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Unraveling the mortal coil: death and stories of play

Published: 07 August 2018 Publication History

Abstract

The current conversation on death in digital games focuses on the split between screen death and narrative death. At the same time, players telling stories about games often have nuanced conversations regarding the term. The result is a discussion around death in games that could be clearer. In this paper, I will untangle the various ways that players use this term 'death' in their own accounts of play. Using one hundred player stories drawn from the Skyrim user community as a test case, this discussion demonstrates ways that players explore death in their own reflective storytelling regarding play.

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FDG '18: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games
August 2018
503 pages
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Association for Computing Machinery

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Publication History

Published: 07 August 2018

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Author Tags

  1. death
  2. emergence
  3. narrative death
  4. player stories
  5. screen death

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FDG '18
FDG '18: Foundations of Digital Games 2018
August 7 - 10, 2018
Malmö, Sweden

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FDG '18 Paper Acceptance Rate 39 of 95 submissions, 41%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 152 of 415 submissions, 37%

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