Whose mind is the signal? Focalization in video game narratives

Abstract

In this paper, I explore instances in which video games convey an experience of subjectivity, utilizing an appropriation of Gérard Genette’s (1980) concept of focalization. Through an analysis of The Sims 3 (The Sims Studio 2009), Top Spin 4 (2K Czech 2011), Mirror’s Edge (EA Digital Illusions CE 2008) and Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar North 2014), I demonstrate that internal focalization can be made apparent in a video game through its audiovisual presentation, its selection and restriction of private knowledge, and its ludic affordances. I provide a framework for analyzing games that seek to present a diversity of perspectives, and to allow players to access modes of thinking that accord with a perspective other than their own. This framework can assist researchers, critics, and designers to identify ways in which video games express elements of internal focalization that communicate the mental patterns of a perspective character.