Notes

1. By players playing as a character and participating in the game’s rules, they are already interacting with the text. For Kristine Jørgensen video games do not contain a fourth wall “in the same way that much traditional fiction does” (Jørgensen, 2013, 125). The game itself is always directly addressing the player on how to play the game via the heads-up display (HUD), tutorials, menus, etc. Therefore, the breaking of the fourth wall is partly tied to the diegesis of the text. In other words, the video game medium can only operate if the player interacts with the game (Aarseth, 1997, p. 1; Krzywinska, 2002, p. 206). When academics discuss the game addressing the players in more “conventional ways” that have been defined in theater such as alienating the audience.

2. While video games have a tumultuous past as journalist and politicians regarded them as dangerous for children and American society (Kocurek, 2012; McKernan, 2013: 308-309; Payne & Alilunas, 2016) and low culture (Parker, 2018: 78) and critics such as Ebert have (in)famously stated that “video games can never be art” (Ebert, 2010), academics like Felan Parker have argued that they are indeed art (Parker, 2018). I do not intend to recenter this debate here, instead I will proceed with the assumption that video games are art.

3. Conker’s Bad Fur Day (Rare, 2001) would be a fruitful example as Conker, the protagonist, regularly address the audience for comedic purposes.

4. I do later analyze Spec Ops for how academics have incorrectly used Brecht to study the game.

5. YouTuber SuperHobbit discovered 42 sanity effects (SuperHobbit, 2011).

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