AustLit

'Media scholars often claim that videogamers are co-authors with designers/writers of videogame narratives. Yet in most videogames, authorship is illusory, a series of procedural choices whose outcomes are pre-programmed. However, invested gamers invent an ‘imagined consciousness’ of their player-characters, one that maintains character consistency and helps gamers not to author game narratives, but revise them. There is tension between gamer-playing-game and gamer-roleplaying-character caused by competing desires for gameplay experiences, but conscious negotiation of creative/inventive and readerly roles can reveal player agency, and enhance the pleasure of narrative videogaming experiences.'  (Publication abstract)