| "Enough of a World: A Phenomenology of Videogame Weltlichkeit" pursues a theoretical account of digital games' status as "worlds." Although the notion that videogames in some ways constitute or contain worlds has long pervaded the popular imagination and popular games criticism, this notion has been under-examined by the academic literature on the medium. This dissertation's central argument is that this notion merits serious consideration, and, in aid of this consideration, the concept of Weltlichkeit, or "worldishness," first laid out by Martin Heidegger and adopted by subsequent thinkers in and around the phenomenological tradition in philosophy, is proposed as a guide for game analysis. Building off of phenomenological philosophy, as well as phenomenologically-inflected traditions in perceptual psychology, cognitive science, and film theory, "Enough of a World" examines the ways in which games foster an embodied connection between player and avatar, engender a sense of place, and situate players within spheres of potential action.;In place of any attempt at constructing a rigid framework or airtight rubric for addressing worldishness in games, this dissertation follows a looser approach, placing formal analysis of games at the forefront, and modulating vocabulary and approach as needed to best match the chosen case studies. In this way, the different chapters of this dissertation become opportunities to celebrate the diversity---and interdisciplinarity---of the phenomenological tradition. Along the way, the careful construction of horizons in the level design of Half-Life 2 (Valve Corporation, 2004) becomes an opportunity to discuss phenomenology's insistence on the world's resistance to skepticism, modes of player labor throughout the version history of Minecraft (Mojang, 2011) present a chance to address how games simultaneously exist as software and player experience, and an overview of the movement capabilities of avatars in various platformer games draws insights from ecological psychology while complicating our notion of identification in games. Concluding with a chapter covering Phil Solomon's series of videos In Memoriam (Mark LaPore), machinima pieces created through the appropriation of videogame imagery, this dissertation ultimately considers whether videogames' worldishness renders them fundamentally distinct not only from other varieties of moving-image media, but visual media as a whole, as traditionally conceived.;"Enough of a World" is broken into three parts, each with a different focus and distinct theoretical foundation. The first section, "Space and Involvement," contains two chapters, both of which address matters of space, with theoretical reference points drawn largely from early- to mid-twentieth century phenomenology and later applications of this body of thought within the areas of architectural theory and humanistic geography. Here, fundamental groundwork is laid, as basic questions of the extent to which the word "world" can be applied to videogames, as well as the overall utility of phenomenology when addressing new media objects, are addressed. The first chapter focuses on Half-Life 2, and ponders the degree to which games, with all of their constraints, deserve the designation of "world," drawing upon the concept of the horizon in phenomenology to interrogate and expand the notion of "world-building" as it has previously been conceived. The second chapter turns to Minecraft, building off of Heidegger's notion of Seinsarten ---the idea that entities can be said to be in multiple ways, simultaneously---to argue for the continued relevance of accounts of user-end experience within new media studies. The second section, "Acting and Enacting," moves from the theme of space to issues of action, and segues from a consideration of the canonical texts of phenomenology toward more contemporary developments such as the actionist theory of perception, ecological psychology, and the enactive approach to cognition. Working within these frameworks, the third chapter examines the ways in which games require players to adapt to the often-unusual movement capabilities of avatars, calling into question the efficacy of "identification," as traditionally conceived in film theory, as a theoretical reference point for the player-avatar relation. The fourth chapter moves on to challenge the idea, dominant for the past decade in videogame studies, that our relation to the fictional worlds of videogames is primarily and fundamentally based upon the imagination. The final section, "Detached Displays," consists solely of the dissertation's final chapter, concluding the dissertation with a consideration of cinema created from games, working with phenomenological film theory to pry apart the experience of games, with their robust sense of Weltlichkeit, from the experience of viewing other moving image media. |
