Many thanks for the link! Great to see someone else applying Walton's theory to games, although galling that I didn't know about this before publishing "Imaginary Games" - I would certainly have referenced it! Cheers, Chris.

"Those are a lot of words!" Hopefully some of them are good ones. ;)

Dr. Juul, "No worries, I am glad to have a fallacy named after me ;)" Glad to have contributed to a career goal! :) You clearly grasp my meaning when I tilt against the concept of a unitary world. This was not so important to me until I started working in ethics, where it has become necessary to recognize that not all discourse refers to the same world (or perhaps, the same version of the same world). Hadn't considered the marketing role of fiction in games in this sense before - Chinese Checkers is a great example, as is the British version of Mah Jong, which drew on its authentic Chinese origins for its appeal, even though the rules are quite different in many key respects. A gainful comparison could be made with the book "1001 Arabian Nights", perhaps... My suspicion is: the more complicated the rule set, the harder it is to get by without an explicit fiction to accompany it. This is partly because of the appeal of the fictional world, but also this is because the fiction helps structure the rules, both for the game designer(s) and the players learning how to play. Imagine trying to learn to play the original Francis Tresham "Civilization" boardgame as an abstract game! :) All the best, Chris.

Nathan: thanks for letting me know that this was a marketing gaffe and not a problem with the game itself - this reminds me of Nintendo's ugly tagline for 'Ocarina of Time': "Will you save the girl or play like one?" Ugh - how horribly ill-conceived can you get! I will certainly post to let everyone know what I end up playing, but the front-runner right now is "Ni No Kuni" (although the hours-of-play makes me nervous!) All the best! Chris.

Nathan: I discounted 'Dishonored' when it was advertised with the tagline 'Revenge solves everything'. I don't want to support a game that is willing to represent itself to the world in this way. (As if we didn't have enough problems with negative portrayal of games as it is!) Even if it were not for this, though, I'm not sure I'd want to play a stealth game this Summer. I am curious about the mechanics in 'Dishonoured' though - I think this is one of those cases where I'd prefer to learn about the game from players who have already enjoyed it, rather than trying to play it myself. *waves*

Hi Dr. Juul, Thank you so much for stopping by to share your thoughts, and even more so for not taking this obvious polemic rant at face value. :) I think you get embroiled in this mostly via the way Graeme Kirkpatrick uses you, and less in terms of your own work. But I decided to include everyone I could name in this just as a spur for discussions - which seems to have worked, as I've now heard from everyone except Graeme himself. :) "I am trying to figure out whether we have many fundamental disagreements or none at all." I suspect we have no fundamental disagreements, but a handful of minor disagreements. This piece is definitely not the way to judge this, however! :) Where we most obviously disagree is in ontology, but I think we could still delineate our positions amicably under the right circumstances. "As for what is more 'real', I am using 'real' in a Thomas Pavel-sense: To which world does a given statement refer? Rules are real in that they refer to what we consider to be *this* world. Fiction has a different, imaginary, world as its reference. When I make that distinction, it really is not a statement about what is more important, or what plays a bigger part in a given experience." This is a useful clarification! I should note that I personally don't think that rules do relate to 'this' world, or even that 'this world' picks out a unitary world. This relates to my claim that fiction cannot be contrasted against fact as a pair of binary opposites. But as I mentioned above, this disagreement concerns ontology and could probably be unravelled with the appropriate resources at hand... I had no idea you'd referenced Walton in your dissertation! There was me thinking I had got there first... ;) "Is there a type of science envy in the focus on rules? I am not sure" I think my claim here goes to game studies as a field. There is an assumption - not necessarily from you, but from the community as a whole - that it should be understood as a scientific field. I prefer to view it as a field that encompasses not only scientific research but a great variety of other approaches. "I still think it is interesting to talk about the aesthetics of rules and systems, given that this is not well covered historically." I utterly agree with this - but I'm not convinced that the aesthetics of rules and systems in games can be addressed adequately without acknowledging the connection between the rules and the fiction. The open question for me is whether games with 'thin' or trivial fiction (e.g. chess, draughts) demonstrate that the aesthetics of rules stand alone, or whether they represent a limit case in terms of the complexity of both rules *and* fiction. It is striking that there are no commercially successful hobbygames that do not represent explicitly. My suspicion is that even chess can be understood as representative, even if all you consider is its rules, but I run up against decades of philosophical thinking to the contrary in saying this (including Walton). Once again, many thanks for sharing your perspective! I have a much greater appreciation for where you are coming from now. I trust that the rant did not cause any offence by being unnecessarily strident. :) All the best!

Sam: You had me right up to "70 hours in"! Not sure I have time for an 80 hour+ game, but still the best suggestion so far. I'll 'take it under advisement', as they say. ;) All the best!

Sylvain: I can't tell you how relieved I am that I am not alone in feeling this way! Also, thanks for the "Ni No Kuni" recommendation - as a longstanding Studio Ghibli fan, this is a very tempting option! Incidentally, I have read and enjoyed a few posts at your blog since we last spoke, but I don't think I have successfully left a comment yet. I have started a few, but never finished. A lack of time has, alas, has been the culprit. Best wishes!

Rodeoclown: I hadn't thought of this as relating to 'working with thought', but of course those of us that do tend to have a similar mental constitution in many respects. It's nice to know I'm not alone in this, although I think I always knew this was not something peculiar to me. Where did you go for your Google Reader replacement, by the way? I went to The Old Reader which has been fine so far. *waves*