Games, New Media & More

A short update on my Bachelor thesis: it’s checked by my supervisor (David B. Nieborg), discussed and last, but not least, awarded with a very nice grade – 8.5 out 0f 10. Great success!

There is a possibility Martijn van Zwieten and myself will write an article (not a peer-reviewed one though) together about our thesis’, since they share a similar perspective and the same case-study, but we’re just in the very first stages of that idea. Of course, I will keep you posted if there is progress, but that may very well take some time. Meanwhile, my Bachelor thesis is now available for download here, and the abstract can be read below.

Abstract

This thesis examines the role Sony, Guerrilla and the market press have played in the appropriation of Killzone 2 by fans, using the concepts paratext and gaming capital as a theoretical framework. By determining which themes Killzone 2’s paratext consists of and which of these themes fans incorporated into their gaming capital, as well as by performing both a quantitative as well as a qualitative analysis of fan-made, nonmarket reviews, this thesis tries to describe that role. As it appears, Sony, Guerrilla and the market press indeed seem to play, to some extent, a significant role in the appropriation of Killzone 2 by fans (Zuurmond, 2009).