Novel versus Game: Players experiencing Assassin’s Creed: Renaissance

Abstract

Ludologists claim that gameplay and simulation, which are the reasons why videogames differ from other types of media, should be the focus when analysing videogames, whereas narratologists believe the narrative to be paramount. However, not much research has been done as to how exactly players experience this difference, which is what this thesis seeks to do with the help of Assassin’s Creed II and Assassin’s Creed: Renaissance. Both were analysed with Herman and Vervaeck’s method for close reading, after which a total of 148 reviews of Assassin’s Creed: Renaissance by 80 players, 39 non-players, and 29 unspecified readers which were categorised as non-players because of players’ tendency to compare the novel with the game. These were taken from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and Goodreads.com and examined with guidelines provided by Baarda et al. Major differences found between the game and the novel on narratological level were the changes in focalisation, narration, time and speech representation. When it comes to the reviews, 56% of the players were negative about the novel, whereas 68% of the non-players were positive. Because of this, it was concluded that, rather than the reading of the novel affecting the experience of the game, the playing of the game had affected the reading of the novel instead, though because of the disparity between opinions, no overarching conclusions could be made. However, it has become clear that gameplay is indeed important for videogames, though the narrative should not be discredited either.