Contemporary research on intertextuality in video games

Contemporary Research
on Intertextuality in Video
Games
Christophe Duret
Université de Sherbrooke, Canada
Christian-Marie Pons
Université de Sherbrooke, Canada

A volume in the Advances in Multimedia and
Interactive Technologies (AMIT) Book Series


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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Duret, Christophe, editor. | Pons, Christian-Marie, 1954- editor.
Title: Contemporary research on intertextuality in video games / Christophe
Duret and Christian-Marie Pons, editors.
Description: Hershey PA : Information Science Reference, [2016] | Includes

bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016010965| ISBN 9781522504771 (hardcover) | ISBN
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Subjects: LCSH: Video games. | Intertextuality.
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Juan Miguel Aguado (University of Murcia, Spain) Claudio Feijóo (Technical University of Madrid, Spain &
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Editorial Advisory Board
Inesita Araujo, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazil
Luke Arnott, The University of Western Ontario, Canada
Nolan Bazinet, Université de Sherbrooke, Canada
Ofer Berenstein, University of Calgary, Canada
Kristin M.S. Bezio, University of Richmond, USA
Aiden Buckland, University of Calgary, Canada
Emmanuel Buzay, University of Connecticut, USA
Angie Chiang, University of Calgary, Canada
Estelle Dalleu, Université de Strasbourg, France
Marcelo De Vasconcellos, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazil
Hernán D. Espinosa-Medina, Universidad de La Sabana, Colombia
Clara Fernandez-Vara, New York University, USA

Michael Fuchs, University of Graz, Austria
Christian Jimenez, Rider University, USA
Yowei Kang, Kainan University, Taiwan
Ana Narciso, University of Algarve, Center for Research in Communication Sciences and Arts, Portugal
Chris Richardson, Young Harris College, USA
Lynn Thomas, Université de Sherbrooke, Canada
Christopher Totten, American University, USA
Enrique Uribe-Jongbloed, Universidad del Norte, Colombia
Kenneth C. C. Yang, University of Texas at El Paso, USA




Table of Contents

Preface................................................................................................................................................... xv
Acknowledgment............................................................................................................................... xxiv
Section 1
Transmediality/Intermediality
Chapter 1
Arkham Epic: Batman Video Games as Totalizing Texts....................................................................... 1
Luke Arnott, The University of Western Ontario, Canada
Chapter 2
The Inescapable Intertextuality of Blade Runner: The Video Game..................................................... 22
Clara Fernandez-Vara, New York University, USA
Chapter 3
A Different Kind of Monster: Uncanny Media and Alan Wake’s Textual Monstrosity......................... 39
Michael Fuchs, University of Graz, Austria
Chapter 4
Intermediality and Video Games: Analysis of Silent Hill 2................................................................... 54

Mehdi Debbabi Zourgani, Paris 5 Descartes, France
Julien Lalu, UFR SHA Poitiers, France
Matthieu Weisser, UFR SHA Poitiers, France
Section 2
Intertextuality
Chapter 5
Gamers (Don’t) Fear the Reaper: Musical Intertextuality and Interference in Video Games................ 71
Andréane Morin-Simard, Université de Montréal, Canada
Chapter 6
BioShock and the Ghost of Ayn Rand: Universal Learning and Tacit Knowledge in Contemporary
Video Games.......................................................................................................................................... 92
Chris Richardson, Young Harris College, USA
Mike Elrod, Young Harris College, USA






Chapter 7
Exploring Complex Intertextual Interactions in Video Games: Connecting Informal and Formal
Education for Youth............................................................................................................................. 108
Kathy Sanford, University of Victoria, Canada
Timothy Frank Hopper, University of Victoria, Canada
Jamie Burren, University of Victoria, Canada
Chapter 8
“You Can’t Mess with the Program, Ralph”: Intertextuality of Player-Agency in Filmic Virtual
Worlds.................................................................................................................................................. 129
Theo Plothe, Walsh University, USA
Chapter 9

Cultural Transduction and Intertextuality in Video Games: An Analysis of Three International
Case Studies......................................................................................................................................... 143
Enrique Uribe-Jongbloed, Universidad del Norte, Colombia
Hernán David Espinosa-Medina, Universidad de La Sabana, Colombia
James Biddle, University of Georgia, USA
Chapter 10
Moving Forward by Looking Back: Using Art and Architectural History to Make and Understand
Games.................................................................................................................................................. 162
Christopher Totten, American University, USA
Section 3
Hypertextuality
Chapter 11
Artifacts of Empire: Orientalism and Inner-Texts in Tomb Raider (2013).......................................... 189
Kristin M. S. Bezio, University of Richmond, USA
Chapter 12
Weaving Nature Mage: Collective Intertextuality in the Design of a Book-to-Game Adaptation...... 209
Claudio Pires Franco, University of Bedfordshire, UK
Section 4
Architextuality
Chapter 13
Interprocedurality: Procedural Intertextuality in Digital Games......................................................... 235
Marcelo Simão de Vasconcellos, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), Brazil
Flávia Garcia de Carvalho, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), Brazil
Inesita Soares de Araujo, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), Brazil




Chapter 14
Architextuality and Video Games: A Semiotic Approach................................................................... 253

Maria Katsaridou, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Mattia Thibault, University of Turin, Italy
Section 5
Paratextuality
Chapter 15
Paratext: The In-Between of Structure and Play.................................................................................. 274
Daniel Dunne, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
Chapter 16
“Footage Not Representative”: Redefining Paratextuality for the Analysis of Official
Communication in the Video Game Industry...................................................................................... 297
Jan Švelch, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic
Compilation of References................................................................................................................ 316
About the Contributors..................................................................................................................... 355
Index.................................................................................................................................................... 360


Detailed Table of Contents

Preface................................................................................................................................................... xv
Acknowledgment............................................................................................................................... xxiv
Section 1
Transmediality/Intermediality
Chapter 1
Arkham Epic: Batman Video Games as Totalizing Texts....................................................................... 1
Luke Arnott, The University of Western Ontario, Canada
This chapter presents a model that explains how the epic is a narrative genre that has become popular
across a variety of new media. It demonstrates how the Arkham series of Batman video games – Batman:
Arkham Asylum (Rocksteady Studios, 2009), Batman: Arkham City (Rocksteady Studios, 2011), Batman:
Arkham Origins (Warner Bros. Games Montreal, 2013), and Batman: Arkham Knight (Rocksteady
Studios, 2015) – is constructed as an epic narrative within the larger Batman media franchise. The Arkham

series aspires to epic status by eclipsing competing Batman texts or by assimilating those texts into its
continuity. The series is an example of how video games now influence the evolution and cross-adaptation
of derivative and parallel works such as comics, movies, and other paratexts. The chapter concludes by
observing how games like the Arkham series relate to representation and theories of postmodernism.
Chapter 2
The Inescapable Intertextuality of Blade Runner: The Video Game..................................................... 22
Clara Fernandez-Vara, New York University, USA
The video game adaptation of Blade Runner (1997) exemplifies the challenges of adapting narrative from
traditional media into digital games. The key to the process of adaptation is the fictional world, which
it borrows both from Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) and Ridley
Scott’s film Blade Runner (1982). Each of these works provides different access points to the world,
creating an intertextual relationship that can be qualified as transmedia storytelling. The game utilizes the
properties of digital environments in order to create a world that the player can explore and participate
in; for this world to have the sort of complexity and richness that gives way to engaging interactions,
the game resorts to the film to create a visual representation, and to the themes of the novel. Thus the
game is inescapably intertextual, since it needs of both source materials in order to make the best of the
medium of the video game.






Chapter 3
A Different Kind of Monster: Uncanny Media and Alan Wake’s Textual Monstrosity......................... 39
Michael Fuchs, University of Graz, Austria
In many respects, Alan Wake reminds of a typical postmodernist text: it draws on various sources,
integrates other texts into its textual body, and is highly self-conscious both about its construction and
the recipient’s role in generating meaning. However, Alan Wake is not a postmodernist novel, but a video
game. This chapter explores the ways in which this video game incorporates other cultural artifacts and

argues that its cannibalistic incorporation of other media transforms Alan Wake’s textual body into the
game text’s true, Gothic monster.
Chapter 4
Intermediality and Video Games: Analysis of Silent Hill 2................................................................... 54
Mehdi Debbabi Zourgani, Paris 5 Descartes, France
Julien Lalu, UFR SHA Poitiers, France
Matthieu Weisser, UFR SHA Poitiers, France
This chapter proposes to study intermediality in video games in order to highlight media interactions. The
purpose is to analyze some intermedia processes to illustrate how intermediality can create signification.
The chapter is focused on the survival horror game Silent Hill 2 (Konami, 2001). More specifically, it
is about, but not only, two protagonists: James Sunderland and Eddie Dombrowski. Analyses follow
three different intermediality levels that can be applied in video games to get a better comprehension of
it. The co-presence shows what is played between the media included in the game. The transfer has an
interest to the links between video games and other objects in order to find how its language is created.
Silent Hill 2, as a Japanese production, includes many Japanese symbols. The emergence reveals what
creates the specific identity of the video game as a medium by observing the interactions between the
different media composing it.
Section 2
Intertextuality
Chapter 5
Gamers (Don’t) Fear the Reaper: Musical Intertextuality and Interference in Video Games................ 71
Andréane Morin-Simard, Université de Montréal, Canada
Given the pervasiveness of popular music in the contemporary media landscape, it is not unusual to find
the same song in multiple soundtracks. Based on theories of intertextuality and communication, this
chapter seeks to define the relationship which develops between two or more narrative and/or interactive
works that share the same song, and to understand the effects of such recontextualizations on the gamer’s
experience. The media trajectory of Blue Öyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” is mapped as a network
to categorize the many complex intersections between video games, films and television series which
feature the song. Three video games are analyzed to propose that the song’s previous associations with
other works may positively or negatively interfere with the music’s narrative and ludic functions within

the game.




Chapter 6
BioShock and the Ghost of Ayn Rand: Universal Learning and Tacit Knowledge in Contemporary
Video Games.......................................................................................................................................... 92
Chris Richardson, Young Harris College, USA
Mike Elrod, Young Harris College, USA
This chapter examines the popular 2007 video game BioShock and its relation to the work of Objectivist
author Ayn Rand. Using Jacques Rancière’s model of emancipatory learning and Polanyi’s concept of
tacit knowledge, the authors explore how video games can instill transferable skills and knowledge by
forming intertextual connections to other media. Including an interview with BioShock creator Ken
Levine, the authors discuss how players may learn about works such as Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, forming
opinions, criticisms, and applications of her philosophy, without ever receiving explanations of it in the
game. They conclude the chapter by demonstrating the potential for such forms of learning to become
more prominent in video games, while also acknowledging the inherent limitations of the medium.
Chapter 7
Exploring Complex Intertextual Interactions in Video Games: Connecting Informal and Formal
Education for Youth............................................................................................................................. 108
Kathy Sanford, University of Victoria, Canada
Timothy Frank Hopper, University of Victoria, Canada
Jamie Burren, University of Victoria, Canada
This chapter explores the intertextual nature of video games. Video games are inherently intertextual
and have utilized intertextuality in profound ways to engage players and make meaning. Youth who
play video games demonstrate complex intertextual literacies that enable them to construct and share
understandings across game genres. However, video game literacy is noticeably absent from formal
education. This chapter draws from bi-monthly meetings with a group of youth video gamers. Video
game sessions focused on exploring aspect of video game play such as learning and civic engagements.

Each session was video recorded and coded using You Tube annotation tools. Focusing on intertextuality
as an organizing construct, the chapter reports on five themes that emerged that were then used to help
explore the use of video games as teaching tool in a grade 11 Language Arts class. A critical concept that
emerged was the idea of complex intertextual literacy that frames and enables adolescents’ engagement
with video games.
Chapter 8
“You Can’t Mess with the Program, Ralph”: Intertextuality of Player-Agency in Filmic Virtual
Worlds.................................................................................................................................................. 129
Theo Plothe, Walsh University, USA
This essay posits two crucial elements for the representation of digital games in film: intertextuality
and player control. Cinematically, the notion of player-agency control is influenced greatly by this
intertextuality, and player control has been represented in a number of films involving video games
and digital worlds. This essay looks at the use and representation of player-agency control in films that
focus on action within digital games. There are three elements that are essential to this representation:
1) there is a separation between the virtual and the real; 2) the virtual world is written in code, and this
code is impossible for player-agents to change, though they can manipulate it; 3) the relative position of
the player to the player-agent, is one of subservience or conflict. I argue that the notion of player-agency
control is essential to the cinematic representation of video games’ virtual worlds.




Chapter 9
Cultural Transduction and Intertextuality in Video Games: An Analysis of Three International
Case Studies......................................................................................................................................... 143
Enrique Uribe-Jongbloed, Universidad del Norte, Colombia
Hernán David Espinosa-Medina, Universidad de La Sabana, Colombia
James Biddle, University of Georgia, USA
This chapter addresses the relationship that exists between intertextuality and cultural transduction in
video game localization. Whereas the former refers to the dual relationship established between texts

and previous texts available to the potential readers and the bridges that are consciously or unconsciously
established between them, cultural transduction refers to the conscious process of transforming audiovisual
content to suit the interests of a given cultural market. Three case studies are presented to explore the
relationship that exists between the place of production, the internal cultural references to other texts
within the games and the intended market where the video game is distributed: Finally, the importance
of intertextuality as part of the cultural transduction process is highlighted.
Chapter 10
Moving Forward by Looking Back: Using Art and Architectural History to Make and Understand
Games.................................................................................................................................................. 162
Christopher Totten, American University, USA
This chapter explores art history to establish parallels between the current state of the game art field and
historical art and architectural periods. In doing so, it proposes methods for both making and studying
games that subvert the popular analysis trends of game art that are typically based on the history of
game graphics and technology. The chapter will then demonstrate the use of art and design history in
game development by discussing the Atelier Games project, which utilizes the styles and techniques of
established artists and art movements to explore the viability of classic methods for the production of
game art and game mechanics.
Section 3
Hypertextuality
Chapter 11
Artifacts of Empire: Orientalism and Inner-Texts in Tomb Raider (2013).......................................... 189
Kristin M. S. Bezio, University of Richmond, USA
This chapter examines Crystal Dynamics’ 2013 Tomb Raider reboot, arguing that the game makes use of
intertextual references to the original Core Design Tomb Raider (1996) and popular culture archaeology
in an effort to revise the original franchise’s exploitative depiction of both Lara Croft and archaeological
practice. Framed by a theoretical understanding of Orientalism and the constraints of symbolic order
and the recognition that video games in general and the Tomb Raider franchise in specific are “games
of empire,” it becomes clear that the 2013 Tomb Raider ultimately fails to escape the constraints of
imperial procedural semiotics.



Chapter 12
Weaving Nature Mage: Collective Intertextuality in the Design of a Book-to-Game Adaptation...... 209
Claudio Pires Franco, University of Bedfordshire, UK
This chapter is based on the analysis of previous cross-media game adaptations, on empirical research, and
on reflection on practice with the design of a game concept for a fantasy book. Book-to-game adaptations
are particularly interesting examples of cross-media adaptation. They not only weave the literary source
text with intertexts from the game medium, but also require a modal transposition from the realm of
words to a visual, interactive, multimodal medium where narrative and ludic logics intersect. This study
proposes to look at different layers of cross-media intertextuality in the process of adaptation - at the level
of specific texts, at the level of medium conventions, and at the level of genre conventions. It draws on
crowd-sourcing research with readers to demonstrate that collaboration operates through multi-layered
processes of collective intertextuality through which the intertextual repertoires of individuals meet to
weave a final text.
Section 4
Architextuality
Chapter 13
Interprocedurality: Procedural Intertextuality in Digital Games......................................................... 235
Marcelo Simão de Vasconcellos, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), Brazil
Flávia Garcia de Carvalho, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), Brazil
Inesita Soares de Araujo, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), Brazil
Intertextuality is present in most digital games since their beginnings. However, despite its importance
for understanding games, research about the theme tends to be disproportionally rare and limited to
representational aspects (text, images, audio, etc.), leaving out games’ most distinctive characteristics,
namely, their rules and mechanics. Since the classic concept of intertextuality does not account for this
dimension, the authors propose a concept that is to games what intertextuality is for texts, combining
principles of intertextuality with the theory of procedural rhetoric, which deals with the construction of
meaning in digital games. This concept, interprocedurality, describes the explicit or implicit inclusion

of other games’ rules and mechanics in a given game. As a way to exemplify its presence in a specific
game, this chapter presents a brief analysis of the interprocedurality occurring in the digital game Deus
Ex: Human Revolution and the findings it generated.
Chapter 14
Architextuality and Video Games: A Semiotic Approach................................................................... 253
Maria Katsaridou, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Mattia Thibault, University of Turin, Italy
Even though literary genres are instrumental for the study and analysis of video games, we should also
take into consideration that, nowadays, the boundaries of literature have been crossed and we have to
deal with a broader transmedia reality. Approaching it can be quite challenging and, in addition to the
already existing genre theory, it requires the implementation of appropriate analytic tools, both adaptable
to different languages and media and able to reconstruct and motivate the isotopies woven into the net.




In the authors’ opinion, semiotics is particularly suitable for this task, for many reasons. The aim of
this chapter, then, is to propose a semiotic methodology, oriented toward the analysis of the architextual
aspects of video games. Two case studies will be taken into consideration, in order to shed some light
on the inner working of architexts featuring video games, as one of their most relevant components: the
horror genre and the high fantasy genre.
Section 5
Paratextuality
Chapter 15
Paratext: The In-Between of Structure and Play.................................................................................. 274
Daniel Dunne, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
This chapter examines paratext as an active element within video games. Paratext, as taken from Gérard
Genette’s works has often been cited within the context of video games, but not examined in detail.
Current scholarship focuses on epitext, but not peritext, which is Genette’s primary focus. Mia Consalvo
and Peter Lunenfeld’s work discuss the epitextual importance of paratext within video games, with only a

hint towards the importance of peritext. Through a brief exploration of paratext’s history in both literature
and games, this chapter will reveal a need for deeper analysis within video game studies. Focusing on
in-game, in-system and in-world types of paratexts this paper will attempt to formalise the unaddressed
issue of paratext in video games.
Chapter 16
“Footage Not Representative”: Redefining Paratextuality for the Analysis of Official
Communication in the Video Game Industry...................................................................................... 297
Jan Švelch, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic
This chapter provides a revised framework of paratextuality which deals with some of the limitations of
Gérard Genette’s concept while keeping its focus on the relationship between a text and socio-historical
reality. The updated notion of paratextuality draws upon Alexander R. Galloway’s work on the interface
effect. The proposed revision is explained in a broader context of intertextuality and textual transcendence.
Regarding Genette’s terminology, this chapter rejects the constrictive notion of a paratext and stresses
that paratextuality is first and foremost a relationship, not a textual category. The new framework is then
put to the test using four sample genres of official video game communication – trailers, infographics,
official websites of video games and patch notes.
Compilation of References................................................................................................................ 316
About the Contributors..................................................................................................................... 355
Index.................................................................................................................................................... 360


xv

Preface

Intertextuality is present in all types of media, from serial literature to television series, from comics to
cinema. It accounts for a significant proportion of the enjoyment experienced by the reader/viewer in the
consumption of these media, but also for the richness of textual productions of the latter, which extends
into a vast network of quotations, open or covert references, influences and parodies.
The notion of intertextuality has changed considerably through its 80-year history. As part of a

process of socio-historical definition of the poetics of the novel through dialogism (Bakhtin, 1978), or
a semanalysis approach (Kristeva, 1969, 1970) and, more broadly, poststructuralism (Barthes, 1974;
Sollers, 1968), pointing alternately to hermeneutical (Riffaterre, 1979, 1982) (Barthes, 1973), poetic
(Genette, 1979, 1982), genetic (Le Calvez, 1997; Pickering, 1997; Rastier, 1997), sociodiscursive (Angenot, 1989), and sociocritical (Duchet & Maurus, 2011) phenomena or, more recently, to adaptation
(Hutcheon 2013), transmediality (Jenkins 2006), and transfictionalization (Saint-Gelais 2011), this notion
is somewhat polysemic and polemic. A vast collective assembly of specification and deconstruction of
the terms “intertextuality” and “intertext” has taken place during this long history, and today, they refer
to a constellation of textual relations and various texts known as co-texts (Duchet & Maurus, 2011),
metafictions (Hutcheon, 1984), transfictions (Saint-Gelais, 2011), transmedia storytelling (Jenkins, 2006),
adaptations (Hutcheon, 2013) autotextuality (Dällenbach, 1976) intertextual irony (Eco, 2003), general
or limited intertextuality (Ricardou, 1986/1974), external or internal intertextuality (Ricardou,1971),
allusion, plagiarism, pastiche, charge, forgery and parody (Genette, 1982), quotation (Compagnon,
1979), interimage (Duffy, 1997), prescriptive intertextuality (Vetters, 2011) and doctrinal intertextuality
(Suleiman, 1983), metatextuality and hypertextuality (Genette, 1982), architextuality (Genette, 1979),
paratextuality (Genette, 1987), and so on. In practice, intertextuality has become functional, saved from
the danger that awaited it of becoming a catch-all concept that could fit everything and its opposite.
Despite the pervasiveness of the concept of intertextuality in digital games and a longstanding
tradition associated to it, only a handful of game scholars have used it or one of its derivative terms in
their research (see Bonk, 2014; Consalvo, 2003; Dormans, 2006; Duret, 2015; Egliston, 2015; Jones,
2008; Krzywinska, 2006, 2008; Krzywinska, MacCallum-Stewart & Parsler, 2011; Love, 2010; Poor,
2012; Schrader, Lawless & McCreery, 2009, Scodari, 1993; Weise, 2009) and this book is the first to
be entirely dedicated to it.
What might explain the absence of this concept in the game studies field? Since the early 2000s,
there has been a shift from intertextuality (or, more broadly, of transtextuality, a near-synonym of the
term for some authors) to transfictionality and transmediality in the study of fictional works (novels,
comics, digital games, films, graphic novels, etc.), with the researches of Jens Bonk (2014), Kristy Dena
(2009), Henry Jenkins (2003; 2006), Marsha Kinder (1991), Lisbeth Klastrup and Susana Tosca (2013),


Preface

Marie-Laure Ryan (2008; 2013), Richard Saint-Gelais (2000; 2011), Carlos Alberto Scolari (2009), and
Jan-Noël Thon (2009), among others. This shift implies a change in object of study and, consequently,
the level of analysis: after the text, the attention of researchers focuses more readily on the spatiotemporal
universes of the works (known as the cosmos, diegesis, fictional world, storyworld, heterocosm, transfictional world, and so forth), the plots that occur within these universes and the characters inhabiting
them. In other words, the focus is on the fiction rather than the texts that convey it.
In digital games, transfictionality is a widespread phenomenon and justifies the growing number
of researchers interested in it. But this interest for transfictionality should not be allowed to obscure
the intertextual/transtextual nature of the digital games, the contribution of exogenous texts (pastiches,
parodies, quotations, allusions, metatexts, hypertexts, paratexts, and so forth) strongly contributing to
their depth. In other words, the concepts of transfictionality and transmediality do not call into question
the relevance of intertextuality. On the contrary, some of the collaborations in this book illustrate the
relevance of addressing the digital game object by combining the two perspectives, especially when it
comes to analyzing its procedural dimension.
More broadly, the richness and scope of the contributions presented here attest to the topicality of
intertextuality and its usefulness with regard to the field of game studies. This research will allow us to
better map the vast textual ecosystems that feed digital games and which are fed back from them.

ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK
This book is organized around five topics: transmediality and intermediality (chapters 1 to 4); intertextuality stricto sensu (chapters 5 to 10), with the first three chapters focusing on the role played by gamers in
the intertextual process; hypertextuality in the Genettian sense, in reference to reboots and adaptations
(chapters 11 & 12); architextuality (chapters 13 & 14); and finally, paratextuality (chapters 15 & 16).
A brief description of each chapter follows.

Transmediality/Intermediality
Chapter 1
In “Arkham Epic: Batman Video Games as Totalizing Texts”, Luke Arnott describes the Arkham series
of Batman video games as an epic narrative. Four levels of analysis are proposed (the textual, paratextual/intertextual, symbolic, and socio-historical levels, respectively) in order to illustrate how the series
can be critiqued as a cohesive epic within the Batman franchise, with which it shares a relationship of

both continuity and competition. The chapter concludes by demonstrating how, as totalizing texts, the
Arkham games are a representation of the postmodern space.

Chapter 2
In “The Inescapable Intertextuality of Blade Runner - The Video Game”, Clara Fernández-Vara examines
how Blade Runner - The Video Game is part of a larger transmedial narrative, including Philip K. Dick’s
novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Ridley Scott’s film, Blade Runner, as it utilizes the
properties of interactive environments in order to create an interactive world that the player is invited
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to explore. Blade Runner - The Video Game retains the themes and the fictional world of the novel, as
well as the conventions of noir detective stories, which are adapted in accordance with the procedural,
participatory, spatial, and encyclopedic characteristics of the digital game medium. By doing so, the
game presents itself as “inescapably intertextual.”

Chapter 3
Many critics contend that the narrative complexity of Alan Wake, a game that boasts a profusion of
storyworlds-within-storyworlds, comes at the expense of its gameplay, which some consider simplistic
and repetitive. In “A Different Kind of Monster: Uncanny Media and Alan Wake’s Textual Monstrosity”,
Michael Fuchs argues, however, that this alleged weakness with regard to gameplay, as well as the confusion between and conflation of different storyworlds, reinforces the game text’s meaning in accordance
with its self-reflexivity toward the Gothic tradition and its meta-reflexivity concerning the relationship
between video games and other media. The author suggests that the uncanny effects produced by Alan
Wake’s Gothic narrative are more likely attributable to the elements of intermediality and remediation
that are found in the game rather than the monsters that the players are pitted against. Alan Wake is thus
seen as a monstrous text that cannibalizes other media.

Chapter 4

In “Intermediality and Video Games: Analysis of Silent Hill 2”, Mehdi Debbabi Zourgani, Julien Lalu,
and Matthieu Weisser analyze the Silent Hill 2 video game from an intermedial perspective and, more
specifically, the relationship that unites two of the main protagonists of the game. To this end, three
levels of intermediality are used: co-presence, transfer, and emergence.

Intertextuality
Chapter 5
In “Gamers (Don’t) Fear the Reaper: Musical Intertextuality and Interference in Video Games”, Andréane Morin-Simard examines the intertextual relationship that links video games together when they
share the same song. The media trajectory of the song Don’t Fear the Reaper is then mapped in order
to understand how its recontextualization in the Ripper, Roadkill and Prey video games impacts the
gamer’s experience. In doing so, the author shows how the association of the Blue Öyster Cult’s song
with previous works interferes with its functions regarding the gameplay and the narrative of the games.

Chapter 6
In “BioShock and the Ghost of Ayn Rand: Universal Learning and Tacit Knowledge in Contemporary
Video Games”, Chris Richardson and Mike Elrod examine the BioShock video game and its relation to
the work of the Russian-born American philosopher Ayn Rand. More specifically, the authors put Jacques
Rancière’s model of emancipatory learning and Michael Polanyi’s concept of tacit knowledge in dialogue
with the concept of intertextuality in order to show how the players benefit from transferable skills and
knowledge by forming connections to other media without receiving explanations from within the game.
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Chapter 7
In “Exploring Complex Intertextual Interactions in Video Games: Connecting Informal and Formal
Education for Youth”, Kathy Sanford, Timothy Frank Hopper, and Jamie Burren use a complexity theory
framework and propose the concept of complex intertextual literacy in order to explain how adolescents
are provided incentives through video games like BioShock Infinite, Gone Home, L.A. Noire, and The

Stanley Parable to make connections to a wide array of texts. The authors consider the potential of these
games to form a critical space to engage students in meaning-making.

Chapter 8
In “‘You can’t mess with the program, Ralph’: Intertextuality of Player-Agency in Filmic Virtual Worlds”,
Theo Plothe examines the representation of player-agency control in films that focus on action within
digital games. This representation relies on three essential elements: a separation between the virtual and
the real; a written code underlying the virtual world that the player can manipulate, but not effectively
change; a relationship based on subservience or conflict between the player and the player-agent. The
films analyzed in this chapter are Tron, Tron: Legacy, The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix
Revolutions, The Lawnmower Man, eXistenZ, Avalon, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, and Wreck-it Ralph.

Chapter 9
In “Cultural Transduction and Intertextuality in Video Games: An Analysis of Three International
Case Studies”, Enrique Uribe-Jongbloed, Hernán David Espinosa-Medina, and James Biddle address
the question of video game localization through the convergence of the concepts of intertextuality and
cultural transduction. To this end, three case studies are presented, namely El Chavo Kart, South Park:
The Stick of Truth, and the Kingdom Rush series.

Chapter 10
In “Moving Forward by Looking Back: Using Art and Architectural History to Make and Understand
Games”, Christopher Totten demonstrates how the field of game art could benefit from the history of art
and architecture and finds new opportunities for game production. As an alternative to the most popular
ways of analyzing game art, which are based on the history of game graphics and technology, artistic
intertextuality and architextuality are useful tools for researchers and developers to understand and make
new game types. The author analyzes various indie games such as Dys4ia, Dominique Pamplemousse,
A Duck Has an Adventure, and Lissitzky’s Revenge.

Hypertextuality
Chapter 11

In “Artifacts of Empire: Orientalism and Inner-Texts in Tomb Raider (2013)”, Kristin M.S. Bezio examines Crystal Dynamics’ 2013 Tomb Raider, the reboot of the original Core Design Tomb Raider from

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1996. She draws on Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism, Julia Kristeva’s constraints of the symbolic
order, as well as Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter’s conception of video games as “games of
empire,” to demonstrate how the Tomb Raider reboot, constrained by both its inter- and inner-texts, failed
to escape the constraints of imperial procedural semiotics.

Chapter 12
In “Weaving Nature Mage: Multi-layered Intertextuality in a book-to-game adaptation”, Claudio Pires
Franco analyzes, from the point of view of a researcher and creator, a case of cross-media adaptations,
namely the book-to-game adaptation of a teen fantasy series called Nature Mage, by Duncan Pile. The
study examines three layers of cross-media intertextuality: the level of specific texts, medium conventions,
and genre conventions. In addition, the author describes the use of readers’ involvement and co-creation
implied in the adaptation process as a form of collective intertextuality “through which the intertextual
repertoires of individuals meet to weave a final text.”

Architextuality
Chapter 13
In “Interprocedurality: Procedural Intertextuality in Digital Games”, Marcelo Simão de Vasconcellos,
Flávia Garcia de Carvalho, and Inesita Soares de Araujo prefer the procedural dimension of intertextuality (i.e. rules, mechanics) to the representational one (e.g.: text, images, audio). When used jointly with
Ian Bogost’s procedural rhetoric, the concept of intertextuality becomes “interprocedurality,” which is
defined as “the explicit or implicit inclusion of other games’ rules and mechanics in a given game.” The
authors illustrate their concept by analyzing the Deus Ex: Human Revolution video game.

Chapter 14

In “Architextuality and Video Games, a Semiotic Approach”, drawing on Algirdas Greimas’ schema of
actantial and thematic roles and Yuri Lotman’s theory of the semiosphere, Mattia Thibault and Maria
Katsaridou study the horror and high fantasy genres by making use of a semiotic methodology oriented
toward the analysis of the architextual aspects of video games. The authors use a broad definition of
architextuality that implies intertextuality and hypertextuality in order to take into account the notion of
genre in complex phenomena such as transmedia storytelling. They defend their argument by analyzing
the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons and the Warcraft, Silent Hill, and Resident Evil
video game series.

Paratextuality
Chapter 15
In “Paratext: The In-Between of Structure and Play”, Daniel Dunne notes the lack of attention concerning the Genettian concept of peritext in the game studies field, when compared with that of epitext.

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After discussing prior works on the topic by game scholars such as Mia Consalvo, Peter Lunenfeld, and
David Jara, he remedies the situation by offering a new definition of paratext that focuses on peritextual
analysis with the help of a model considering three levels of video games where paratext can be found:
in-game, in-system, and in-world.

Chapter 16
In “‘Footage Not Representative’: Redefining Paratextuality for the Analysis of Official Communication
of Video Games”, Jan Švelch draws on Alexander R. Galloway’s work on interfaces in order to put forward a revised definition of paratextuality. This redefinition takes into account the relationship between
a text and its socio-historical reality and its links to wider textual ecologies. The author then examines
paratextuality in four sample genres of official video game communication: trailers, infographics, official websites, and patch notes.
Christophe Duret
Université de Sherbrooke, Canada

Christian-Marie Pons
Université de Sherbrooke, Canada

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Acknowledgment

The editors would like to acknowledge the help of all the people involved in this project and, more specifically, to the authors and reviewers that took part in the review process. Without their support, this
book would not have become a reality.
First, the editors would like to thank each one of the authors for their contributions. Our sincere gratitude
goes to the chapter’s authors who contributed their time and expertise to this book.
Second, the editors wish to acknowledge the valuable contributions of the reviewers regarding the improvement of quality, coherence, and content presentation of chapters. Most of the authors also served
as referees; we highly appreciate their double task.
Additional thanks are due to Nolan Bazinet (Université de Sherbrooke) for his assistance during the
linguistic revision process.

Christophe Duret
Université de Sherbrooke, Canada
Christian-Marie Pons
Université de Sherbrooke, Canada