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Behind the Scenes at ApertureScience.com: Portal and Its Paratexts
1Faculty of Information, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Games and Culture
|May 14, 2023
Summary
This study examines video game paratexts using Portal's promotional website. It refines concepts of paratextuality, ephemerality, and materiality for interpreting digital games.
Area of Science:
- Digital Humanities
- Media Studies
- Game Studies
Background:
- Video games are complex media requiring nuanced analytical frameworks.
- Paratexts, elements surrounding a text, offer rich interpretive potential.
- Existing theories of paratextuality, often book-centric, need adaptation for digital media.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the promotional website ApertureScience.com as a video game paratext.
- To refine concepts of paratextuality, ephemerality, and materiality for video game studies.
- To explore how digital paratexts contribute to the interpretation and play of video games.
Main Methods:
- Case study analysis of ApertureScience.com.
- Drawing on textual studies and media theory.
- Critique of Gérard Genette's paratextual theory in the context of video games.
Main Results:
- ApertureScience.com functions as a complex paratext, satirizing corporate research and positivism.
- The study demonstrates the limitations of book-based paratextual theories for digital games.
- Digital paratexts possess unique material qualities that influence interpretation.
Conclusions:
- Video game paratexts, particularly digital ones, require specialized theoretical approaches.
- The materiality of digital paratexts significantly shapes player engagement and understanding.
- Refined concepts of paratextuality enhance the study of video games as cultural objects.
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