computer Game Film: the media experience of FAHRENHEIT and HEAVY RAIN at intersection games film

Is it still a computer game, or is it already a film? Despite the age gap between them, the two media have long been in a complex relationship with one another. The direct confrontation between games and films, brought about by the increasing commercialisation of digital games, has led not only to competition in the entertainment media market, but also to fruitful intermedia interactions, which have resulted in a convergence of approaches to the creation of audiovisual realism. In *ComputerSpielFilm*, key aspects of these convergent developments are traced, and finally the two computer games *FAHRENHEIT* and *HEAVY RAIN* - as extraordinary embodiments of this media-related tension - are taken as a starting point to examine, particularly in contrast to film, the constitutive nature of the multifaceted medium of the computer game and its own distinct mediality.