2026-09-19T21:56:27Zhttps://dspace.mit.edu/server/oai/requestoai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/1179052022-07-26T16:24:38Zcom_1721.1_7582com_1721.1_7581col_1721.1_131023
Eugenie Brinkema.
Doyle-Myerscough, Kaelan
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Humanities.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing
2018-09-17T15:49:23Z
2018-09-17T15:49:23Z
2018
2018
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/117905
1051218815
Thesis: S.M. in Comparative Media Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Comparative Media Studies/Writing, 2018.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 103-109).
When we think of pleasures to be found in video games, we often talk about power, control, agency, and fun. But to center these pleasures is to privilege certain stories, players, actions and possibility spaces. This thesis uses the framework of intimacy to closely examine three games for their capacity to create pleasure in vulnerability, the loss of control, dependence on others, and precarity. Drawing from Deleuzian affect theory and feminist, queer and posthuman theorists, I read for intimate affects in the formal, aesthetic, proprioceptive and structural elements of Overwatch, The Last Guardian and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Ultimately, I argue two points: that video games have a unique capacity to generate intimate affects, and that my games of choice push us to rethink our assumptions about what constitutes intimacy more broadly.
by Kaelan Doyle-Myerscough.
S.M. in Comparative Media Studies
109 pages
eng
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582
Comparative Media Studies.
Humanities.
Intimate worlds : reading for intimate affects in contemporary video games
Reading for intimate affects in contemporary video games
Thesis
application/pdf
Publication
unknown
unknown
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<Abstract>When we think of pleasures to be found in video games, we often talk about power, control, agency, and fun. But to center these pleasures is to privilege certain stories, players, actions and possibility spaces. This thesis uses the framework of intimacy to closely examine three games for their capacity to create pleasure in vulnerability, the loss of control, dependence on others, and precarity. Drawing from Deleuzian affect theory and feminist, queer and posthuman theorists, I read for intimate affects in the formal, aesthetic, proprioceptive and structural elements of Overwatch, The Last Guardian and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Ultimately, I argue two points: that video games have a unique capacity to generate intimate affects, and that my games of choice push us to rethink our assumptions about what constitutes intimacy more broadly.</Abstract>
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