Shinji Matsunaga

Attention: I'm majoring in game studies, not in game development or game design. For those who are interested in making games, please look elsewhere.

I'm studying video games from a philosophical and aesthetic perspective. My current focus is on the medium of video games and its formal features, and the analysis of the critical practices on works of video games.

Representation in videogames

My doctoral dissertation is about the structure of representation and signification in video games.

In the light of their historical development, I take video games as a hybrid form of traditional games, such as chess or soccer, and fiction, such as novel or film. On that basis, I try to construct a theoretical framework that will be able to describe the ways of signification in games and fiction respectively, and the varied, complex relationship between them.

Such signifying aspects as narrative, temporal or spatial representation, simulation, player's actions, and so on, will be adequately explained in terms of this framework.

Other philosophical / aesthetic interests on video games

1. Video games and traditional games: the peculiarity of computer games when compared to non-computer ones.
2. Narrative in games: narratives that are emergent, non-linear, environmental, and so on.
3. What properties make gameplay (aesthetically) valued: an aesthetic approach to "fun" or "good gameplay."
4. Indie game culture: its notable artistic orientation.
5. Pixel arts as an object of aesthetic appreciation.

Other interests in philosophy of art

1. Definitions of art.
2. Popular vs high arts.
3. Depiction / pictorial representation.
4. Aesthetic judgments on fashion: in particular, the analysis of the concept of "fashionable."