Date of Award

Fall 2017

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

Committee Director

Kevin Moberly

Committee Member

Marc Ouellette

Committee Member

Delores Philips

Abstract

Presenting a framework for videogame agency based on relationships, the constraints on those relationships, and their context, an examination of the representations of ethos and karma, agency models, and interfaces in the Fallout series is shown. Reviewing ethos through its historical and quantifications across the games, the presentations of the Reputation and “Karma” systems across the games are examined as affecting player choice in different ways. Building across agency models and past scholarship, a temporal framework for agency is considered and applied to a case study of Fallout 3 (2008). Closing the framework through positioning actions as happening within layers of interfaces in videogames and as “in-between” choices and their outcomes, the Fallout series is portrayed as an exemplar of how this framework might appear in other videogames.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/h6r8-8q31

ISBN

9780355778274

Download

Included in

Rhetoric Commons

Share

COinS