Ebook: Video Game Auteur

This book examines the adaptability and applicability of auteur concept of media and film studies to video games. In the past, auteur theory has been used by critics to identify the values of films as art works, putting a special emphasis on the directors’ influence and agency. In the field of video games there are influential and creative designers as potential auteurs and the aesthetic value and formal qualities of games is up for debate. Video games are not only commodities which are used for entertainment purposes, but they can also be considered as works of art. Many independent games as well as some mainstream examples create the impression that the limit of the expressive capability of games are yet to be realized. While game technology develops, the realization of the critical or artistic potential of games is falling behind. The demand for more mature themed games and more sophisticated gameplay, the interest of scholarly studies, the critical readings of the developing and reforming online game journalism and fan culture opens a new path for game production.