Bestor Dissertation FINAL
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Copyright by Nicholas Charles Lyon Bestor 2019 The Dissertation Committee for Nicholas Charles Lyon Bestor Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Dissertation: Playing in Licensed Storyworlds: Games, Franchises, and Fans Committee: Suzanne Scott, Supervisor Alisa H. Perren Thomas G. Schatz Paul Booth Playing in Licensed Storyworlds: Games, Franchises, and Fans by Nicholas Charles Lyon Bestor Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2019 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I wish to thank to my parents, Vickey and Ted Bestor, for their love and support. I would also like to thank the members of my committee, Alisa Perren, Tom Schatz, Paul Booth, and especially my advisor Suzanne Scott, who provided such wonderful guidance and feedback to help me finish this. I also am immensely grateful to all the players who were so eager to participate in my research—without your insights, none of this would have been possible. And finally, I would like to thank all my friends for their support over the years, including the amazing members of my graduate cohort: Morgan, Jackie, Lucia, Julian, Jinsook, Sara, and Alexis. iv Abstract Playing in Licensed Storyworlds: Games, Franchises, and Fans Nicholas Charles Lyon Bestor, PhD The University of Texas at Austin, 2019 Supervisor: Suzanne Scott Licensed games—analog or digital games that are made under contract using pre-existing intellectual properties—bring together the narrative trajectories of their storyworld, the production histories of their creation, the affective traces of their fandoms, and the interpersonal dynamics of their play. This dissertation examines the intersection of the industrial practices of licensing, the textual properties of transmediality, and the creative process of worldbuilding through the lens of licensed games. Licensed games have frequently been dismissed as derivative and overly commercial; my aim is to embrace the redundancies and contradictions of licensed games. Licensing, in which owners of intellectual property sell the rights for use of an IP for a limited period, provides the framework but not the boundaries of these ludic paratexts that stage a complex negotiation of popular storyworlds and fannish affect. In this dissertation, I explore how three different popular storyworlds are built and shared, explored and negotiated, experienced and felt. The first chapter examines how games have contributed to the growth and continuation of the Star Wars universe. In the second chapter, I survey how the design of rules in games based on the A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones franchise inflects and influences engagement with Westeros. And in my final chapter, I explore v what I call a post-licensed game, Warhammer 40,000: Conquest, and the frequently fraught communal process of supporting a card game once its licensing and production have ended. These licensed games provide richly textured case studies of the negotiation between industrial stakeholders, texts, and fans. Utilizing a combination of textual analysis, participant observation and interviews with players, I argue that licensed games are a fertile medium through which popular brands, franchises, and storyworlds are productively transmediated. How these games draw upon the subjective and affective dimensions of our investment in popular storyworlds reveals much about game design, media franchising, and the creative processes of worldbuilding inherent to both. Licensed games allow us to play in a storyworld, and their modes of engagements foreground the playful ways we experience and understand the transmedially expansive franchises that dominate popular culture. vi Table of Contents List of Tables ...................................................................................................................... ix List of Figures ......................................................................................................................x Introduction Playing in Licensed Storyworlds .........................................................................................1 Transmedia Storytelling ............................................................................................16 Storyworlds and Gameworlds ...................................................................................22 Affect, Memory, and Evocation ...............................................................................27 Chapter Breakdowns .................................................................................................31 Chapter One: Star Wars Transmedia Worldbuilding in a Galaxy Far, Far Away ....................................................34 The First Decade of Star Wars Transmedia: 1976 to 1987 ......................................40 The Roleplaying Game (1987): Gatekeeping in Transmedia Worldbuilding ...........45 Star Wars Transmedia Strikes Back: 1991 to 1996 ..................................................57 Shadows of the Empire (1996): The Limitations of Coordinated Transmedia .........60 The Return of Cinematic Star Wars: 1997 to 2005 ..................................................65 Lego Star Wars (2005): Playfulness and Parody ......................................................67 Post-Prequels, Pre-Disney: 2005 to 2012 .................................................................76 The Card Game (2012 to 2018): Contingency, Precarity, and Canonicity ...............77 Conclusion – The Disney Years: 2012 and Beyond .................................................85 Chapter Two: Game of Thrones Procedural Rhetoric, Canons, and The Rules of Westeros ................................................87 Procedural Rhetoric and the Rules of Worldbuilding ...............................................92 A Brief History of Westeros .....................................................................................95 The Appeal of Westeros: “The Anti-Fantasy” ..........................................................99 The Card Game: Evocative Mechanics and Enduring Communities .....................103 Cyanide’s Game of Thrones: Peripheral Narratives and Frustration ......................118 The Telltale Game: Transmediated Televisuality and Irrelevant Choices ..............128 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................142 vii Chapter Three: Warhammer 40,000: Conquest Post-Licensing and The After-Life of Licensed Games ..................................................145 Conquest’s Storyworld and Gameplay ...................................................................150 Comparative Case Study: Android: Netrunner .......................................................155 A Living Card Game: The Appeal of Conquest .....................................................157 Cancellation Reactions ...........................................................................................162 The Black Crusade League .....................................................................................170 Team Apoka ............................................................................................................174 “There Is Only War” ...............................................................................................180 Conclusion: Conquest Today ..................................................................................184 Conclusion Why Licensed Games? ....................................................................................................191 Ownership ...............................................................................................................195 What Licensed Games Tell Us About (Trans)media ..............................................198 Works Cited ......................................................................................................................201 viii List of Tables Table 2.1: Timeline of select Star Wars productions .........................................................37 Table 3.1: The ASoIaF Novels and TV Series ...................................................................96 Table 3.2: Select ASoIaF Licensed Games ........................................................................98 ix List of Figures Figure 2.1: Portions of The Star Wars Sourcebook’s entry on “Ithorians” ......................53 Figure 2.2: “Grand Admiral Thrawn” and “Jyn Erso” cards .............................................83 Figure 3.1: The plot “Wildfire Assault” from First Edition ............................................106 Figure 3.2: “Tywin Lannister” card from Second Edition ...............................................107 Figure 3.3: First Edition cards of the characters associated with the three player archetypes ..........................................................................114 Figure 3.4: The RPG’s eclectic mix of canons ................................................................123 Figure 3.5: Actors from the television series ...................................................................130 Figure 4.1: Examples of Warlord cards ...........................................................................152 Figure 4.2: Examples of one of Conquest’s 10 Planet cards, Iridial ................................153 Figure 4.3: Three versions of the Warlord card “Captain Cato