Auteur Theory in Video Games
AUTEUR THEORY IN VIDEO GAMES: RECOGNIZING HIDEO KOJIMA AND THATGAMECOMPANY AS AUTEURS IN THE VIDEO GAME MEDIUM A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE MASTER OF ARTS BY JULES PATALITA DR. ASHLEY DONNELLY - ADVISOR BALL STATE UNIVERSITY MUNCIE, INDIANA JULY 2018 AUTEUR THEORY IN VIDEO GAMES 1 CHAPTER ONE-INTRODUCTION “The critic Roger Ebert once drew a crucial distinction between video games and art: he said that the ultimate objective of a video game—unlike that of a book, film, or poem—is to achieve a high score, vaporize falling blocks, or save the princess. Art, he argued, cannot be won” (Parker, 2013, para. 1). This shows a longstanding stereotype about video games, that they are less important than other forms of entertainment. “The joke is, video games are inherently stupid. Once you realize that this is the fundamental underlying narrative of the culture with respect to video games, so much else starts to make sense…I refer to this condition as game shame” (Burgan, 2013, p. 93). But is there reason behind this shame? Even if this was true with the arcade games of the 80s, the medium has surely evolved beyond this criticism. Now on par with the budgets of Hollywood releases, the video game industry is producing games with financial success rivaling film. In 2016, American consumers spent $30.4 billion on video game content; since just 2010, there’s been an almost $10 billion rise in revenue (Entertainment Software Association, 2017). This is calculating just American consumers, a fraction of the overall consumers of the medium.
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