Abstract
Are videogames fictions? Kendall Walton’s detailed account of fiction in Mimesis as Make-Believe is the most influential extant account of that category, and we begin this paper by arguing that it should be non-controversial that videogames count as fictions on Walton’s view. However, Grant Tavinor has recently argued that although videogames are fictions, the important Waltonian distinction between work worlds and game worlds breaks down in the case of videogames. We reject Tavinor’s claim and argue that the game/work world distinction is just as robust in the case of videogames as it is in other fictions. To show this we draw attention to two important ontological distinctions and use these to diagnose the errors we think Tavinor is making. Finally, we highlight some cases where there is a clear divergence between what is fictional in the work worlds and game worlds associated with particular videogames.
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Notes
- 1.
We can think of no clear instance of a counterexample to the claim that all videogames are walt-fictions, nor can we think of any principled reason why there could not be such counterexamples. The closest thing to a counterexample we can think of would be a pure text game where players are, say, asked to answer a series of general knowledge questions. However, we think it plausible that even in this case players are supposed to imagine that someone is asking them these questions, and even this may be enough to make such games walt-fictions.
- 2.
We do not assume that these are distinct categories. In fact, we believe that many (perhaps most) videogames are art.
- 3.
Note that Currie’s account is a kind of speech act theory too.
- 4.
Oddly, Tavinor himself later draws attention to this distinction between Walton’s account and his own (2009: 50).
- 5.
As a matter of fact, as alluded to in our introduction, we do think at least some areas of this debate are misguided and that regarding videogames as fictions, even in a stronger non-Waltonian sense, need not be in conflict with regarding them as belonging to these other classes. Addressing this issue in detail here would take us too far from the focus of this paper, but Tavinor (2009: 44–52) discusses at length how virtuality is compatible even with his own, ‘more robust’, notion of fictionality (which differs from Walton’s in several ways, such as requiring that a representation is fictional only if it represents states of affairs which do not actually obtain).
- 6.
What about other examples that Tavinor offers of videogames that are not fictions; e.g., videogame chess and tic-tac-toe (Tavinor 2009: 24)? We think that these are both Waltonian representations and fictions since, e.g., it is plausible that videogame chess mandates imagining that one is manipulating physical chess pieces.
- 7.
As one anonymous referee suggests.
- 8.
As indicated, there may be some fairly minor exceptions to the generalization. So, for example, is it true in every authorized gameworld associated with a particular production of the play that someone (not among the characters in the play) sees and/or hears Hedda? We think the answer is no. But it might be true in all authorized gameworlds. We leave this issue aside as it is irrelevant to the arguments of the paper.
- 9.
Perhaps certain forms of massively multiplayer online role playing games may be best viewed as single non-multiple artworks composed of, rather than instantiating their individual playings. If so, the case against Tavinor (at least with respect to MMPORGS) would require an entirely separate line of argument to the one we pursue in this paper.
- 10.
We shall ignore Carroll’s dispute with Walton over the precise status of these emotions. Though, as we will see below, the account of emotional attitudes towards fiction one adopts can be highly relevant to these debates.
- 11.
The assumption in play here is that creators aim at making artistically valuable games. If this is right, the fact that some interpretation presents the work in better light than another gives us defeasible evidence in favour of the former interpretation.
- 12.
Though clearly not all. ‘God games’ such as Populous, for example, place the player in the role of a supernaturally powerful being who does possess this impressive level of control.
- 13.
So we disagree with Aaron Smuts who, after mentioning the possibility that videogames might be like performative artworks suggests that ‘since philosophical aesthetics has almost ignored the aesthetic experience of artists and the performers of artworks, such a classification would shed little light’ (Smuts 2005).
- 14.
Or at least not evaluable in the same way.
- 15.
An earlier version of this paper was presented at The Philosophy of Computer Games 2009 Conference in Oslo, Norway. Thanks to the organizers and the audience at that conference for helpful feedback. Thanks also to Stacie Friend, Kathleen Stock and two anonymous referees for comments on an earlier draft.
Games
Bioshock. 2007. 2K Games, X-box 360.
Bioshock 2. 2010. 2K Games, X-box 360.
Command and Conquer 3. 2007. EA, PC.
Disgaea 3. 2009. Nippon Ichi, Playstation 3.
Grand Theft Auto III. 2002. Rockstar Games, PC.
Pac-Man. 1980. Namco, arcade.
Populous. 1989. Bullfrog, PC.
Resident Evil: Code Veronica. 2001. Nextech/Flagship, PlayStation 2.
Tetris. 1984. Pajitnov, A. and Gerasimov, V., PC.
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Meskin, A., Robson, J. (2012). Fiction and Fictional Worlds in Videogames. In: Sageng, J., Fossheim, H., Mandt Larsen, T. (eds) The Philosophy of Computer Games. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4249-9_14
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