Exploring a universe with two faces: A paratextual analysis on the marketing campaign Hunt the Truth of Halo 5: Guardians

Abstract

Marketing in the gaming industry over the years has become bigger and more complex at times. The Hunt the Truth campaign for the game Halo 5: Guardians is such an example. The aim of this research is to investigate such a marketing campaign, using Hunt the Truth as a case study, from a dual perspective. Not only can such a campaign be looked at from a paratextual promotional perspective, but also from a transmedia perspective, as the marketing campaign tells a new story within a larger franchise. To get a better understanding how this campaign functions as both a promotional and transmedia narrative object, and how this dual view influences the concept of worldness by Klastrup and Tosca, I performed a paratextual analysis. The paratextual analysis uses the five characteristics proposed by Genette to analyse the paratextual relation, and is supplemented by methodological steps using the definition of worldness. The analysis revealed the paratextual relation between the marketing campaign and the game, and subsequently allowed me to look at the concept of worldness from a promotional perspective. Unveiling the boundaries of a concept like worldness when it is only looked at from a transmedia perspective, an attempt was made to expand its definition by including gaming capital from Consalvo.