Andrei Nae. Lecturer, University of Bucharest

In recent years, understandings of video game rhetoric have attempted to provide an account of the reception of gameplay that overcomes the relative formalism implicit in the concept of procedurality and, by drawing on affect science, shed light upon the affective rhetoric of video games. At the core of the emotional working of games lies the player-playable character relationship that is buttressed by various forms of empathy which facilitate player immersion and galvanise the persuasiveness of video games’ rhetoric. Understanding the manner in which games engender empathy with the playable character provides us with key insight into the persuasiveness of the video games.

The purpose of this course is to familiarise students with the most relevant theories that tackles the emotional dimension of the gameplay experience. While the course is indeed tailored for video games, the method taught has a transmedial application and will also help students understand the way in which audiences emotionally relate to media in general.

Some of the topics and questions covered in this course include:

• What types of emotion do video games cue?
• How do intermedia networks contribute to the emotional reception of games?
• What is empathy in game reception?
• How do games engender empathy with the playable character?
• How does affect science contribute to our understanding of the representation of trauma in video games?
• Is there a political dimension to the emotional reception of games? What is the relationship between emotions and ideology?

Throughout the semester we will apply the theoretical framework to several video games that focus on the British cultural context, including here Alice: Madness Returns, We Happy Few, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice etc.

Selected Bibliography

Anable, Aubrey. Playing with Feelings: Video Games and Affect. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2019.

Apter, Michael. J. “Phenomenological Frames and the Paradoxes of Experience.” In Advances in Reversal Theory, edited by J. H. Kerr, S. Murgatroyd, and M. J. Apter, 13–26. Amsterdam: Psychology Press, 1993.

Bogost, Ian. Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. Cambridge, MA: MI Press, 2007.

Ekman, Inger, and Petri Lankoski, “Hair-Raising Entertainment: Emotions, Sound, and Structure in Silent Hill 2 and Fatal Frame.” In Horror Video Games: Essays on the Fusion of Fear and Play, edited by Bernard Perron. Foreword by Clive Barker, 181– 199. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009.

Fludernik, Monika. Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology. London: Routledge, 1996.

Frome, Jonathan. “Representation, Reality, and Emotions Across Media.” Film Studies 8, 1 (2006): 12–25.

Frome, Jonathan. “Eight Ways Videogames Generate Emotion.” In Situated Play: Proceedings of DiGRA 2007 Conference. 2007.

Frome, Jonathan. “Interactive Works and Gameplay Emotions.” Games and Culture 14, 7–8 (2019): 856–874.

Galloway, Alexander. Gaming. Essays on Algorithmic Culture. Minneapolis. University of Minnesota Press, 2006.

Isbister, Katherine. How Games Move Us: Emotion by Design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016.

J€arvinen, Aki. “Understanding Video Games as Emotional Experiences.” In The Video Game Theory Reader 2, edited by Bernard Perron and Mark J. P. Wolf, 85–109. New York: Routledge, 2009.

Lankoski, Petri. “Computer Games and Emotions.” In The Philosophy of Computer Games, edited by John Richard Sageng, Hallvard Fossheim, and Tarjei Mandt Larsen, 39– 56. New York: Springer, 2012.

Lankoski, Petri. “Player Character Engagement in Computer Games.” Games and Culture 6, 4 (2011): 291–311.

Nae, Andrei. Immersion, Narrative, and Gender Crisis. London: Routledge, 2021.

Niedenthal, Simon “Patterns of Obscurity: Gothic Setting and Light in Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill 2.” In Horror Video Games: Essays on the Fusion of Fear and Play, edited by Bernard Perron. Foreword by Clive Barker, 168–180. Jefferson, NC:McFarland, 2009.

Perron, Bernard, “Survival Horror: The Extended Body Genre,” In Horror Video Games: Essays on the Fusion of Fear and Play, edited by Bernard Perron. Foreword by Clive Barker, 121–144. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009.

P€otzsch, Holger and Emil Lundedal Hammar. “Playing Perpetrators: Interrogating Evil in Videogames about Violent Conflicts.” In The Routledge International Handbook of Perpetrator Studies, edited by Susanne C. Knittel and Zachary J. Goldberg, 343–356. London: Routledge, 2020.

Smethurst, Toby, and Stef Craps. “Playing with Trauma: Interreactivity, Empathy, and Complicity in The Walking Dead Video Game.” Games and Culture 10, 3 (2015): 269–290.

Tan, Ed S. “Emotion, Art, and the Humanities.” In Handbook of Emotions, edited by Michael Lewis and Jeannette M. Haviland-Jones, 116–136. 2nd ed. New York: Guilford Press, 2000.

Taylor, Laurie N. “Gothic Bloodlines in Survival Horror Gaming,” In Horror Video Games: Essays on the Fusion of Fear and Play, edited by Bernard Perron. Foreword by Clive Barker, 46–61. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009.