Semiotics and Videogames
A cultural studies view
Is there a narrative here, or only rules?
Semiotics =
• The study of signs
• “semeion” like “gene” or
“morpheme” or
“phoneme”
• Signs … in relation to
what it refers to, in
relation to other signs,
in relation to what
effects there are on
us…
Phoneme
s
Structuralist roots…
Saussure
(Linguistics)
Levi-Strauss (Anthro)
Peirce
(So Much Stuff)
Barthes (Lit)
Linguistic sign
• D-O-G refers the (I hope)
friendly animal
• Dog = a signifier
• The animal itself is the
signified
• The linguistic sign is
composed of the concept and
the sound-image (signified
and signifier)
We know “DOG” is dog
because of what it isn’t…
• Cog
• Bog
• Log
• Dot
• Don
(so really, it’s like a big
giant slot machine in
our brains… selecting
and ordering…)
(and certainly not Dig or Dug)
Different linguistics folks have made
it more or less complicated
And…
• As you just
witnessed, there’s
also meaning in
visual signs, and in
the interaction
BETWEEN text and
visual sign
“Grammar” of pictures
What do the signs mean?
•
•
•
•
Each in itself
In arrangement with each other
In combination with text, numbers, and SOUND
What is there, what isn’t there…
The viewer has a role too…
• We supply
meanings that are
not present in the
text and/or visual
representation.
• We are “complicit” in
making meanings
…including BETWEEN
frames...
• …in comics…
• …and in movies,
and in video games.
And so we make stories
• Not only do we make
stories… stories are
inevitable.
• Stories are also the raw
material from which we
make our video game
stories.
• Hence, Narratology is
important to gaming.
Narratology…
• Tells us something about structures of
stories:
–
–
–
–
Their logic
Their grammar
Their rhetoric
Their composition generally
• …it can get pretty complicated…
Hold up now Trevor…
• What about other factors, like
– How we enjoy games a lot
– How we play all the way through or cheat
– How we interact online
– What happens in a room full of gamers
– The relationship in space of me to my
game console, my avatar, my headset etc.
Yes, okay… so a DEBATE in
Game Studies…
• Narratology vs. Ludology
• Quasi-textual semiotics vs. rules and
play
• One of the important structuring
debates of the field of game studies as
it has evolved
First-person shooters,
MMORPGs and consensual
cyberlives
Art and Videogames
So… does this have a
narrative?
For more on the aesthetics and semiotics of video games, try this…
http://curatedmatter.org/the-semiotics-of-video-games/