Videogames and Fictionalism

Abstract

Videogames depict objects, individuals and situations that, like those depicted in fictions such as novels and films seem imagined rather than real. There has been some resistance within game theory to the idea that videogames and the objects depicted in them are fictional, however. In particular, games scholar Espen Aarseth has argued that some objects seen in videogames are best seen as virtual rather than fictional. This is because virtual objects such as videogame dragons and swords allow player engagement in a way that the fictional objects of novels and films do not. In this paper I will provide an analysis of the concepts of fiction and virtuality that allows the reconciliation of our intuitions about each. The dragons and swords seen in videogames are fictional in being generated as a part of an imaginative game, but they are also virtual in being distinctively robust and interactive fictive props.