Video Game Characters and Transmedia Storytelling : : The Dynamic Game Character.

• Superior document: Games and Play Series ; v.9
• Author: Blom, Joleen.
• Place / Publishing House: Amsterdam : : Amsterdam University Press,, 2023.; ©2023.
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Games and Play Series
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (210 pages)

Characters are a vital aspect of today's transmedia practices. Combining theories on fictional persons from Japanese and Euro-American practices, this book discusses video game characters embedded in our popular media culture in which they are constantly produced and re-imagined. This book introduces the dynamic game character, a type of game character with a development structure that consists of multiple outcomes in a game. Through their actions and choices, players can influence these game characters' identities and affect their possible destinies. Games subvert the idea that fictional persons must maintain a coherent identity. This book shows that dynamic game characters challenge strategies of top-down control through close readings of the Mass Effect series, Persona 5, Hades, Animal Crossing: New Horizons and more. It is directed to all scholars interested in the topics of transmedia storytelling, video games, characters, and Japanese narratology.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Table of Contents -- A brief note on Japanese names and words -- 1. Introducing the dynamic game character -- 2. Characters in contemporary media -- 3. How the dynamic game character develops -- 4. Strategies to control a character's transtextual identities -- 5. Parasocial relationships with nonplayable characters -- 6. The construction of transmedia game characters -- 7. The future of dynamic game characters -- Glossary: A brief typology of characters -- General bibliography -- Index