Video games fiction reality within the sociocultural sphere of the contemporary media landscape

Eliseev Andrey Valer'evich

The study conceptualizes the phenomenon of video games synthetic worlds’ fiction reality in today's society media expanse. Among all the existing forms of interactive storytelling within the context of virtual culture video games are generally considered to be the most popular one. It was largely their intensive extending that almost all human activities and institutions went through so called mediation and gamification processes (both meaning the integration of interactive audio-visual elements in non-game experience for greater enhancement of user's attention). The statement that video games function not only as tools of societies’ mediation but also as high value sociocultural artifacts has been put forward. The research focuses on bringing out the connections between digital games and virtual culture disseminated by mass media and mass communication, and also identifies the new interactive media impact on situations of interpersonal and external interaction, as well as on the modernization of social institutions. The generalized description of fiction reality and its sociocultural meanings incorporated in a technically constructed virtual space of video game has been presented. It had become apparent that video games have a diverse impact on a person, focusing on his psychology, interests and needs.

Keywords:fiction reality, virtual culture, physical reality, media landscape, video games, digitization, gamification, digital technologies, information society, online communication, multimedia