From Movable to Still Images:

On the Pictorial Practices of Screenshotting Game Cultures

Abstract

Screenshotting games has become a pervasive pictorial practice for players as well as publishers. Most AAA games now afford a photo mode that freezes the gameplay to encourage players to take pictures of virtual environments and character models. On the one hand, screenshotting is used to share specific situations in games with others, e.g. to capture achievements and easter eggs or to criticize bugs and glitches, on the other hand, screenshotting acts as user-generated advertising on social media and is used by publishers to promote their games in online stores. Either way, screenshots are digital images of and about games, in the sense of what Mitchell (2005, 211) calls “metapictures of media” that reflect and even theorize, in this case, the mediality of games. At a crossroads of different digital media where movable images, i.e. games, turn into still images, i.e. screenshots, these metapictures materialize and impart knowledge about the digital medium they are from and about, e.g. about its gameplay, graphics, user interfaces, player characters, playstyles etc., providing an insightful perspective on game cultures.