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This essay develops a method for the analysis of video game characters based on a theoretical understanding of their medium-specific representation and the mental processes involved in their intersubjective construction by video game players. We propose to distinguish, first, between narration, simulation, and communication as three modes of repres...
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... Action also includes the VGC's movement, which may serve characterization (Schröter, 2013): in Smite (Titan Forge Games, 2014-), Mercury's fast movement (and additional quick speech) is one element of his characterization as a funny speedster, while Thanatos' low movement speed (in addition to his ability to instantly execute enemies below a certain Health level) contributes to his representation as a silent, sudden killer. Choices are equally crucial in games: in many games, choices result in character development/growth (Jørgensen, 2010) or actualize variant versions of the narrative (Schröter and Thon, 2014). Finally, since players perform an input in games, characterization through action is also determined by player skill: Macías Villalobos (2020) wrote that Kratos "will not be the same when guided by a novice as when guided by an expert player" (p. ...
... Like Rimmon-Kenan (1983), Vella (2015 distinguishes between physical appearance and costume(s), but both can be seen as subcategories of one larger category. A VGC's appearance can be determined by the developer (e.g., Mario) or open to player customization (Schröter and Thon, 2014), and it may change throughout the game or stay the same (Kromand, 2007). Players are often in control of the PC's appearance: in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios, 2011), they are able to create their PC out of nine different races and 47 different customizable categories (e.g., Complexion, Cheek Color, Chin Width), allowing for myriads of possible PCs. ...
... Instead, Hanar refers to themselves as "this one," conveying their belief system through speech style. Schröter and Thon (2014) give the example of Spec Ops: The Line (Yager Development, 2012), where the deterioration of protagonist Martin Walker's mind is conveyed through his evolution from military speech (e.g., "Hostile down") to increasingly unhinged, unrestrained language (e.g., "Kill everything that fucking moves"). Games often let players ergodically select their PC speech options (e.g., Mass Effect), or allow them to type themselves (e.g., RuneScape (Jagex, 2001-)). ...
Characterization refers to the process of attributing character traits to narrative entities called 'characters'. While there is a long tradition of characterization theory in literary studies, the topic has not been examined extensively in game research. Based on insights from literary, film, and game studies, this article creates a theoretical model of how 'character,' or character traits, can be attributed in video games, and offers a methodological vocabulary for further character(ization) research. First, this paper synthesizes the tradition of characterization research in literary studies. Second, it identifies three participants in video game characterization (developers, actors, and players) and introduces the concept of ergodic characterization to describe those instances in which players produce nontrivial characterization efforts. Finally, the framework itself is presented through application to various game titles, and several answers to methodological problems within game characterization analysis are suggested.
... As mentioned above, the narrative framing and the distinction between the actual indie game Pony Island and the diegetic arcade game Pony Island becomes less clear as the player proceeds through the former, but at least initially, in-game actions such as "clicking on the 'options & help' menu" are attributed to both the actual player and the diegetic player character. See also, e.g., Backe and Thon 2019;Schröter and Thon 2014;and Vella 2016 for more detailed discussions of player agency in connection with avatars and other characters. player/character is left with only one choice: to drag and drop the "back" button to its original position, so that it can be clicked on again. ...
... However, the framing of the player-as-God is increasingly blurred with the "actual" player, with OneShot frequently invoking the player's "nondiegetic" abilities, which they must use in order to solve certain in-game puzzles. For a more detailed discussion of the avatar/player relationship, see also, once more, Backe and Thon 2019;Schröter and Thon 2014;Vella 2016. thus does not actualize the kind of "real" transgression envisioned by Ryan (2004) just yet. ...
This article sets out to explore the playful poetics of recent indie games in terms of what could be described as metareferential interfaces. Drawing on a range of theories from literary studies, media studies, and game studies, we propose to conceptualize metareferential interfaces as interfaces that foreground and draw attention to their own mediality. They thus allow for videogame-specific forms of metareference and metalepsis to be employed as part of often quite experimental and aesthetically ambitious approaches to videogame design. Using the recent indie games Pony Island (2016) and OneShot (2016) as our core case studies, we offer an in-depth analysis of this metaization of videogames’ playful poetics, focusing primarily on three salient aspects: First, the multiplication of interfaces can lead to mise-en-abyme-like structures that highlight and reflect on the mediality of videogames while also establishing ontological boundaries between different levels of videogame storyworlds. Second, the disruption of interface functionality is a metareferential strategy that can be used to establish specific gameplay challenges and reflect on the design conventions of videogame interfaces. Third, the transgression of ontological boundaries affects not only the borders between subworlds within a videogame's storyworld but also the more fundamental distinction between what is “in the game” and what is “outside it.”
... These heroes exist simultaneously as game pieces, representations of the players, and as fictional persons with background stories. In their article on the method of analysis for video game characters, Schröter and Thon (2014) present three ways in which (model) players perceive video game characters and their representations: a narrative experience, a ludic experience, and a social experience. In Overwatch, the ludic experience and the social experience are the primary means through which players experience the heroes during gameplay, which means as game pieces and as representations of other players to play matches with and against. 2 On the other hand, the players' narrative experience of the heroes as fictional beings with an inner life occurs primarily through the game's peripheral means for which Blizzard Entertainment maintains a transmedial strategy. ...
Due to constant internet connection many games nowadays require developers of games such as Overwatch to alter the structure of their video games directly and frequently. This chapter argues that, because of such modern technologies, Blizzard is able to change the meaning of the game content whenever it wants so that players are constantly forced to follow the changing authorial intention if they wish to continue playing the game. An illustrative example of game content to which authorial intention is applied are the Overwatch ’s heroes, where the players’ interpretations of the characters as game pieces and fictional beings are systematically outplayed by the developer. This chapter thus demands to critically re-evaluate our perception of the author’s influence over the interpretation of a cultural product.
... She explains that the friction lies in the duality in which film characters are tied to the seemingly realistic representations of the actors playing them, whereas game characters primarily operate on their functionality in the game space (100). Although other scholars such as Thon and Schröter (Schröter and Thon 2014;Schröter 2016) describe game characters as more than just functions in game spaces, explaining the entities as intersubjective communication constructs to be experienced by players as fictional beings, game pieces, and representations of others respectively, Aldred (2012) points to the expectations and constraints movie-to-game characters are bound to as the representative of their filmic manifestations. The structural differences between games and non-ludic media force the movie-to-game character to be coherent with its filmic counterpart, rather than being a locus of agency and subjectivity for the player to experience the game world with (102). ...
The article focuses on how dynamic game characters create friction in a ludo mix strategy consisting of primarily ludic media, disturbing the narrative coherency that trans- or cross-media strategies strive for. In particular, dynamic game characters, with a development structure that the player influences, cause narrative inconsistencies with the character’s transmedia appearances. Yet, in Japanese media and ludo mixes, character proliferation is the norm so that different versions of the same character can exist without any issues of narrative coherency. Through a case study of the Fire Emblem: Three Houses ludo mix, this article argues that the Japanese concept of the kyara, a proto-character, demonstrates to be an excellent means to avoid a clash between the dynamic game character in one work and its appearance in another work. It concludes that through the use of the kyara, the IP owner avoids any clash between the dynamic game character’s appearance in its source work and its appearance in other ludic works, thereby giving the impression that the player’s agency over the dynamic game character stays intact.
... Despite the fact that games can and do represent worlds and characters, game characters have multiple functions at the same time. They can be at once the representation of the players inside the game world, a fictional entity of the game world's story, ludic game pieces, and proprietary symbols of a larger franchise (Aarseth 2012;Aldred 2014;Klevjer 2006;Schröter and Thon 2014;Vella 2014Vella , 2015. It would be easy to generalize digital games in terms of how they communicate characters; however, each game can vary to a great extent from other games in how they present characters. ...
... Following from this, the general consensus seems to be that characters have multiple functions at the same time. Depending on the genre, these functions range from the representation of the player to ludic pieces as well as to fictional beings in a narrative world (Egenfeldt-Nielsen et al. 2008;Linderoth 2005;Schröter and Thon 2014). However, even within this discussion, there is a lack of engagement with game characters that players do not control as a player-character. ...
... Felix Schröter and Jan-Noël Thon (2014) present a method to analyse video game characters based on their theoretical understanding of medium-specific representation and the additional mental processes involved in the construction of characters via player reception. Contrasting Newman's on-line and off-line framework (2002), they propose three modes of representation that each contributes to three dimensions of video game characters as intersubjective communicative constructs: ...
... The dynamic game character is not limited to the player-character. As seen from chapter two, 'Theory', game studies has primarily discussed characters in three ways: the difference between avatar and character (Bartle 1996;Carr 2002;Isbister 2006;Klevjer 2006;Newman 2002), the dual identity between player-character and player (Tronstad 2008;Calleja 2011;Vella 2015;, and a general description of game characters (Aldred 2012;Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Smith, and Tosca 2008;Linderoth 2005;Schröter and Thon 2014). The dynamic game character is none of these. ...
This study presents a theory about dynamic game characters within a broader character ecology in
which characters are constantly produced and reproduced in a variety of media. Characters do not
appear only in games, they migrate from one medium to another. They are independent from any
medium in particular: a character does not require a specific medium to come into existence.
Authoritative forces try to shape the overall interpretation of circulating characters transmedially in
comics, television series, films, games and more through different venues of control, such as
authorship, canonisation and ownership or intellectual property. This study addresses the struggle
for interpretive authority by explaining how the player constructs the identity of dynamic game
characters in digital games, and by discussing how dynamic game characters connect to and
influence other character manifestations within a broader media ecology in which characters
circulate.
The research question of this study is: What are dynamic game characters? Through reader�response theory adapted for cybermedia phenomena such as games, this study approaches
characters as a player-constructed phenomenon, in which the game character needs the player in
order to be invoked, but the game encourages the meaning-making process with different means
to different effects. Dynamic game characters are those game characters whose development
structures branch into different outcomes, each of which are undetermined until the player
actualises one or more possibilities that steer that direction onto distinct paths with a specific
outcome.
Dynamic game characters have become a phenomenon that challenges practices of
(trans-)media control. A theory of dynamic game characters tells us about the migration of entities
via different works, and how the perceiver comes to understand them within a context saturated
with characters, stories and a variety of media platforms. Digital games are just one of the many
media platforms that participate in this character ecology, and they allow characters to challenge
the idea that within a single piece of work the character must maintain a linear, continuous and
coherent identity that stretches the understanding of characters as authored and predictable within
a single work.
This study argues that dynamic game characters are a type of quasi-person in digital games
whose development consists of multiple outcomes. Digital games accelerate a dynamic game
character’s identity within a single work, unlike non-cybermedia in which a character’s identity is
constructed over multiple works. They challenge venues of control, because the player has creative
agency over the dynamic game character’s characterisation process within a single work. However,
once dynamic game characters transfer to other works, authoritative institutions break the player’s
participation in the dynamic game character’s development. These transfers sacrifice player
participation to create the illusion of a coherent identity between the manifestations of the
character over multiple works
... Here, we observe artificial intelligence as a phenomenon through the eyes of the player who herself is represented by an avatar within the game world (Klevjer 2012). As such, she encounters an AI in a communicative setting (Schröter and Thon 2014). In Luhmann's terms (1996, pp.138-175), the AI represents the Alter to the player's Ego, which is mediated by the avatar, and vice versa. ...
In recent years, we have observed impressive advancements at the intersection of games and artificial intelligence. Often these developments are described in terms of technological progress, while public discourses on their cultural, social and political impact are largely decoupled. I present an alternative rhetoric by speculating about the emergence of AI within social systems. In a radical departure from the dominant discourse, I describe seven roles - Mechanic, Alter/Ego, Observer, Protector, Player, Creator and God - that an AI may assume in the environment of videogames. I reflect on the ramifications of these roles for the idea of an artificial general intelligence (AGI), mainly hoping to irritate the prevailing discussion.
... Despite appearing frequently in videogames regardless of genre, nonplayer characters (NPCs), characters the player does not directly control, have received far less research focus than player-characters (PCs) (Daviault, 2012;Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Smith, & Tosca, 2008). Furthermore, when videogame characters are discussed, it is often in passing in explicitly narratological-positioned studies of videogames (Schröter & Thon, 2014), or the discussion focuses less on the characters in the context of the videogame, and more on them as a conduit of behaviour. For example, videogame characters are often analyzed to assess how female videogame characters are depicted in terms of visibility and sexualisation (Downs & Smith, 2010;Lynch, Tompkins, van Driel, & Fritz, 2016), or the effects on aggression and violence of playing as a violent character (Lin, 2013). ...
This study investigated players' emotional attachment to two non-player characters, Tali and Garrus, from BioWare's Mass Effect videogame series. Two forum threads, created soon after the release by BioWare of Mass Effect 2 in January 2010 dedicated to these two characters, were downloaded and analyzed using thematic analysis. The results found that players had developed intense emotional attachments to the characters, but the emotional attachment for the female character of Tali was expressed from the players' point of view, while the emotional attachment for the male character of Garrus was expressed from the player character of Shepard's point of view. These emotional attachments influenced how players engaged with the game mechanics of Mass Effect 2 (BioWare, 2010), for example players customized their player character's armour to match that of Tali or Garrus. As previous research into videogame characters has focused on playable characters, this article advances knowledge by considering the relationship between players and non-player characters in videogames. Short Description This study investigated players' emotional attachment to two non-player characters from BioWare's Mass Effect trilogy. Qualitative analysis of forum posts found players expressed Investigating Videogame Players' Emotional Attachments to Non-Player Characters 2 intense emotional attachments but from different viewpoints. These emotional attachments also influenced how players engaged with the game mechanics of Mass Effect 2.
... Les personnages de jeux vidéo sont souvent centrés sur des représentations stéréotypées (Schröter et al. 2014 ...
... La deuxième raison que nous invoquons pour justifier ce choix est moins d'ordre pratique qu'hypothétique. En effet, nous supposons que les voix des personnages, à l'instar des représentations graphiques (Schröter et al. 2014), sont exagérées voire caricaturales dans les jeux vidéo par comparaison avec le cinéma, exception faite pour les films d'animation, ce qui rend la dimension « personnage » plus aisée à caractériser. ...
Pour atteindre une audience internationale, les productions audiovisuelles (films, séries, jeux vidéo) doivent être traduites dans d'autres langues. Très souvent les voix de la langue d'origine de l'œuvre sont doublées par de nouvelles voix dans la langue cible. Le processus de casting vocal visant à choisir une voix (un acteur) en accord avec la voix originale et le personnage joué est réalisé manuellement par un directeur artistique (DA). Aujourd'hui, les DAs ont une inclination pour les nouveaux talents (moins coûteux et plus disponibles que les doubleurs expérimentés), mais ils ne peuvent pas réaliser une audition à grande échelle. Doter les industriels de l'audiovisuel d'outils automatiques capables de mesurer l'adéquation entre une voix dans une langue source avec un contexte donné et une voix dans une langue/culture cible est donc d'un fort intérêt. De plus, au-delà du casting vocal, cette problématique du choix d'une voix fait écho aux grands enjeux scientifiques de la compréhension des mécanismes de perception de la voix.Dans ce travail de thèse, nous utilisons des voix d'acteurs professionnels sélectionnées par un DA dans différentes langues pour des œuvres déjà doublées. Dans un premier temps, nous construisons un protocole fondé sur une méthode état-de-l'art en reconnaissance du locuteur pour mettre en évidence l'existence d'une information caractéristique du personnage dans nos données. Nous identifions également l'influence du biais linguistique sur les performances du système. Nous mettons en place, dans un second temps, un cadre méthodologique pour évaluer la capacité d'un système automatique à discriminer les paires de voix doublant un même personnage. Le système que nous avons créé repose sur des réseaux de neurones siamois. Dans ce cadre d'évaluation nous exerçons un contrôle fort des biais (contenu linguistique, genre, etc.) et nous apprenons une mesure de similarité permettant de prédire les choix du DA avec un écart significatif par rapport au hasard. Enfin, nous entraînons un espace de représentation mettant en avant l'information caractéristique du personnage, appelé p-vecteur. Nous montrons, grâce à notre cadre méthodologique que cette représentation permet de mieux discriminer les voix de nouveaux personnages, par comparaison à une représentation orientée sur l'information locuteur. De plus, nous montrons qu'il est possible de bénéficier de la connaissance généralisée d'un modèle appris sur un jeu de données proche en utilisant les techniques de distillation de la connaissance dans les réseaux de neurones.Cette thèse apporte un début de réponse pour la construction d'un outil d'aide au casting vocal capable de réaliser une présélection des voix pertinentes parmi un grand ensemble de voix disponibles dans une langue. Si nous avons montré dans cette thèse qu'il est possible d'extraire, à partir d'un grand volume de données, une information caractéristique d'un choix artistique souvent difficile à formaliser, il nous reste encore à mettre en évidence les facteurs explicatifs de cette décision. Nous souhaitons pouvoir fournir en complément de la sélection de voix réalisée une description des raisons de ce choix. Par ailleurs, la compréhension du processus de décision du système nous aiderait à définir la "palette vocale". À la suite de ces travaux, nous aimerions explorer l'influence de la langue et de la culture ciblée en étendant nos travaux à plus de langues. À plus long termes, ce travail pourrait aider à comprendre comment la perception des voix à évoluer depuis les débuts du doublage.
... Beyond the substantial body of research on the representation of characters in literary texts (see, e. g., Jannidis 2004;Phelan 1989;Schneider 2000) and films (see, e. g., Eder 2008a;Smith 1995;Tomasi 1988), recent years have also increasingly seen the emergence of theoretical work on characters in other media, from comics (see, e. g., Aldama 2010; Varis 2019) via television series (see, e. g., Mittell 2015: 118-163;Pearson and Davies 2014: 149-184) to video games (see, e. g., Schröter and Thon 2014;Vella 2015). While there are differences between the ways in which literary texts, comics, films, television series, video games, and other conventionally distinct media forms represent characters, at first glance there seems to be a broad consensus that characters cannot be reduced to "textual effects" or "actantial functions" (see, e. g., Greimas 1983;Propp 1968;Tomasi 1988), but should be understood as "textor media-based figure [s] in a storyworld, usually human or humanlike" (Jannidis 2014: 30). ...
This article sketches a theoretical framework and method for the analysis of transmedia characters that focuses on specific instantiations of these characters in individual media texts, before asking how these local work-specific characters relate to other local work-specific characters or coalesce into glocal transmedia characters as part of global transmedia character networks , thus evading what one could consider an undue emphasis on the “model of the single character” when analyzing the various characters that are, for example called Sherlock Holmes, Batman, or Lara Croft. The connections between these work-specific characters within transmedia character network could then be described as either relations of redundancy , relations of expansion , or relations of modification – with only redundancy and expansion allowing for medial representations of work-specific characters to contribute to the representation of a single transmedia character. In intersubjectively constructing characters across media, however, recipients will not only take into account powerful normative discourses that police the representation of characters across media but also draw on their accumulated knowledge about previously represented work-specific or transmedia characters as well as about transmedia character templates and even more general transmedia character types .
