WEEK FOUR - Ethan

What other influences does Burn (2005) suggest for Harry Potter? How does the fantasy genre relate to modern media such as video games?

The genre of fantasy novels has a major influence in modern media of video games.  Many fantasy novels in today’s age have also been turned into video games to allow the audience, which are mostly children to be engaged and be involved in the stories. An example of this is the ‘Harry Potter’ games. These Harry Potter games are based on the novels and allow the audience/player to play the role of their favorite characters as they complete the story line. Burn (2005) says, it also involves the means of puzzle solving and game survival which characterize the books.  Another example of the genre of fantasy affecting video games is ‘The Lord of the Rings’ game which as Burn (2005) said, gave rise to one of the most popular of modern game-genres, the RPG (role-playing game). The genre of fantasy novels are normally the starting point for games like this as the video games follow the story line of the novel, only changing minor things to make the game either last longer or more challenging and interesting.

References:

Burn, A (2005) ‘Potter-Literacy – from book to game and back again; literature, film, game and cross-media literacy’, in Papers: Explorations into Children’s literature Vol 14, No 3