Video Game Spaces: Image, Play, and Structure in 3D Worlds - Hardcover

Nitsche, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262141019 ISBN 13: 9780262141017

Publisher: The MIT Press, 2008

Synopsis

An exploration of how we see, use, and make sense of modern video game worlds.

The move to 3D graphics represents a dramatic artistic and technical development in the history of video games that suggests an overall transformation of games as media. The experience of space has become a key element of how we understand games and how we play them. In Video Game Spaces, Michael Nitsche investigates what this shift means for video game design and analysis. Navigable 3D spaces allow us to crawl, jump, fly, or even teleport through fictional worlds that come to life in our imagination. We encounter these spaces through a combination of perception and interaction. Drawing on concepts from literary studies, architecture, and cinema, Nitsche argues that game spaces can evoke narratives because the player is interpreting them in order to engage with them. Consequently, Nitsche approaches game spaces not as pure visual spectacles but as meaningful virtual locations. His argument investigates what structures are at work in these locations, proceeds to an in-depth analysis of the audiovisual presentation of gameworlds, and ultimately explores how we use and comprehend their functionality.

Nitsche introduces five analytical layers―rule-based space, mediated space, fictional space, play space, and social space―and uses them in the analyses of games that range from early classics to recent titles. He revisits current topics in game research, including narrative, rules, and play, from this new perspective. Video Game Spaces provides a range of necessary arguments and tools for media scholars, designers, and game researchers with an interest in 3D game worlds and the new challenges they pose.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Nitsche is Assistant Professor at the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Review

"An important journey into video game spaces." --Jesper Juul, Researcher, Singapore-MIT Game Lab, and author of "Half-Real"

"An important journey into video game spaces."

"

"An important journey into video game spaces."--Jesper Juul, Researcher, Singapore-MIT Game Lab, and author of "Half-Real"

"After reading Nitsche's superbly informed and wide-ranging analyses of the multiple factors that shape our experience of game worlds, and his typology of the spatial architectures that underlie the player's possibilities of action, it will no longer be possible to take the visual resources of games, their relation to film, and the strategic configuration of their world for granted."--Marie-Laure Ryan, , University of Colorado, Boulder

""Video Game Spaces" takes readers on a fantastic journey that resonates with what we love best about games--their double identity as places to both ponder and play. Richly researched and well-written (Nitsche is a master of example), the book delves deeply into the interdisciplinary nature of Game Studies, offering key insights along the way."--Katie Salen, co-author of "Rules of Play" and editor of "The Ecology of Games"

Edition details

• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0262141019
• ISBN 13: 9780262141017
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 305