Game Play: Paratextuality in Contemporary Board Games

by Paul Booth

The 21st century has seen a board game renaissance. At a time when streaming television finds millions of viewers, video games garner billions of dollars, and social media grows ever more intense, little has been written about the rising popularity of board games. And yet board games are one of our fastest growing hobbies, with sales increasing every year. Today's board games are more than just your average rainy-day mainstay. Once associated solely with geek subcultures, complex and strategic board games are increasingly dominating the playful media environment.

The popularity of these complex board games mirrors the rise of more complex cult media products. In Game Play: Paratextuality in Contemporary Board Games, Paul Booth examines complex board games based on book, TV, and film franchises, including Doctor Who, The Walking Dead, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, The Hunger Games and the worlds of H.P. Lovecraft. How does a game represent a cult world? How can narratives cross media platforms? By investigating the relationship between these media products and their board game versions, Booth illustrates the connections between cult media, gameplay, and narrative in a digital media environment.

Genres: Games, Nonfiction

264 pages, Paperback

First published April 23, 2015

About the author

Paul Booth (1981-) is a Professor of Media and Cinema Studies & Communication Technology in the College of Communication at DePaul University, in downtown Chicago. He received his Ph.D. in Communication and Rhetoric from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2009. He researches New Media, Technology, Popular Culture, and Cultural Studies. He teaches classes in media studies, television narrative, convergence and digital media, popular culture, social media, communication technology, and participatory cultures. He is the editor of Fan Phenomena: Doctor Who, and the author of Game Play: Paratextuality in Contemporary Board Games, Playing Fans: Negotiating Fandom and Media in the Digital Age, Time on TV: Temporal Displacement and Mashup Television and Digital Fandom: New Media Studies. He has also published in the books The Languages of Doctor Who, Remake Television, Transgression 2.0, American Remakes of British Television, and Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy. He is currently enjoying a cup of coffee.

Reviews

[Victoria Hawco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why do neither of the Hunger Games board games simulate you playing in the Hunger Games??

[Chris Aylott · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thoughtful study of licensed board games and their relationships to their original texts. Booth explores several of the most important licensed games (Arkham Horror, Knizia's Lord of the Rings, the 2008 Battlestar Galactica), finding jumping off points into discussions of narrative structure, cooperative play, and even the affordances of clicky miniatures. His pattern of looking at two games for each property sometimes backfires, though. The 1978 Battlestar Galactica game is so dull, for instance, that Booth is reduced to talking about Bruce Sterling's spime theory, which was lame even when Sterling coined it. Booth's writing is interesting, though, even if sometimes the topic isn't.

[Nathan Woll · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little too complex for me. I had to work hard to follow everything.

[Kevin Nobel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the categories for analysis fit better than others, but perhaps most importantly this work helps me see games in many different new lights.