Dominic Arsenault

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor (Full) at Université de Montréal

Published by the MIT Press in the "Platform Studies" series, this is a book about the Super Nintendo Entertainment System that is not celebratory or self-congratulatory. Most other accounts declare the Super NES the undisputed victor of the “16-bit console wars” of 1989–1995. In this book, Dominic Arsenault reminds us that although the SNES was a s...

This paper provides a critical overview of the notion of genre in game studies and in the video game industry. Using the concept of genre requires one to acknowledge the recent developments of genre theory in other fields of research; one such development is the contestation of the idea of generic evolution. After a comparative analysis, video game...

Abstract Situated in the,aftermath of the ludology versus narratology debate that shaped the early years of video game,studies at the start of the 21 st century, this thesis erects the foundations,of a narratological conception,of video games. The author attempts to determine whether narrativity is intrinsic to the video game medium, in what ways i...

This paper re-frames virtual interactive characters as “subjective interfaces” with the purpose of highlighting original affordances for interactive storytelling through conversation. This notion is theoretically unpacked in the perspectives of narratology, interaction design and game design. Existing and imagined scenarios are presented in which s...

Cet article vise à expliciter les conditions pragmatiques dans lesquelles la scénarisation de jeux vidéo se pratique au Québec, et la réalité des métiers qui lui sont associés. En s’appuyant sur des témoignages recueillis auprès de trois praticiennes qui travaillent à la scénarisation de jeux vidéo dans des studios à Montréal, les auteur·rices décr...

In this article, we will sketch a historical portrait of the video game sector in Quebec, both on the geographical plane (from Montreal to Quebec City through Trois-Rivières and other off-centred studios) and for different firm types (from the large studios to independent developers and amateurs). This historical overview will shed light on the cha...

À l’issue de ce numéro, nous avons choisi de laisser au professeur Dominic Arsenault toute latitude afin de proposer une conclusion « ludique ». Celle-ci offre à la fois la perspective d’un professeur en études du jeu vidéo (ou sciences du jeu dans le vocable européen) sur les travaux présents dans ce numéro, mais aussi le témoignage d’un chercheur...

Qual é a natureza da experiência de um jogador de videogames? Ter uma experiência de um jogo de computador é ter uma experiência funcional, adaptada à sua função como jogo de computador. Essa função é definida pela soma das propriedades que produzem o significado de uma experiência de jogo de computador, distinta das outras experiências da existênc...

Les produits culturels font parfois concurrence à l’enseignement de l’histoire dans les écoles. La popularité des jeux vidéo est croissante et pose un double questionnement : la véracité du récit historique scénarisé par le jeu vidéo et l’assimilation réelle de ce récit par les joueurs. Nous proposons une étude de cas sur la série Assassin’s Creed...

This essay is a history of video games in Canada, and it contains a description of the Canadian video game industry and how it has grown. Descriptions of video game companies and individual video games are also given. The essay explains how the Canadian video game industry has grown and what it is like today.

Thirty-nine essays explore the vast diversity of video game history and culture across all the world's continents. Video games have become a global industry, and their history spans dozens of national industries where foreign imports compete with domestic productions, legitimate industry contends with piracy, and national identity faces the global...

This paper focuses on the phenomenon of interactive movies. As a genre that has almost totally vanished, defined mostly by the abundant use of filmed video sequences (called Full‐Motion Video or FMV) on which the player/gamer can intervene, the interactive cinema has left an impressive corpus seemingly forgotten. In this research, we call attention...

De Lucasfilm a LucasArts Il est difficile de discuter des developpements intermediaux de Star Wars sans evoquer la vision de l’instigateur de cet univers de science-fiction en constante expansion, George Lucas, qui a su mesurer l’importance qu’allait prendre le jeu video (et, plus generalement, le phenomene des produits derives). Au-dela des consid...

This paper combines several empirical studies and some theoretical research to shed some light on the dark, undefined waters in which we plunge when we are "immersed". Immersion, across all media, comes in three different types and in three different degrees, and can be hindered by barriers, such as inaccessibility, or favored by fuel, such as usin...

"Mémoire présenté à la Faculté des études supérieures en vue de l'obtention du grade de M.A. en études cinématographiques" Thèse (M. A.)--Université de Montréal, 2007.