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MYTHOLOGY CONSTRUCTION IN VIRTUAL WORLDS OF VIDEO GAMES
Abstract
Development of information and communication technologies, including virtual reality, hardware and video game industry makes the issues of virtual worlds and objects existence quite urgent. To what extent are those real? Do virtual worlds exist, or are they just fiction and illusion? How mythological are they? The main goal of this article is to reveal mythology construction in video games virtual worlds. We illustrate how video games construct their own virtual worlds, which are mythological within, including syncretism, symbolism, etc. Myth creates a certain model of the world here along with a person, interacting with it, which is non-critically apprehended by a gamer, who treats those as parts of reality. We have analyzed and showed the mythological structures in those virtual worlds. The main research results are the analysis of the French Revolution mythology and investigation of the mythological narrative nature, as exemplified by the video game series Assassins Creed. We have disclosed the key feature of video games, which is performativity. It means the use of formal conventions (e.g., user interface) specific for video games being a medium.
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