Videogames, a teoria do meio e a comunicação : novos meios, novos ambientes, novas habilidades : análise de DJFFNY, um encanador e a(s) identidade(s)

Defining videogames as a media product in the contemporary mass culture industry, this paper proposes, in essence, an investigation of the cultural and social changes resulting from this assertion, questioning the relationship gamer/character/avatar. Another purpose is to understand the process of transformation of this multibillion dollar industry. It is therefore necessary to know about the history of this virtual environment of entertainment since its emergence in the fifties. Videogames, understood as cultural products, represent our beliefs, attitudes, and a number of situations in which we play at certain times of our lives. The games’ focus is to bring players’ participation and interaction into their narrative, establishing a deeper connection, beyond the mere recreation that would be the case in, for example, the game Pong. Our goal is also to discuss how programmers’ attention and interest was not in the narrative dimension, but in that the player recognize and name a point on the screen. This situation was transformed when Shigeru Miyamoto proposed, in 1981, the main character in his game: a portly plumber named Jumper Man, later renamed “Mario”. We put forward an important issue, namely, the evolution of the technology which enabled Miyamoto to introduce a new game structure: horizontal movement. The player started the game on the left side of the screen, and knew that the end would be on the right side of the screen, and so on. For example, Super Mario Brothers brought forth a new revolution in domestic videogames, which we call "Miyamoto’s Revolution", and which marked the birth of characters and narrative in videogames. From this historical moment, the degree of people’s involvement in games, now given the status of an avatar, gains another dimension. This implied a radical transformation in the world of virtual entertainment. To contextualize the understanding of another structuring paradigm of the relationship gamer/character/avatar, we intend to consider, too, in greater depth, the game Def Jam: Fight For NY. In this revolutionary game, gamers have the opportunity of creating their avatars as they please, granting them the most distinctive features; existing also the possibility for players to build a literal representation of themselves, questioning in the structure of the game the very relationship gamer/character/avatar. This paper aims to point out the theoretical references investigated in the field of communication and culture.