Paratextualizing games : : investigations on the paraphernalia and peripheries of play / / edited by Benjamin Beil, Gundolf S. Freyermuth, and Hanns Christian Schmidt.

• Superior document: Bild und Bit. Studien zur digitalen Medienkultur
• Funder: BMBF Fördervorhaben 16TOA002
• TeilnehmendeR: Freyermuth, Gundolf S., 1955-; Beil, Benjamin, 1980-; Schmidt, Hanns Christian,
• Author: BMBF Fördervorhaben 16TOA002
• Place / Publishing House: Bielefeld, Germany : : Transcript Verlag,, [2021]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Bild und Bit. Studien zur digitalen Medienkultur
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (407 pages)

Gaming no longer only takes place as a »closed interactive experience« in front of TV screens, but also as broadcast on streaming platforms or as cultural events in exhibition centers and e-sport arenas. The popularization of new technologies, forms of expression, and online services has had a considerable influence on the academic and journalistic discourse about games. This anthology examines which paratexts gaming cultures have produced - i.e., in which forms and formats and through which channels we talk (and write) about games - as well as the way in which paratexts influence the development of games. How is knowledge about games generated and shaped today and how do boundaries between (popular) criticism, journalism, and scholarship have started to blur? In short: How does the paratext change the text?

Table of Contents

Cover -- Table of Contents -- Preface and Acknowledgements -- Paratext | Paraplay -- Histories -- "And You Didn't Even Look at It!" -- The Cartography of Virtual Empires -- Unboxing AGE OF EMPIRES -- Making Mario -- Performances -- Player Agency in Audience Gaming -- Material Culture on Twitch -- Benefits of Including Let's Play Recordings in Close Readings of Digital Game Texts -- Fame or Infamy: The Influence of Let's Plays on Independent Game Developers -- "Here Comes a New Challenger" -- Peripheries -- The Impending Demise of Video Game Packaging: An Eulogy -- The Ludic Nature of Paratexts -- [Para]Textually Here: Paratexts and Presence in Games -- Isekai: Tracing Interactive Control in Non-interactive Media -- The Paratext, the Palimpsest, and the Pandemic -- Contributors.