Why We Need Fiction during the Covid-19 Pandemic? Videogames: A Sketch for a Genre Typology
Why We Need Fiction during the Covid-19 Pandemic? Videogames: A Sketch for a Genre Typology

Summary/Abstract: Fiction is an invention that allows humankind to expand, and a state of affairs that can be analysed from several different points of view. While pondering the purpose of this invention, we must consider the different uses it is designed for, and recognise the differences between fiction in everyday life, fiction in literature, and virtual reality. By incorporating factual, historical and verified material evidence, fiction inspires the reader to continually question the boundaries of fiction and faction using quotability, editing and collaging. The profusion of archive documents relating to important world events, wars, genocides, depressions, collective traumas and diseases, interwoven with the space of fiction, requires an active reader who will be able to follow all the elements of the work of literature, understand the author’s engaged position, and consciously develop one of his own. The transmedial narratology theory, on the other hand, analyses how different media build story worlds, the implications on their recipients, and the opportunities for subversion. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been situations when fiction was able to better explain what was going on in the world than science. Gaming, fiction and fictionalisation explain and help predict the outcome or result. The truth is no longer an absolute concept, but depends on its interpreter. In the present context, when social rules are less clear or are completely incomprehensible, a return to games and fiction is a principle that helps us better understand our environment and other people’s reactions. The artificially created world plays an important role in this. Contrary to our tradition, based on Aristotle’s postulates, our idea of the virtual now means that we see perfection as means to repair the imperfect world. There are no mistakes in virtual worlds. We choose and love virtual persons because they never let us down. We are inclined to avoid the real life and its negative aspects, such as habits, illness, aging and death, and immerse ourselves in videogames as an escape during the pandemic. The paper discusses the relationship between adaptation and emulation of new media, genre positioning of videogames in the literary and media genealogy, and their role during the long-lasting social isolation we have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, which presents us with a double thesis: videogames can be used as a tool for social criticism, and the boundary between reality and virtual reality will eventually become immaterial.

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