Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
players can develop alternate means by which to play a game. Either situ-
ation can lead a game company to clamp down, attempting to dictate the
terms on which a game should be played. All of these are examples of how
players are crucial to how the discourse of video games unfold. Wordplay
illuminates how the context for the discourse of video games is shaped by
many dif erent elements and players are a crucial component of how the
discourse surrounding games is built.
Recognizing the role of players as the audience for games and applying
a rhetorical framework to the understanding of games, one where the audi-
ence routinely determines the success of a text, puts gamers in a powerful
position. When gamers rally together they can redefi ne what parts of a
game, as in Tol Barad, or even the game as a whole, like
Call of Duty:
Black Ops
, mean. In talking back and setting the terms of discussion, gam-
ers encourage designers to develop games with an audience in mind.
The last piece of the backdrop for the contextual forces that shape the
discourse of video games is the technology that drives games and how video
game consoles impact constructions of words, design, and play. Using word-
play to examine consoles as devices and the discourse surrounding them
of ers another chance to see how wordplay combines analysis of gaming
technologies and the environment surrounding them to better understand
how video games are constructed as cultural objects.
