Participation In Narrative And Meaning-making Of Female Video Game Players

Video games have become an important form of entertainment and leisure in modern society.The interactive narrative character of video games makes it necessary for players to participate in the process of game text production for the game to truly make meaning.That is,on the one hand,the game guides the player to make choices in it by providing a narrative framework.And on the other hand,the player will passively use the material provided by the game narrative framework to interpret the meaning of his action,thus obtaining personalized meaning.In this process,players are also the co-creators of game texts.Nowadays,female gamers are close to half of the Chinese game industry,but female gamers are still marginalized in the video game culture.The creative potential of female gamers’ game culture has not been admitted,and the cultural significance of female gamers’ participation in video games needs to be further recognized.The study of female players’ participation in the process of game narrative generation can help understand the active behavior of female players in the game process,analyze how female players produce game texts in the game interaction,examine the special characteristics of female players’ game text production,and explore the deeper meaning and value behind it.And it will enrich the existing video game culture research.This study is a case study of the video game "The Sims 4".The Sims series has a history of 20 years and has a relatively stable gamer base in China.The Sims4,as the most recent product,is also the most popular one at present.The reasons why the sims4 is chosen as an example are as follows: Firstly,because the narrative features of the game encourage players to give full play to their initiative and creativity,making the game has formed a mature participatory video game culture since its launch,providing a rich resource for studying players’ participation in the game narrative.Secondly,this series of games do not have a "female-oriented" banner but still has a large number of female players,and is regarded as a typical female game in related studies.Therefore,it may offer some interesting perspectives for the study of female players’ game motivation and game experience.This study adopts participant observation and in-depth interviews to examine the process of female players’ participation in the game narrative generation and try to understand how these players obtain the meaning of the game.The paper consists of five parts.The introductory chapter talks about the research background,research significance,and research method,and then makes an overview of the existing video game narratives and video game and gender-related studies at home and abroad.The first chapter analyzes the game background and rules of The Sims 4 to analyze how the game provides players with a space of possibility to participate in the game narrative through the pre-defined game framework.The second chapter discusses players’ behaviors of participating in generating game narratives based on fieldwork and interview data.In the game,female players actively draw their original characters and choose NPC characters to study their game stories.Most of these stories revolve around the female characters’ self-growth and intimate relationships,reflecting the importance female players attach to emotional experiences in the game process.Chapter 3 explores how female players’ personalized narrative meanings are produced based on the previous analysis of female players’ behaviors and characteristics of participating in the game narrative generation.Female players enjoy the process of systematic multiple interpretations of game texts more than the sensory stimulation experience brought by the immediate interaction itself.Female players often adjust their game perspective and game behavior to create and interpret game plots with different interpretative perspectives.In the process of making and interpreting,players also often contrast the events in the game with their real daily life experiences,thus gaining a more complex emotional experience.Chapter 4explores the real-life implications of players’ game experiences.For players,how players engage in the game narratives and how they produce meaning in the process affects the construction of players’ gendered subjectivity.For game culture,the narrative participation of female players is also becoming a new resource for constructing the gender culture of game culture.