English 391: Studies in a Genre
Spring 2023 at the University of Victoria
lək̓ʷəŋən and WSÁNEĆ territories
Taught by Jentery Sayers (he / him)
Player Story (Final Draft)
A “Player Story” is a methodology my lab developed to evaluate what genres do in video games. It is grounded in activity theory, and it treats video games as activity systems. It draws from aspects of neoclassical, structuralist, post-romantic, reader response, rhetorical, and cultural studies of genre.
A Player Story documents the following experiences of video games and genre:
- Playing and reacting to them,
- Making meaning with them,
- Being affected by them,
- Metagaming them, and
- Arguing with them.
A Player Story is, in the words of Kishonna Gray, a “narrative description” of a video game as a system of activities. Player Stories are both personal and social, and their authors toggle between immersion and critical distance.
The two most common formats for Player Stories are:
- Video essays with voice-over narration and
- Written essays with images and/or embedded media such as video and audio.
I am asking you to compose your own Player Story for your final project in this course. You should focus on one video game selected from this list.
Before You Start
I recommend preparing for your Player Story by:
- Completing at least one playthrough of the video game you selected.
- Reviewing “Rhetorical Genre Studies” by Bawarshi and Reiff.
- Reviewing The English 391 Activity Analysis Workbook!, which defines the elements of an activity analysis, describes what that analysis does in both game studies and genre studies, and provides you with examples of activity diagrams and the sort of interpretive work you can perform with them.
- Completing the worksheets I circulated during “Workshop Week” (March 28, 29, and 31).
- Reviewing this activity diagram of video games as activity systems.
- Completing a blank activity diagram to visualize and plan your Player Story about a video game you selected. Recall that activity diagrams are not representations or models of video games but rather arguments about video games.
- Chatting with me in March or early April about any questions or concerns you have.
You are welcome to choose one of the following approaches to a Player Story for the sake of your own research in this class:
- A video essay (8-15 minutes) with voice-over narration.
- A written essay (2000-2750 words) with images and/or embedded media.
- Another approach, which you should propose by email to me before 11:30am on Friday, March 17th. Labour-wise, this approach should correspond roughly with the minute and word counts provided above: 8-15 minutes or 2000-2750 words.
Whichever approach you select, you should also include:
- Five sentences describing the project for your intended audience. Please make clear who that audience is. You can include these five sentences at the beginning of your Player Story (in the document or video) or in the comments section of the Brightspace submission form for the Player Story assignment.
Your intended audience need not be an academic one, yet they should be a community who cares in some way about the video game you selected.
You are more than welcome to draw conventions from genres such as the Let’s Play for this assignment. Your Player Story can, for instance, use first-person language, make observations or arguments from lived experience, comment on the video game in real-time (as you or someone else plays it), and even address its audience directly (i.e., “break the fourth wall”).
Your Player Story does not need to be a conventional essay or academic argument; however, it should engage a secondary or tertiary contradiction in a way that demonstrates critical thinking about video games, genre, and activity theory (see “Aims” below for more).
If you prefer to write academically, perhaps because you’re most familiar with the genre of the academic essay, then you are more than welcome to approach your Player Story accordingly. It may resemble ethnographic writing or even literary or cultural studies this way. That said, even if your Player Story is academic in style and tone, some or all of it should be written in first-person language, mostly because a Player Story is meant to document lived and social experiences. (See “Aims” below for more information.)
Aims
Your Player Story should:
- Document your experience of playing a video game, reacting to it, making meaning with it, being affected by it, metagaming it, and even arguing with it. According to activity theory, this experience is both personal and social: a “shared pulse” that you feel or process uniquely. It also involves expected and unexpected forms of uptake.
- Narrate that experience for your intended audience by treating the video game as an activity system in which you and a specific community participate. You should identify that community and note whether you’re a member of it.
- Address how a genre set functions as an activity in the video game to: 1) coordinate the story elements with the art, design, and mechanics; and 2) mediate relations between participants and their motives. One of these participants should be you, the player, hence the expectations of some first-person language in your Player Story.
- Engage a secondary or tertiary contradiction in the video game’s activities as you experienced them. This contradiction should be the “problem” or topic at the core of your Player Story, and your Player Story should communicate for whom the contradiction matters and why it’s important today.
- Express a clear theme or line of inquiry your audience can follow from start to finish. This should be the “glue” or “thread” that brings your Player Story together and sustains it for your intended audience.
- Be intentionally designed and scoped such that it does not try to address every aspect of the video game or all topics related to it.
- Be supported by evidence other than the video game you selected. You should quote, paraphrase, or otherwise integrate material from at least five external sources, which may include academic publications, popular games criticism, other video games, your video game’s official website, Let’s Plays and streams, and even forums where your video game is discussed.
- Demonstrate a palpable awareness of your intended audience and provide them (via documentation) with access to parts of the video game. You are also welcome to address your audience directly by breaking the fourth wall.
Academic Integrity
By responding to this assignment, you confirm that:
- You followed UVic academic regulations and observed standards of scholarly integrity (e.g., no plagiarism or cheating).
- You completed this assignment individually and not with a friend, classmate, or group.
- Your response is your own, excluding quoted and paraphrased material that is clearly cited.
- You cited any sources, including books, articles, videos, video games, and internet sources, that you used to compose your Player Story.
Assessment
I will use UVic’s official grading system and the Aims expressed above to assess your Player Story according to the following rubric:
- A+ (90-100): Your Player Story exceeds the Aims of this prompt, affords original insight into the material you studied, and could appear (with minor revisions) in a forum for publishing popular or academic criticism of video games.
- A (85-89): Your Player Story exceeds the Aims of this prompt and affords mostly original insight into the material you studied.
- A- (80-84): Your Player Story mostly exceeds the Aims of this prompt and affords some original insight into the material you studied.
- B+ (77-79): Your Player Story partly exceeds the Aims of this prompt and affords some original insight into the material you studied.
- B (73-76): Your Player Story meets or partly exceeds the Aims of this prompt.
- B- (70-72): Your Player Story meets the Aims of this prompt.
- C+ (65-69): Your Player Story meets some Aims of this prompt.
- C (60-64): Your Player Story meets a few Aims of this prompt.
- D (50-59): Your Player Story does not meet two or more Aims of this prompt.
- F (0-49): Your Player Story is incomplete or does not meet any Aims of this prompt.
Please also note that:
- 1 point will be deducted for every 25 words or every 10 seconds over the limit.
- 10 points will be deducted if no works cited / references page is included in your Player Story.
- Your mark for the Player Story will constitute 30% of your final mark in this course.
What to Submit
Please submit the following materials for your Player Story:
- Five sentences describing the project for its intended audience. Be sure to identify that intended audience.
- The Player Story itself: a video essay (8-15 minutes) with voice-over narration, a written essay (2000-2750 words) with images and/or embedded media such as video and audio, or another approach I approved via email.
- A list of works cited / references at the end of your Player Story (in the document or video). You are welcome to use your preferred citation style (MLA, Chicago, or APA, e.g.).
You can submit your Player Story as a DOCX, ODT, PAGES, PDF, MOV, MP4, or HTML file with attachments (video, audio, images, or text) where applicable.
Please do not forget to cite video games from which you draw examples. Parenthetical citations of video games are not necessary, but reference entries are. Here’s a sample MLA reference entry for a video game we’ve studied in class:
- Han-Tani, Melos and Marina Kittaka. Even the Ocean. Analgesic Productions, 2016.
Columns A, B, C, and D in this spreadsheet provide you with all the information you need to reference video games in this course.
Finally, you are welcome to use this MLA reference entry for Bawarshi and Reiff’s work when quoting or paraphrasing it in your Player Story:
- Bawarshi, Anis S. and Mary Jo Reiff. Genre: An Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy. Parlor Press, 2010.
When to Submit It
Please submit your Player Story by Tuesday, April 18th at 11:30am.
I will deduct five points per working day (excluding holidays and weekends) for every submission I receive after Wednesday, April 19th at 11:30am. This gives you one day of wiggle room for your final project. I will close the Brightspace submission portal for the Player Story assignment at 11:30am on Monday, April 24th.
