Remediating Video Games in Contemporary Fiction: Literary Form and Intermedial Transfer

Abstract

Game scholars have discussed both the ways in which video games structurally differ from literary fiction and the ways in which they remediate motifs and narrative strategies from it. In this article, I reverse the direction of that exchange, arguing that video games are disclosing new perspectives on both literary writing and literary interpretation. My focus is on how literature can integrate ludic strategies on a formal level, rather than by merely thematizing games (as genre fiction does extensively). I thus discuss three formal devices—multimodality, present-tense narration, and loop-like repetitions—that evince considerable literary interest in gaming culture. Through these formal experimentations, literature participates in a media environment that is significantly shaped by games. I argue that this intermedial transfer also offers an opportunity for a literary scholarship to enrich its conceptual and interpretive toolbox through dialogue with both game studies and gaming culture.