Title

Ludic Voyeurism and Passive Spectatorship in Gone Home and Other ‘Walking Simulators'

Document Type

Chapter

Publication Date

2017

Abstract

Walking simulator video games are a comparatively new genre comprising those games that offer little to no ludic interactivity and agency to their players other than moving through virtual spaces to discover fragments of narratives that may or may not form a coherent story. To understand this genre better, this study focuses on its emergence, relation to the medium in general, and possible engagement appeal for its players. Walking simulator video games construct passive spectatorship roles for their players contrary to more action-centered video games, limit their ludic agency, recount past events rather than offering simultaneous storytelling, and utilize tabula rasa main characters. Derived from the definitions of voyeurism in film and theatre, the concept of ludic voyeurism is further defined to explain the kinds of pleasure a passive spectatorship role can offer to video game players.

Comments

This chapter was published in Video Game Art Reader, Volume 1, https://www.fulcrum.org/epubs/c247dv19v?locale=en#page=31.

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