A narrative theory of games
Abstract
This paper presents a narrative theory of games, building on standard narratology, as a solution to the conundrum that has haunted computer game studies from the start: How to approach software that combines games and stories?
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Some approaches borrow tools and concepts from narratology and literary studies and emphasize that games do not just contain meaning; they also contain texts and tell stories.
“Some approaches borrow tools and concepts from other fields of research such as narratology and literary studies (Aarseth, 2012; Calleja, 2013; Simons, 2006). These approaches emphasize that games do not just contain meaning; they also contain texts and tell stories.”
From Real-time hermeneutics: meaning-making in ludonarrative digital games (2018) · cites this paper as Aarseth, 2012
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Real-time hermeneutics: meaning-making in ludonarrative digital games
Arjoranta, J. (2018) · doi:10.31237/osf.io/uep74 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
Aarseth, E., & Möring, S. (2020) · International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games · doi:10.1145/3402942.3402978 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Self-citationAtmaja, P. W., & Sugiarto (2022) · Lecture Notes in Computer Science · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-22298-6_20 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
- Authors
- Aarseth, E.
- Affiliations
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- Corresponding author
- Aarseth, Espen
- ORCID
- Aarseth, Espen
- Venue
- Proceedings of the International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2012-05-29
- Pages
- 129-133
- OpenAlex
- W2088876590
- Cited by
- 253
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 28 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 30 · 2020: 29 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 22 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 17 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 6
- FWCI
- 23.18
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) (publishedVersion)
- IT University Of Copenhagen (IT University of Copenhagen) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Games and Media
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Narrative Theory and Analysis
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Artificial Intelligence in Games
- Keywords
- narrative theory, games, video games, game narrative, game studies
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
