Creating From Video Games: Rhetoric of Video Game Détournement

This paper aims to present the theoretical frame of the Ph.D. dissertation: Rhetoric of Video Game Détournement: The Pokémon Case. The topic of this dissertation is the “détournement” of video games by players, that is to say: the creative practices that use video games as materials or as matrices to produce derivative works. Precisely, this notion covers a diversified range of productions whose common feature is to be created from video games: mods (modifications of the game’s code by users in order to create a renewed game), fanfictions (narrative texts written by fans and based on pre-existing fictional universes), or machinimas, speedruns and let’s plays (which are various types of videos recorded inside video games). In this presentation, I will develop the notion of “détournement” and show that its interconnection with the concept of “play” raises some theoretical issues: what part of the game is transformed in these productions? From which degree of variation can play be considered as “transformative”? From which norm of the playing activity could we identify a “deviant” form of play? These are the questions I will try to answer.