Video Games and Agency in Contemporary Society

Abstract

In recent years, the idea of player control, or agency, has become central and explicit in certain video games and genres, affecting many debates concerning the study or definitions of video games. In spite of this, the notion of agency in video games has been rarely explicitly explored or defined in relation to its sociological and political dimensions. Hence, drawing on actor-network theory, (neo-)Foucauldian governmentality studies, and empirical data gathered over a three-year period, this paper expands to our understanding of video game player agency and moreover, argues that video games provide an important example and perspective to consider the contemporary nature and political basis of agency.

Beyond Rules and Mechanics: A Different Approach for Ludology

“…Besides the contribution in the aesthetic field, the sociological and cultural approach also represents an urgent goal. In the last years, there have been some noteworthy analyses (Casey, 2014;Conway, 2014;Cypher & Richardson, 2006;Jenssen & Jenssen, 2014;Muriel & Crawford, 2018a, 2018b) that recur to Bruno Latour's actor-network theory to think about the sociological and political dimensions in the agency relationships within gamified processes. The tool of analysis presented in this article, developed within a cybersemiotic paradigm and thus related to the same interests as Latour's sociology, provides a useful device before the symmetrical comprehension of the video game-player agency relationships.…”

Gamers versus zombies? Visual mediation of the citizen/non-citizen encounter in Europe’s ‘refugee crisis’

“…Spurred on by the recognition that video games contain complex discursive symbols which could have a significant social impact, such studies have explored topics of violence, gender, race, and sexuality, investigating how video games are embedded in neoliberal society (Williams et al, 2009). Exploring the constructed identities available to gamers is, therefore, a larger field of literature, but within that field, analyses of gamers' agency and the political implications of this agency have not received much scholarly attention (Muriel and Crawford, 2018).…”

“Is It Too Much to Ask That We’re Allowed to Win the Game?”: Character Attachment and Agency in the Mass Effect 3 Ending Controversy

“…Recently, Muriel and Crawford (2018) reinforced Murray’s (1997) point observing that players are limited by the restrictions and possibilities of video games. They also contend that the meaning of the term “agency” is often taken as a given and is rarely interrogated with any depth, which would explain the contradictions outlined above.…”

“…It is generally accepted that as choices are increased in a video game, the level of narrative must be decreased (Joyce, 2015). Although recent video games have focused on making choices more prominent (Muriel & Crawford, 2018), the popularity of narrative also remains high among players. However, BioWare’s Mass Effect video game trilogy was able to allow players more choices while maintaining a developed narrative by using a branching narrative, so players could experience and interact with the narrative by choosing from various choices available to their player character (PC) of Shepard (Carvalho, 2015).…”