Digital Gameplay

Table of Contents

Introduction: Negotiating the Digital Game/Gamer Intersection   1

1. Corporealis Ergo Sum: Affective Response in Digital Games   21
2. A “Majestic” Reflexivity: Machine-Gods and the Creation of the Playing Subject in Deus Ex and Deus Ex: Invisible War   36
3. Virtual Bodies, or Cyborgs Are People Too   52
4. Playing with Ourselves: A Psychoanalytic Investigation of Resident Evil and Silent Hill   69
5. Playing the Bad Guy: Grand Theft Auto in the Panopticon   80
6. Signs, Symbols, and Perceptions in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City   91
7. To the White Extreme: Conquering Athletic Space, White Manhood, and Racing Virtual Reality   110
8. Pimps, Players and Foes: Playing Diablo II “Outside the Box”   130
9. Living Art: Commercial Modding and Code-Illiterate Gamers   146
10. The Embodied Adventurer: Women as Player-Characters, Gamers, and Module-Builders in BioWare's Neverwinter Nights   160
11. Socializing, Subversion, and the Self: Why Women Flock to Massively Multiplayer Online Games   174
12. Beyond Linear Narrative: Augusto Boal Enters Norrath   189
13. Theatres of Interactivity: Video Games in the Drama Studio   208
14. Call and Response: Storytelling in the Neverwinter Vault   221
15. From Interactivity to Playability: Why Digital Games Are Not Interactive   232

About the Contributors   249
Index   253