Radical game fictionalism

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Tavinor Grant
2019 DiGRA '19 - Abstract Proceedings of the 2019 DiGRA International Conference: Game, Play and the Emerging Ludo-Mix

 

Towards an analysis of virtual realism

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Tavinor Grant
2019 DiGRA '19 - Proceedings of the 2019 DiGRA International Conference: Game, Play and the Emerging Ludo-Mix

That VR media are realistic, or more realistic than other traditional forms of depictive media, has sometimes claimed to be a “common-sense” view (Murphy, 2017). Exactly what comprises the realism of virtual media is not entirely clear and needs careful analysis, however. This paper offers the beginning of a philosophical analysis of the concept of “virtual realism” as it applies to videogames and related media. The term turns out to have several different senses that though related, are materially distinct and of differing credibility. This paper will add depth and clarity to the growing literature on virtual reality media by providing analysis of a key concept that is currently undertheorized.

 

Fictionalism and videogame aggression

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Tavinor Grant
2017 DiGRA '17 - Proceedings of the 2017 DiGRA International Conference

Videogames undoubtedly contain a great deal of apparent violence and aggression. This depictive content has frequently led to both public moral condemnation and the scientific investigation of the possible effects games have on aggression and violence beyond the context of gaming. This paper is not concerned with either the moral or the empirical questions of the effects of game violence, rather it concerns a conceptual problem with the analysis of in-game aggression. The frequently unacknowledged status of almost all videogames as fictions has important implications for our understanding of the content of games and the attitude of players toward it, and has proved a very poor starting point for understanding the function of apparently aggressive and violent gameplay. This paper investigates how the fictional nature of videogames affects the analysis of game aggression and violence, both undermining various assumptions of scientific accounts of game violence, but also leading to promising avenues of investigating the role of fictional aggression in gameplay.