The Batman

Gaming and the 'Parergodic' Work of Seriality in Interactive Digital Environments

Shane Denson's essay argues that seriality in videogames marks a shift from a "parergonal" logic, in which serial figures such as Batman move across analog media and blur the boundary between frame and world, to a "parergodic" logic shaped by the interactive, labor-based navigation of networked digital environments.

• Shane Denson argues that videogame seriality has shifted from a 'parergonal' logic, where figures like Batman move across analog media and blur frame and world, to a 'parergodic' logic shaped by interactive, labor-based navigation of networked digital environments.
• Denson's central case study traces the Batman franchise from Miller and Moore's 1980s graphic novels through Burton's and Nolan's films to the Arkham games, Telltale's episodic adventures, and Arkham VR.
• Denson reads the simulated glitch and crash in Arkham Asylum, which many players mistook for hardware failure, as a moment that exposes the precarity of ergodic play and links it to Sartre's concept of alienated seriality.