Analysing a videogame

As I was going through the first reading by Perron and Wolf I came across an interesting point – that the study of video games needs its own scholarly tools and analytic concepts which guide it. It is interesting, however, to look at the way in which the analytical skills used to analyse other media (such as film and television) may or may not be applied to the study of video games. If we were to do so, would the study of video games not really make a lot of sense?

For example, could we say that a high angle shot used in a video game portrays certain ideas about the characters in the video game? Probably not. Or that the music (which the player may be able to control/change) says something about the characters or the target audience of the game? Perhaps. Hence, do these commonly used analytical skills for a similar media type such as film apply? They probably don’t. But if that’s the case, then what kind of roots does this area have to rely on? - Or does it not really have any?

I guess it’s rather interesting to think of video games as something we can analyse in the same way as a film or television programme – I look forward to seeing how this can be done!