You died. Play again? Examining the fictional content of videogames

Thesis

Videogames are often overlooked in philosophical discussions of art. But as philosophy of art has expanded over the years to include not only traditional arts like music, theatre, and painting but also contemporary arts like film and television, each has brought different challenges and opportunities to expand the way we think, and videogames present many such opportunities of their own. The focus of this work will be to examine the way in which videogames' interactive and player-centric nature can present distinctive types of fictional content. Videogames present a few unusual challenges to establishing what is fictionally true in them, and they also provide a few forms of fictional truth not commonly found in other works. I will examine these challenges and special forms of fictional truth in order to help establish videogames as an interesting and unique form of narrative art, worthy of the attention of philosophers not only for the fictional content which they present, but also for the way in which they present it.

Authors: Willis, M

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-g7jmrqo0e
• Type of award: BPhil
• Level of award: Bachelors
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Videogames; Video Games; Fictional truth; Kendall Walton; Fiction; computer game
• Subjects: Videogames; Philosophy; Aesthetics; Video Games