The word game means the world : the dimension of the video game in cognitive narrative theory

Autor podpisany jako Krzysztof M. Maj. Streszcz. po ang.

Maj outlines the main concepts of post-classical (cognitive and trans-medial) narrative theory (especially storyworld) in order to reintegrate the category of fiction and the fictional world into video game research. This integration of questions of mimeticism, representation (and its realism) or the intensity of the reception goes hand in hand with a discussion on Lisbeth Klastrup's notion of "a world’s worldness" as well as the history of theoretical and narratological concepts of perceiving the world, world-building and inhabiting fictional worlds. In the final part Maj draws on Tadeusz Sławek's oikological reflections to explore the increasingly frequent occurrence of houses and the inhabitation of virtual space in world-building video games - a phenomenon that suggests that a literary theory offers an apt perspective to tackle the most recent problems in games studies.