Fake the dawn : digital game mechanics and the construction of gender in fictional worlds
Name
969440741-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
13.03 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
a552eb52e5235fdf14711b5e465f1883
Author(s)
Caldwell, Kyrie Eleison Hartsough
Advisor(s)
Edward Schiappa.
Date Issued
2016
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
This thesis considers the ways in which digital game mechanics (interactive inputs) contribute to games' worldbuilding. In particular, this work is concerned with the replication and reinforcement of problematic gender roles through game mechanics that express positive ("warm") interactions between characters, namely healing, protection, and building relationships. The method used has been adapted from structural analysis via literary theory, as informed by game studies, media studies methodologies, and feminist epistemologies. Game mechanics are analyzed both across and within primary texts (consisting of Japanese-developed games from the action and role-playing genres) in relation to characters' representation. Through this analysis, I found that characters who are women and girls are often associated with physical weakness, nature-based magic, and nurturing (or absent) personalities, whereas characters who are men and boys often protect women through physical combat, heal through medical means, and keep an emotional distance from others. Relationships built through game mechanics rely on one-sided agency and potential that renders lovers and friends as characters who exist to support the player character in achieving the primary goals of the game. Through these findings, I conclude that even warm interactions in games carry negative, even potentially violent and oppressive, representations and that there is thusly a need for design interventions on the mechanical level to mitigate violence in game worlds and the reinforcement of negative real world stereotypes.
Description
Thesis: S.M. in Comparative Media Studies and Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2016.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. "September 2016."
Includes bibliographical references (pages 93-105).
Subjects
Graduate Program in Science Writing.
MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing
MIT Program in Writing & Humanistic Studies
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