I, GAMER: ADDRESSING TOXIC LUDOLOGY AND NARRATOLOGY IN THE GAMER DISCOURSE COMMUNITY THROUGH REINTERPRETING VIDEO GAMES AS HYPERTEXTS by ANDREW S. LATHAM Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON December 2019 Copyright © by Andrew S. Latham 2019 All Rights Reserved Acknowledgements Truth be told, there isn’t enough space here to thank everyone who deserves to be thanked for helping me complete this research. As such, if you don’t see your name here, please accept my apologies and demand my gratitude in person the next time we meet. To my mother, Seba- you bought me my very first video game and my first game console. Without that decision, who knows where I would be now? Perhaps I would be a dentist. Nonetheless, I’m so grateful to you for introducing me to what would one day become my career, even if it did occasionally distract me from my schoolwork. To my wife, Alyse- my success here is as much your labor as it was mine. Your patience, your dedication, and your constant encouragement are the reasons I was finally able to cross the finish line. To you, I owe my home, my future, and my smile, and I’m so proud to call myself yours. Thank you for everything. To my family- the majority of you don’t fully understand what it is I study, and that’s okay! Starting with my brother John1 and working my way through the generations of aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, and in-laws, even if you don’t know a whole lot about rhetorical theory and/or video games, I always appreciated when you asked me how my research was going. It’s the little 1 As promised to my brother, let it be known as a matter of academic record that I am inferior to him in all matters concerning Super Smash Bros. iii gestures, sometimes, that motivated me the most. I also want to remember, and thank, the members of my family who saw me start this journey but were unable to see me finish it. I apologize to you for my procrastination. To my advisors and teachers- those of you who guided me professionally to this point are too numerous to mention and span colleges and universities all over Texas. I’d like to give special thanks to the following people: Dr. John Blair, because you first got me interested in continuing my education to the graduate level; Dr. Hui Wu, because you convinced me to go for my Ph.D.; and, of course, my committee for this study—Dr. Timothy Richardson, Dr. Tim Morris, and Dr. Kevin Porter—for being so patient with me over the years. To Dr. Johansen Quijano- thank you for your kindness, your support, and your encouragement. I’m afraid I’ve run out of words to express how helpful your advice was to my research. To my friends- again, there are too many people to mention here, but I want each of you to know how much you helped me through some of the most difficult trials of my life. In particular, I want to thank my best friend Aaron Ward and my good friends Andrea Bode, Aaron Woods, Nathan Record, and Hannah Walcher, and others for being so kind to my family. To my Midland College colleagues- I want to thank Dr. Pamela Howell, Dr. William Feeler, Allison Brown, Dr. William Christopher Brown, Brendan Egan, Stacy Egan, Dr. Mary Williams, Dr. Brenton Cross, Melissa Boyce, and the iv entire Fine Arts and Communication division for their unwavering support. To the countless women and men who make video games- you are true artists, and my life would be far less rich without your talents. To my son, Elijah- it will be several years before you are old enough to read this dedication. You should know you didn’t make it easy for me to finish this research, but you, too, inspired me in ways that would have made success impossible without you. Daddy loves you, sweet, little bear. Finally, to my father, Mark- without you, there is no dissertation here for me to write. My first inspiration for this work comes, as you will read, from you and your questions. As the years go on, I find myself becoming more and more like you each day, and you should know that there is no other man I would rather grow up to be. If you hadn’t asked me why video games matter all those years ago, I’m not sure I would have anything to say today. I hope, by the end of this, I’ve shown you in some small way why video games matter to me, and I’m sorry it’s taken so long for me to answer your questions from when we played Melee. I love you all. Thank you. October 31, 2019 (Happy Halloween!) v Abstract I, GAMER: ADDRESSING TOXIC LUDOLOGY AND NARRATOLOGY IN THE GAMER DISCOURSE COMMUNITY THROUGH REINTERPRETING VIDEO GAMES AS HYPERTEXTS Andrew S. Latham The University of Texas at Arlington, 2019 Supervising Professor: Dr. Timothy Richardson My research examines two points crucial to the continuing discipline of video game rhetoric. First, it discusses the formation of toxic ludology and narratology in the gamer discourse community over the course of decades. I begin in the 1980s, showing how privilege in the gamer discourse community sowed toxicity that culminated in Gamergate in the 2010s, an event that is still ongoing and destructive to player discourse. In this half of the dissertation, I explore how uninviting gamers can be to new players and also provide examples where more progressive gamers are showing signs of being more inviting to new players in the form of evolving review practices in video game journalism. Second, my research pivots to exploring the possibility of reclassifying video games from cybertexts to hypertexts similar to Wikia articles, a practice that I argue produces a more vi inclusive atmosphere in the gamer discourse community. In this half of the dissertation, I examine why video games have not previously been classified as hypertexts and then produce a model for rethinking video games as hypertexts using Collin Gifford Brooke’s thoughts on hypertext rhetoric and research produced from speedrunners, a subdivision of the gamer discourse community. Finally, I bring both sides of this dissertation together to produce naronaro theory and ludoludo theory, working applications of how hypertext rhetoric can produce fascinating new types of video game analyses that allow for the inclusion of a broader spectrum of perspectives into the field of video game rhetoric. I hope that this rethinking of video games as hypertexts will lead to greater inclusiveness, greater agency for players, and a place where everyone will matter and everyone is welcome. vii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................ iii Abstract .................................................................................................................. vi List of Figures ......................................................................................................... x WORLD 1: INTRODUCTION............................................................................... 1 World 1 – 1: Story Mode .................................................................................... 1 World 1 – 2: Stage Select.................................................................................... 5 World 1 – 3: How to Play This Game............................................................... 14 WORLD 2: EXPLORING TOXIC LUDOLOGY AND NARRATOLOGY IN THE GAMER DISCOURSE COMMUNITY ...................................................... 42 World 2 – 1: Historical Toxicity ....................................................................... 42 World 2 – 2: The Impact of the Video Game Crash of 1983 ............................ 46 World 2 – 3: Examining a Climate of Hate ...................................................... 56 WORLD 3: A CLOSER LOOK AT VIDEO GAME JOURNALISM................. 70 World 3 – 1: A Bigger Picture .......................................................................... 70 World 3 – 2: Examples of Bias in Games Journalism ...................................... 80 World 3 – 3: Toxic Ludology and Narratology .............................................. 106 World 3 – 4: Diversification in Video Game Reviews ................................... 112 WORLD 4: WHAT IS A HYPERTEXT? CAN VIDEO GAMES BE HYPERTEXTS? ................................................................................................. 126 World 4 – 1: Can Video Games Be Hypertexts? ............................................ 126 viii World 4 – 2: What is a Hypertext? ................................................................. 130 World 4 – 3: How Wikia Hypertexts Produce Rhetoric .................................. 138 World 4 – 4: Why Aren’t Video Games Considered Hypertexts?.................. 152 WORLD 5: RETHINKING VIDEO GAMES AS HYPERTEXTS ................... 167 World 5 – 1: Kill the Animals and Platform Studies ...................................... 167 World 5 – 2: Platform Studies and Unintended Rhetorics .............................. 169 World 5 – 3: Speedrunning the Hypertext Canons of Rhetoric ...................... 179 World 5 – 4: Arrangement and the Player ...................................................... 207 WORLD 6: WHY DOES THIS MATTER…? ................................................... 218 World 6 – 1: Why Does This Matter? ............................................................. 218 World 6 – 2: Ludoludo and Naronaro Harmony and Dissonance .................. 222 World 6 – 3: Everyone is Here ......................................................................