Players in game spaces : a multi-disciplinary approach

Abstract

The interactive nature that is offered by digital games gives rise to an experience beyond what other audiovisual media present. The player is required to make sense of, and act upon the audiovisual information provided by the virtual environment. This dissertation aims to shed some light on the process that a player goes through when receiving and acting upon spatial information corning from the game space. Through the use of the established field of semiotics and the field of perceptual psychology, namely affordance theory, I intended to provide an analysis of the process of perception and action in game space. I primarily outlined the importance for the knowledge of such a significant aspect of the digital game experience. The literature review provides a basis of literary knowledge from the fields of semiotics, affordance theory and it illustrates how these fields have been used to contribute to game studies. From this literary basis I have then put forward a theory that explores how a player creates meaning from a game space and acts upon that meaning through the use of mechanics. Furthermore, the two following sections are dedicated to describing how visual signs and aural signs give both individual and collective meaning with regards to the game space for the player to act upon. In the dissertation conclusion, I highlighted how this dissertation has contributed to the already existing theory regarding action and perception in game spaces and outlined further research possibilities.