The official strategy guide for video game studies: A grammar and rhetoric of video games

Video games constitute a significant portion of our documentary culture, and as such they not only reflect our values, but also are in constant conversation with them. Although there have been many studies that comment on the connection between video games and culture, and several other studies that attempt to understand how playing video games may affect audiences, almost no video game studies actually study the material, formal, or interactive qualities of video game content. Of those studies that do discuss video game content, most are incomplete because they treat video games as a pre-composed static medium, which contemporary video games are not. Consequently, we have a very shallow understanding of video games and have no systematic way for understanding the ways in which ideological content may be communicated when people play video games.; This dissertation proposes a model to objectively dissect the video game as a dynamic and interactive medium. The first half of the proposed model is a grammar of video games, which consists primarily of terminological framework designed to elucidate the content with which gainers work with and within as they play a video game. This framework consists of objects, agents, commonly depicted interactions, commonly depicted programmed responses, and video game scenes. The functionality of this grammar is demonstrated through analysis of three games in the Final Fantasy series: Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy VII, and Final Fantasy X.; The second half of the proposed model is a method for studying the rhetoric of video games. The primary rhetorical resources of video games are orienting systems, which include regulating configurations, embedded narratives, and social systems. Through these orienting systems gamers are encouraged to identify and cause player-controlled agents to interact. The functionality of this rhetoric of video games is once more demonstrated on three games in the Final Fantasy series.; In the final chapter this dissertation proposes that further examination of the grammar and rhetoric of video games can give video game scholars insight into the potential ideological allegiances of video games. This dissertation also concludes that video games may have strong allegiances to the postmodern ideologies.