Intermidiality in a walk through the narrative in fighting games

• Published in: Travessias Vol. 15; no. 2; pp. 304 - 316
• Main Authors: Alisson Preto Souza, Lis Yana de Lima Martinez
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Portuguese
• Published: Universidade Estadual do Oeste do Paraná 01.08.2021
• Subjects: intermidialidade; jogos de luta; mídias; narrativa
• ISSN: 1982-5935
• DOI: 10.48075/rt.v15i2.27779

The goal of this paper is to reflect upon media concepts along with narrative process in the video games, most of all, in the genre fighting games. To do this, firstly, a literary review over narrative and medias was approached, covering ideas about McLuhan (2013), Jenkins (2009), Todorov (2006) and Barthes (2011). Then, the double space between media and gaming narrative helped to grasp how narratives have been presented, especially considering aspects such as structure and marketing. Mortal Kombat (1992-) and Street Fighter (1987-) were used as examples of games in which the important role of narrative prevails, above all, in parallel to hardware and player’s profile evolution. After the comparison, this work identified changes in communication and social behaviour due to narrative and economical background. Besides, we concluded that marketing aspect defines part of how power and knowledge connect with narrative by means of access to the game, its interactivity and the recognition of the player by the enterprise that owns the game franchises.