Qualitative media analysis reveals fan-created walkthroughs serve as intertextual narratives among gamers, highlighting video game players as active producers of cultural meaning.
This article argues that to better understand and theorize video games and game playing, it is necessary to study the activities of gamers themselves. This research examines game fans' construction of walkthroughs, which guide other players through the action and story of the game. It is argued that these walkthroughs function as narratives for gamers, which are read intertextually by game fans. Further, gamers should be considered active creators of meaning regarding games, as they exhibit many of the characteristics of traditional media fans, including active reading of the media text, construction of media texts to share with other fans, and knowledge of intertextual relations between various media forms.
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Mia Consalvo (2003) studied this question.
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