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<!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">I’m really enjoying all of
the contributions to this discussion. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><o:p class=""> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">Brenda’s astute point
about the mutually constitutive relationship between characters, the affordances created by the game as system, and the players is right on: “Empathy or identification with the
notion of the player-character as defined by the affordances and environment of
the game is fundamental to the enjoyment of playing. So in my view,
representation of identity matters, not only in terms of NPCs but also in terms
of the players themselves.”<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><o:p class=""> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">In my previous post, I didn’t mean to suggest that I think
computation and representation are actually separate—quite the opposite. I’m
just struck by how some very prominent figures in game studies seem to want to
keep them separate. TreaAndrea brought our attention to an example of this in
Ian Bogost’s recent article in The Atlantic. In Bogost’s formulation, it is in
systems—not representation of identities through characters—where the true
expressive potential of games resides. One of the problems I have with this
formulation is that it presumes that players (and their identities) and game
creators (and their identities) are not really part of the system—they only
interact with it. I guess I would like to see a broader conceptualization of “systems”
that incorporates things like identity and representation into how systems have
expressive power.</p>
<!--EndFragment--><div apple-content-edited="true" class="">Aubrey Anable<br class="">Cinema Studies Institute<br class="">University of Toronto<br class="">2 Sussex Ave.<br class="">Toronto, ON M5S 1J5<br class=""><br class="">(647) 997-0570<br class=""><a href="mailto:aubrey.anable@utoronto.ca" class="">aubrey.anable@utoronto.ca</a><br class=""><br class=""><br class="">
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