Video Games Study In Visual Culture

Traditional visual media and audio media are totally different in terms of their communication features due to their distinct media attributes. To be more specific, traditional visual media, including words and images, can facilitate information transfer but not simultaneous interaction. In contrary, audio media (language, sound) can facilitate simultaneous interaction but the information it presents can’t last long. Thanks to the development of computer digital technology and web technology, the invention of videogame that is featured by man-machine interaction and interpersonal interaction make interaction both by visual and audio media possible. This progress is of essential importance in the human media developmentVideogame, as the representative of interactive media, has played an important role in current business and culture field. Especially in terms of media communication method, videogame as well as the fast-growing video media relies on the interaction between image and sound to convey their messages, thus sharing the same audio and visual media platform. This means huge possibility for the interactive communication of audio and video media, because interaction is the attribute of game and the audio and video media is the premise of interaction. The development of videogame depends on the joint development of both audio and video media, and the trend seems powerful and inevitable.In this dissertation, the author believes that we should start from the visuality problem of videogame in the field of visual cultural study, to explore the visual mechanism, aesthetic features and cultural influences, with an aim to facilitate our understanding of the significance of the development of game media on the evolution of human media and the civilization.The introduction elaborates the background of the emergence of contemporary visual culture. The visual cultural study includes both the study of the whole visual cultural system as compared to the language and culture, and the visuality study focusing on detailed phenomenon connected with our vision. The dissertation will have its main topic defined by starting from the visuality problem of videogame media and combining theoretical sources such as film studies, cultural studies and game studies as well as the concept, development, internal mechanism and cultural impact of videogame media.The first chapter is about videogame media study. It is focused on the concept, development and categorization of videogame. This chapter will explore the reason of people playing games and their understandings of game. Game itself is a complicated and meaningful cultural behavior with specific inner rules. videogame is a form of visual media for the traditional game behavior. The dissertation states that videogame is a software system that can enable game players to achieve man-machine interaction or interpersonal interaction by creating virtual video and audio environment. After knowing the development history of videogame, we can figure out how the videogame media has grown from a dime light into the magnificent virtual world. And moreover, it will lay a solid foundation for the specific research goals in the following chapters by categorizing different types of videogames.The second chapter focuses on the aesthetic study of videogame. It discusses the media features of videogame from the perspective of visuality as compared with film media. The visual flow combing video and action by videogame has presented us a virtual space that seems nearly the same as the real world. At this time, the two-dimensional screen is not what Andre Bazin called a window, but the gate to another world, through which we can enter a virtual world. In this new world, we see things that don’t necessarily have reality relevance and we can see the virtual images created by our desires and imagination. The virtual space created by interaction media can separate us from the connection with reality more powerful than that of any previous media. This state of immersion brings us the unique experience of interactive media. However, by analyzing the identity construction mechanism and the influence I has on the self in reality, we will find that the immersion experience in the virtual space brings us more than excitement, but also our lost of self identity and separation from the self in reality.The third chapter is about the cultural study of videogame. The chapter is intended to discuss three topics on the cultural influence and media convergence of videogame. Firstly, on the rise of many campus violence incidences connected with game, we will analyze the violence practice in the game and the pleasure it brings as compared with violence aesthetics in the films. Secondly, as female images with sensual indication are omnipresent in videogame, we will use Laura Mulvey’s theory of visual pleasure and narrative cinema to elaborate the similar voyeurism in both the film and videogame. But more importantly, the special feature of game media means that the female images in the game have other connotations. Thirdly, as far as the image production wildly spread online based on game engine is concerned, the dissertation believes that the production and spread of Machinima is a new wave in the personal film movementTo sum up, the videogame provides us with an interactive experience and a platform of video and audio media interaction. On this platform, the video flow combining video and action creates virtual space that caters to the immersion needs and visual pleasure of the participant. This surreal virtual world brings us not only a brand-new media experience, but also the separation and alienation of self in the virtual world. Once in a while, language and words can only spread and interact in a visible and imaginable manner. However, the virtual video technology has realized the interactive communication of message. This progress has revolutionary significance in the development of human civilization.