Q: How does the fantasy genre relate to modern media such as video games?
A: The fantasy genre is heavily influenced by modern media such as video games and vice versa. The extreme focus and illusion in modern media can depict the unreal is real in video games and to subconsciously be aware of your character and its well being such as to keep your character alive, kill opponents and to gather skills on the way and to meet the ultimate arch nemesis in the final level. This being said, the fantasy genre has similar characteristics such as character(s), plot, opponents, mentors and goal(s) even series that would translate into different series of video games or levels. The dramatic difference however is in video games you have ‘some’ control over your character in a situation instead of reading linear the story that you have no control over (unless when you skip pages, chapters etc.) Burns (2004) states that in video games just like most fantasy genres the “hero character is marked by vulnerability and need for helpers” he goes on to say that the main difference however is that you have to be second person in the video game for instance in Harry potter chamber of secrets video game, “You must beat the spiders” instead of being rescued by a flying car and so on and so forth.
Reference
Burn, A. (2005). Potter-Literacy – from book to game and back again; literature, film, game and cross-media literacy. Papers: Explorations into Children’s Literature. Vol 14, No 3.
I like your Harry Potter reference, but also you could note just how many video games are being made into movies, and vice versa. To the videogame oblivious (like myself) it's hard to keep up with which came first, the movie or video game. I think this reflects very highly on the video game genre and shows just how much effort and though goes into the storyline, not only the graphics and amount of deaths that occur.
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