叙事学与电子游戏

Narratology and Videogames

在文化数字化的语境中,电子游戏已经成了主流的娱乐形式,Ludology(游戏学)就是近年在西方兴起的研究游戏尤其是电子游戏的新学科。游戏可以呈现为两种模式:paidea(嬉戏)和ludus(游戏),前者主要以快乐体验为基础,后者则遵循规则系统、以胜负为目标。游戏学由于尚没有自己的理论框架而遭遇了叙事学的入侵。游戏与叙事在结构上存在许多相似之处,而且电子游戏中还采用了许多叙事因素,但游戏不是叙事。与此同时,叙事学也面临着数字媒体叙事所带来的种种挑战,需要更新自己的理论范式。游戏学要真正成为独立的学科,首先应建立一个基于经典描写的诗学体系。

Ludology is a new discipline that studies games, especially videogames, the dominant form of entertainment in the context of digital culture. In game studies, a distinction is made between paidea （play） which is based on pleasure experience and ludus （game） which is rules-governed and goal-oriented. Ludology, for lacking its own theoretical framework, is confronted by narratology. Game is not narrative for all the structural similarities between them and narrative elements in games, In the meantime, narratology, challenged by digital media narratives, has to change its paradigm. And Ludology, to be established as an independent discipline, is supposed to develop its own poetics based on the description of a game canon.