디지털 게임 속 의상기호에 관한 연구 - '페르소나5'의 캐릭터 의상을 중심으로

Abstract

The costumes of digital games are not only an important visual tool that reveals the personality of a character, but also objects that help the player express emotion and personality. In media contents, costume has a function of expressing the social and psychological changes of the characters from the practical meaning and symbolically represents the inflection point of the narrative. Nonetheless, the research on game cost up to now focuses mainly on analyzing the design characteristics and improving the expression system, and the attempts to explore the semiotic meaning of the character costumes were insufficient. In this paper, we tried to analyze game costumes from the viewpoint of costume symbol, and to explore its meaning and role. To do this, we examined preceding studies on game costume and their symbol. In the online multiplayer game, the game costume was used as a means of creating social meaning and expressing the players' personalities. This is interpreted as reflecting the characteristics of online games that emphasize free choice of players and social interaction. On the other hand, in the case of a single-player game in which the narrative experience is emphasized, it has been shown that the game dress can serve as a symbol for symbolizing the character's position, role or personality. In other words, the costume in the game contents also functions as a cost symbol for text interpretation. Since then, this article analyzed the dress message of the game costume through the console game <Persona 5> released in 2017. As a result of the analysis, the game costume symbolically expressed the character's condition and psychological situation, and it was shown through the dress plot that the characters' growth process and awareness were visually transmitted.