Nele Van de Mosselaer
ABSTRACT
This paper serves as a brief introduction to the practice of genetic game criticism. Genetic criticism is an approach to the study of textual works that specifically analyses the production process of these works, and the different versions the work took on during its creation. I argue that similarly approaching digital games as fluid, coded artefacts is a useful strategy for game analysis. As digital games inherently contain different versions of themselves, including translations and cut content, they form an ideal object of study for genetic critics. In the last part of this paper, I illustrate how a kind of “folk genetic game criticism” is already fruitfully being performed, with specific reference to YouTuber Lance McDonald's investigations of alpha versions of Dark Souls III.
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