The Theoretical Foundations of Video Games

Video games are among the modern media that, due to their inter-disciplinary nature, cannot be explained using old communication and media theories. This paper, by passing conventional theories of communication, seeks to establish a framework for analyzing theoretical foundations, upon which video games operate. For this purpose, it views video games as a "play" model and with an approach that regards video games as an educational and media source for transmission of culture, claims that in video games, especially in the political and strategic genre, with "producing hyper-reality" –as Baudrillard believes- a copy of reality is produced that replaces the real version. And through symbols and simulations existing in the game, it replaces the reality so that sometimes there is no actual version in the real world to which can we refer the game. Herman and Chomsky' model of "Manufacturing Consent" plus the ideological mechanism governing the game contributes to the creation of hyper-reality.