[ecrea] G.A.M.E. Issue n. 4 Call for Papers

The deadline for the submission of the abstracts for the fourth issue of 
G.A.M.E. – Games as Art, Media, Entertainment is extended to Saturday 
May 17th (11:59pm your local time zone).


The 4th issue of G.A.M.E. Journal, titled Re-framing video games in the 
light of cinema, wants to investigate the complex relations between 
video games and cinema, revising and reflecting on a topic 
controversially debated over the past 10 years. G.A.M.E. asks, once 
more, what is cinematic in video games and what is ludic at the cinema.

Following, you can find the full version of the CFP:

– – – – – – – – – – –

RE-FRAMING VIDEO GAMES
IN THE LIGHT OF CINEMA


As audiovisual entertainment whose content is largely representational, 
video games have a lot more in common with film and television than 
merely characters and plot lines.

Mark J. P. Wolf

('Inventing Space: Toward a Taxonomy of On- and Off- Screen Space in 
Video Games', in Film Quarterly, 51(1), 1997, p. 11)


With its 4th issue G.A.M.E. wants to investigate the complex relations 
between video games and cinema, revising and reflecting on a topic 
controversially debated over the past 10 years. The relationship between 
these two media is layered and they are interconnected in their 
practices as much as in their theories. Not only are cinema and video 
games linked by their audiovisual nature, but they are also connected by 
similar production paradigms. The cross-circulation of storylines, 
characters and brands plays a primary role in the rise of convergence 
culture and, at the same time, on a production level they are grounded 
in common artistic and technical competences to the point of developing 
similar industrial systems.
During the past two decades, cinema became the key to access video games 
as cultural, artistic and social phenomenon. Consequently, scholars and 
researchers in Games Studies developed a strong awareness of the 
problems intrinsic to this comparative approach, leading to its 
problematisation within academic contexts. Torn between the need to 
develop an independent field of studies and the clear inter medial 
vocation of the discipline, Game Studies developed a suspicion towards 
this relationship, often debated at the margins of one or the other 
field. With its new issue, G.A.M.E. wants to offer a renewed reflection 
on the "interaction" between video games and films.

Firstly, Game Studies call for an updated reflection on what Wolf and 
Perron call (referencing Francesco Casetti's work on film theory) the 
"methodological theory". After half a century, Film Studies developed a 
constellation of "theories" that cover the ontological and 
phenomenological nature of the medium, its practices, its representative 
strategies, its history and historiographical value, and the politics 
connected to it, finally leading to question its methodological 
premises. At the same time video game theory lacks a conceptual history 
of the medium capable of abstracting the specificity of case studies in 
order to account for a larger diachronic perspective. Can the cinematic 
theoretical corpus offer a contribution to the development of Game 
Studies? If so, what are the possible interceptions between these 
fields? What more can we learn about video games through the lenses of 
Film Studies?

On a second level, we want to investigate the characteristics of these 
two media, their similarities and differences in terms of aesthetics, 
practices and production. The majority of the studies on this topic 
assume the narrative quality of the cinematic medium, focusing on the 
narrative continuity between these media: genres, tropes and 
iconography. Nevertheless, this assumption is debatable and in need of 
renegotiation. If, on the one hand, it is true that the cinematic 
character of video games is mostly codified through its narrative and 
spectacular acceptations, on the other hand it is possible to rethink 
the interplay between these two media in different ways. For example, by 
positioning video games within the larger history of spectacular media 
and attractions to which also cinema belongs, it is then possible to 
frame this medium within the tradition that connects shadow play theatre 
to the magic lantern and, subsequently, to early cinema and devices for 
amplified vision (widescreen, stereoscopy). Moreover, the rise of the 
indie market, the proliferation of tools and commercialised engines 
allowed the emergence of experimental work that challenges the 
mainstream identification with narrative models, opening new horizons of 
research. Titles such as Garry's Mod provide points of intersection with 
avant-gardes, problematizing the acquired definition of the medium, its 
strategies and internal structure.

Finally, with its 4th issue G.A.M.E. intends to discuss the place of 
video games in cinema. Video games' cinematic incarnations have often 
been overlooked, mostly referenced with regards to their aesthetic and 
iconographic influence. Nevertheless, more than 20 years after the 
release of Tron (1982), video games still influence cinema on 
iconographic, thematic and linguistic levels. What role do video games 
"play" in cinema? Are video games contributing to the development of a 
new cinematic aesthetics? Is this process connected to the 
commercialisation of new technologies? What are the reasons behind 
unsuccessful cinematic adaptations of video games? Video games provide 
source material for TV shows and web series, becoming protagonists of 
transmedial serialisation. At the same time, they are made cinematic 
subject of both nostalgic (Wreck-It Ralph, 2012) and apocalyptic (Gamer, 
2009) discourses. For these reasons, G.A.M.E. wants to ask, once more, 
what is cinematic in video games and what is ludic at the cinema.

– – – – – – – – – – –

Scholars are invited to submit 500 words abstracts by May 17th, 2014 
(11:59pm your local time zone) at the address: (gameitalianjournal /at/ gmail.com)

Extended Abstract deadline: 17th May
Notification of acceptance: 21st May

According to the expected workflow, all accepted authors will be asked 
to submit the full paper by the 3rd of August 2014. We expect to release 
this issue in Autumn 2014.

Best regards,

Riccardo Fassone, Federico Giordano
and Ivan Girina
for the Editorial Board of G.A.M.E.


www.gamejournal.it



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