as coherent entities across different works.

-This shifting of character identity across works involves a battle for control over authorship, ownership of intellectual property, and canonization, which can sometimes contribute to harmful discourses on minority identities.

-Transferring dynamic game characters to other media removes the player's creative agency over the character's development, forcing them to comply with a dominant reading determined by institutional authorities for the sake of generating additional revenue.

Ludic agents: Link from Breath of the Wild

  • dynamic game characters are difficult to adapt to non-gaming media because they rely heavily on game mechanics
  • What Nintendo (developers) do?
  1. Keep creating such characters in various game genres

Example: The story of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild grows with Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, a game set before Breath of the Wild, focusing on battling Ganon.

  1. Enforce narrative continuity across games

Example: Attempt to organize all previous installments into a chronological order.

  1. Created a paradox inside the main series and the version of Link in different games within the series

Example: Implies a constant singular identity that connects versions of Link across work

Dynamic Character Definition: Player input is essential for a character to be dynamic.
Player-Character Relationship: The term "dynamic game character" moves away from traditional terms like avatar or protagonist, suggesting that a player's influence can extend to many characters, not just the main one.

Understanding

3.4: the requirements for dynamic characters

i) Player choices direct character development.


ii) Choices have non-trivial consequences for character or game state.


iii) Character’s outcome is undetermined until player choices finalize it.

Example - Arthur in RDR2:


  • Eating steak: Does not change the character structurally.


  • Killing innocents: Lowers reputation, affecting NPC interactions and Arthur’s end.


  • Positive actions: Improve reputation, unlock rewards.

  • Origin of Game Studies: Initially rooted in Literary Studies, Game Studies shifted towards a medium-specific understanding of characters.
  • Pikachu has been spotted as a live version in places like Shibuya, Tokyo.
  • Pikachu debuted in the late 1990s through the Pokémon Adventures anime series.

Canonisation: A paradox in the digital age

  • Canonization creates a single official discourse for a character's identity, determining which events are considered true.
  • It's a struggle for control, often treated as a monolithic phenomenon despite characters never being entirely finished.
  • Multiple parties create their own official versions, resulting in multiple canons defended as the true one.
  • Non-canonical works like fan fiction may face legal issues for violating IP rights.
  • Countless works, like games, are constantly rewritten by recipients.
  • Fixed canons require constant updating, with game producers having excessive control, as seen in the case of Mercy and Overwatch 2.

Can game characters be trandmedial

  • Academics didn’t pay much attention to characters in transmedia storytelling, seeing them as background elements
  • Henry Jenkins focused more on building worlds than on characters in transmedia storytelling.
  • Big entertainment companies try to make as much money as possible from game characters.

Character in the Japanese media mix
(Characters in the media mix)

  • In Japan, they use a strategy called the media mix, similar to transmedia storytelling, since the 1980s.
  • Media mix connects different types of media and objects using characters
  • Steinberg says characters in movies, books, and other media are like travelers. They show up differently in each place, but still have some things in common.

Transmedia, Games, and Participatory Culture

Example - Eve in ME3:


  • Player decision (destroying Maelon’s data) impacted Eve’s fate.


  • Decision led to Eve’s death and weakened Krogan support.


  • Alternative choices could have led to her survival and strengthened support.

Authorship: The return of a God

  • tells the audience whose interpretation of the test should they follow.

Example of this, Harry Potter:

  • black or white Hermione
  • J. K. Rowling announces that a black actress would be playing Hermione in the theater version of Harry Potter as she likes the idea of a black Hermione eventhough the character was widely known to be white.
  • the author rationalize this by stating that in the text, she has never specify the color of Hermione's skin.
  • But by giving both version a seal of approval, she fails to offer a sense of truth to the audience as there can't be both version of Hermione exist in a continuity.
  • in these case, the fallacy of authorial intent only works to glorify the author's authority

Changing Approaches

  • Scholars are increasingly studying characters from the 19th century focus on how older stories were created
  • Transmedia characters are constantly negotiated and re-established over time
  • The concept of the kyara, unlike Euro-American theories, doesn't prioritize narrative continuity but emphasizes character circulation

Performative agents: Animal Crossing: New Horizon’s kyara

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  1. Performative agents are the dynamic game characters whose function is determined by scripts in a flexible game structure.

Example :

Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo 2020) shows how Nintendo, the game’s developer and IP owner, approaches the game’s characters as kyara (characters)

  • to move between different media and create a media mix. Kyara are mostly treated as IP (Steinberg 2012)
  • performative agents from New Ho- rizons have been transferred as kyara to different media
  • the characters can move between different games. New Horizons that the kyara move between different game instalments in the overall media mix of Animal Crossing, and between New Horizon games of different players.
  • New Horizons is a game that revolves around players personalising their own island:
  • Players can either share a code over the internet with other players to come and visit their island.
  • Shaped like Laurel's flying wedge for human-computer interaction
  • Player's choices and actions influence character outcomes
  • Each character has a unique development structure
  • Progression is gradual throughout the game
  • Example: Loyalty missions in Mass Effect 2
  • Completing missions as crew members unlocks special abilities and storylines
  • Choices made in one segment affect possibilities in others
  • Player's role in character development:
  • Vital part of character's progression
  • Shapes character identity through choices and actions
  • Accelerates character identity within a single game
  • Character contains multiple potential identities influenced by player

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Introducing the Dynamic Game Character

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Discuss the current state of characters in contemporary transmedia practices


Criticize the idea of maintaining a consistent story across various works in popular franchises, which affects how we perceive characters as human-like entities.


Introduce the concept of the dynamic game character, whose identity shifts based on the player's actions.

Discuc

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The possibility of space games

  • Open world games providing numerous challenges/opportunities. (BoTW, Dying Light)
  • Narrative games being more flexible and expressive on storytelling and character development. (Witcher, Mass Effect, KOTOR)
  • Player generated content giving near-endless possibilities for fun. (Minecraft, No Man's Sky)

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Three type of dymamic game characters

  • Ludic agents

-Game pieces, an expression/extension of the player (mainly gameplay oriented).

-Example (Link in BotW, Aloy in H2D, etc.)

-Reward system are there to reinforce this point.

  • Narrative agents

-Character that are intrinsically involved in the story and plot. (Mass Effect)

-The agents action influence the plot and not the other way around.

  • Perfomative agents

-Characters that act based on pre-made scripts and codes

-Animal crossing's games contain perfomative agents that don't develop, but act based on set traits given by devs.

-They have set actions that players can influence to charge the gameplay, but outside of that when interacting with the world / other agents, scripted works.

Narrative agents: Shepard from the Mass Effect series

  1. Shepard as a Narrative Agent in Mass Effect
    • Development through game's story
    • Narrative Continuity between ME, ME2 and ME3
    • Transfer of game data across instalments
  1. Non-cybermedia Extensions of Mass Effect (ME)
    • Novels and comics
    • Lack mechanical structure of games
    • Cannot incorporate player's role in Shepherd's identity
    • Comics avoid discontinuity
  1. Depiction of Shepard in ME Comics

• Shepard not the main character
• Constraints:

 - Body never clearly depicted
 - Gender never stated
 - Addressed as “Shepard” or “Commander Shepard”

• Examples:

 - Volume 1: Liara T’Soni and Shepard’s body in a coffin
  1. Transmedia Storytelling and Canonization
  • ME Comics vs DA comics

  • ME Comics follow Henry Jenkins's transmedia storytelling - Tell stories known but not experienced in games


    • provide additional context and details
    • example: Thane's wife Irikah's murder
    • detailed aftermath without altering known story

  • DA Omnibus expands the world


    -New story and selected outcome canonization

  1. BioWare's Strategic Choices

  • Omission of Shepard


    • Comparison with Dragon Age comics

  • Dragon Age: Origins (DA:O) and sequels


    • player can controls character's appearance and skills
    • specific outcomes portrayed in Dragon Age Omnibus
    • depicts one specific narrative outcome, canonizing it
    • Alistair as King of Ferelden
  1. Player Agency and Identity
  • Shephards identity in comics depends on player's projection
  • no concrete identity without player's involvement
  • BioWare avoids forcing canonization
  • keeps player's agency open derivative
  • developer's "preferred reading" (Stuart Hall 1973)
    • implied canonical interpretation but not enforced
  • Limitations in accommodating individual flavors of Shephard

Characters in transmedia storytelling face identity issues because they appear in different media.

Characters like Sherlock Holmes can have different versions in various media.

Main parts of franchises are often seen as more important than the other version

Transmedia characters need to be both familiar and flexible.

Transmedia practice uses different media to tell a story

In Japan, media mix uses characters for marketing across media, focusing on desirable traits.

Franchises include movies, TV shows, video games, books

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Media convergence means content moves across different platforms, and audiences follow it.

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  1. Introduction to the Project:
  • Characters in media are important.
  • Usually, we only talk about them as part of stories.
  • But in Japan, they see characters differently.

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  1. Goals of the Book:
  • Study characters in modern media.
  • Help create a new field about characters in different media.
  • Look at games, stories, and Japan's influence.

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  1. Critique of Narrative Continuity:
  • People think characters should stay the same across stories.
  • But in Japan, they like characters to change.

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  1. Relocating Focus within Game Studies:
  • Games usually focus on the main character.
  • But we should also look at other characters.
  • Especially the ones players don't fully control.

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  1. Discussion of the Dynamic Game Character:
  • In games, players can change a character's story.
  • But when characters go to different media, it's hard to keep them the same.
  • This is a problem for dynamic game characters.

At first, video games were like the sidekick to movies or TV shows in big series. But as time went on, they became the main star, driving the story forward and making the series bigger.

Participatory culture is when regular people get to be a part of making and sharing stuff like videos or stories. It was supposed to let everyone have a say in what gets made. But sometimes big companies use people's work without paying them, and most regular folks don't make any money from what they create.

When characters from games or stories go into different places like movies or books, there's a problem. Players who control these characters in games feel like they're part of the story, making choices and decisions. But when the same character shows up in a movie or a book, their story might change, and the choices players made in the game might not matter anymore.

In video games, players feel like they're in charge of what their character does. They make choices that affect the story. But when the same character appears in other places like movies or books, the people who make those things can change what the character does, even if players don't agree.