Romantic Love in Games, Games as Romantic Love

Abstract

In some games, the player is positioned in the role of a lone hero, who has to overcome obstacles and defeat adversaries, in order to save the woman they love. It is argued that such games follow the tradition of adventure romances dating back to 12th century France. From those romances, a particular understanding of love was shaped, romantic love that is. Romantic love as a cultural phenomenon is situated in a limited historic period, in which it pertained to a certain experience of love, that of desire which is refined to something honourable, elegant, and civilized through personal suffering and sacrifice. As such romantic love was the product of a specific set of chivalrous rules, which the aristocracy aspired to so as to elevate and discern themselves from the commoners. This experience was mostly witnessed in literature than real life, or as Huizinga claims in sports, games, and tournaments. In the current paper, it is argued that digital games that uphold this tradition are able to offer to their players the experience of romantic love because they constitute challenges to the fulfilment of one's desire. In that regard, they afford the experience of romantic love in its historically situated meaning due to their code. This posits digital games as the appropriate medium to offer romantic love as they form manifestations of the experience as such.