MARISSA D.

WILLIS

Choose Your Own Adventure: Examining the Fictional

Content of Video Games as Interactive Fictions

abstract
This article explores the unique philosophical challenges that video games pose as forms of interactive fiction and examines
the different types of fictional truth which they present in order to lay the groundwork for further discussion of video games
as fictions not only by generating useful vocabulary and an ontological framework to aid continued study but also by using
the fictional truths found in video games to challenge one of the most influential models of fictional truth: that of Kendall
Walton. I argue that Walton’s definition of fictional truth cannot account for all of the fictional content presented by video
games and use video games to provide two counterexamples to his claims. By shedding light on these challenges, this article
establishes video games 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.

Video games are often overlooked in philosophi-
cal discussions of art.1 They may be seen as sim-
ilar enough to film and television to be lumped
together with other visual arts or simply seen as
not being a form of art at all. But as the philoso-
phy of art has expanded over the years to include
not only traditional arts like music, theater, and
painting but also contemporary arts like film and
television, each has brought different challenges
and opportunities to expand the way we think.
And video games present many such opportuni-
ties of their own. The focus of this article is not
to prove that video games are a form of art,2 but
rather to provide an account of the interesting
challenges which video games may present when
assessed as works of fiction. Specifically, my fo-
cus is to examine the fictional content of video
games and what we may learn from them about
fictional content as a whole. Fictional content in
general may not always be established as straight-
forwardly as we would like. However, video games
present a few unique challenges of their own when
it comes to establishing fictional content, which
result in some unusual forms of fictional truth. I
would like to explore these challenges and special
forms of fictional truth in order to help establish
video games as an interesting and unique form of
narrative art worthy of the attention of philoso-
phers not only for the fictional content which they
present but also for the way in which they present
it. In doing this, I hope to not only generate useful
vocabulary to aid the continued study of fictional
truth in video games, but also use the fictional
truth found in video games to challenge one of
the most influential models of fictional truth: that
of Kendall Walton. I argue that Walton’s defini-
tion of fictional truth cannot account for all of the
fictional content presented by video games, and I
use video games to provide two counterexamples
to his claims.
To limit the focus of this study I deal only with
single-player games. Thus, while some of what is
said may apply to games like World of Warcraft
and other multiplayer games—including the mul-
tiplayer modes of games which also contain single-
player content such as Call of Duty—these are
not the focus of this study. These games present
many unique challenges of their own (such as the

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 77:1 Winter 2019

C 2019 The American Society for Aesthetics
44
sharing of a make-believe space), but the subset
of games which I discuss is plenty to get us started.
i. fictional truth
Sherlock Holmes lives at 221B Baker Street.
Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father. The Doc-
tor is a Time Lord. Hamlet dies. These are all
fictional truths from different stories in different
arts—from print, stage, and screen. They are all,
in a sense, true, and in another sense, false. It is not
true, of course, that any real detective by the name
of Sherlock Holmes lives or ever lived at 221B
Baker Street or that Time Lords exist. However,
we can say that these statements are true within
the fiction of each of these stories. We can also
say that some statements, such as “Darth Vader
is not Luke Skywalker’s father,” are false not in
that Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker are not real
people, but in that it is false within the fiction of
Star Wars.
Just as in other types of fiction, there are some
things which it seems easy to point out as fiction-
ally true in video games. For instance, Lara Croft
from Tomb Raider is British. However, one of the
important differences between video games and
many other forms of art is that some other fictional
truths can be vastly different each time the game
is played. Unlike a film or novel, a video game can
have a different main character, different action,
or even a completely different plot every time it
is played. And this is not just a matter of viewer
interpretation. Because video games are interac-
tive and respond to player input, every time the
game is played, the fictional action displayed on
screen is different, and this often seems to change
whether or not certain things are fictionally true.
For instance, when I play Mass Effect, I can choose
whether the main character, Commander Shep-
ard, is female or male. Based on my choice, the
game will represent Shepard as either one way
or the other, with different audio and visual cues
based on my input. Because of this, it becomes
difficult to answer the question, “In Mass Effect,
is Commander Shepard female or male?” When
I play Mass Effect, the answer is “female.” How-
ever, when my sister plays Mass Effect, the answer
is “male.” Are either of us correct, or both, or nei-
ther? It seems as though the veracity of a state-
ment such as “In Mass Effect Commander Shep-
ard is female” can go either way. However, when
The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
Mass Effect is played, Shepard’s gender is not in
an unspecified state: Shepard is either female or
male and is presented in a certain way, depending
on this state. And this is not a lone example: video
games, as interactive fictions, rely on player input,
and a vast amount of the fictional content that the
player encounters when playing a video game may
be different each time he or she plays. This is even
more the case for games such as Minecraft, which
feature randomly or procedurally generated con-
tent designed to be different each time the game
is played regardless of player input.
In order to determine what is fictionally true
in a video game like Mass Effect, I first need to
determine what it is that actually bears fictional
content in the case of video games. To accomplish
this, I set out a basic ontological framework for
video games focused on establishing how video
games are instanced in order to provide a bet-
ter understanding of which entities, exactly, bear
fictional content when it comes to video games,
before continuing on to describe what types of fic-
tional content video games produce and how these
types may be distinguished.
ii. the playthrough
Artworks which are multiple are those which ad-
mit of and are normally encountered through
instances; novels are instanced by their multi-
ple copies, musical works by their multiple per-
formances or recordings, films by their multiple
copies or screenings, and so on (Davies 2003, 156).
Given these other examples, it is tempting to lump
video games with films and say that they are in-
stanced either by individual copies of certain com-
puter code or they are instanced every time a cer-
tain computer code is decoded by the proper type
of machine. However, when a film is played by a
machine, this results in a complete screening: an
instance of the film which is the same every time
it is played and presents all of the same fictional
content every time. When a video game is run by a
machine, not as much happens, and not much fic-
tional content is presented. The opening sequence
may play, but then the game will wait for player
input. This is because it takes more than a machine
to run a video game—it takes a player to play it.
If we want to explain how and why it is that when
I play Mass Effect and my sister plays Mass Effect
we encounter different and sometimes opposing
Willis Choose Your Own Adventure
fictional truths—such as, “Commander Shepard
is female” and “Commander Shepard is male”—
then saying that video games are instanced by ei-
ther the multiple copies of the programs associ-
ated with them, or even by the result of running
these programs on their appropriate devices, will
not be enough. Instead, I would say that a video
game is instanced every time it is played not just by
a machine but by a player. This is what I refer to as
a “playthrough”: the interactive audiovisual rep-
resentation that is generated when a player plays a
video game, which may be different every time the
game is played. Other philosophers have at times
used “playing” (Meskin and Robson 2012, 215),
but I have chosen “playthrough.” This is to avoid
confusing the act of playing a video game with the
representation which that act produces, which is
what I call the “playthrough.” Playthroughs are
the result of the combination not only of a pro-
gram and a machine but of a program, a machine,
and a player. Playthroughs are the way in which
video games are instanced, and they bear fictional
content.
iii. video games and performances
For insight into how this works and why it is
important that playthroughs bear fictional con-
tent, I compare video games with yet another
type of multiple art. Works in the performing
arts, such as stage plays, are created and propa-
gated as sets of instructions (scripts), which are in-
stanced via performance. This is the type of art that
is perhaps most similar to video games.3 Unlike
works instanced by being decoded by a machine—
such as films—works which are instanced through
performances based on sets of instructions may
have more variation between instances because
the content of the instances (performances) may
not be completely determined by the instructions
alone. This is because, as Stephen Davies notes
“pieces specified via notated instructions are of-
ten much ‘thinner’ in properties than are the per-
formances that instance them faithfully” (2003,
162). For instance, the script of Hamlet does not
determine everything about Hamlet to the point
where every production and performance of Ham-
let would be identical in content if it followed
the script faithfully. Every instance of Hamlet will
contain certain fictional truths which are not con-
tained within the script of Hamlet. For example,
45
the script of Hamlet does not specify whether
Prince Hamlet is taller than, shorter than, or the
same height as Laertes. And yet, in every produc-
tion of Hamlet, Prince Hamlet will be either taller
than, shorter than, or the same height as Laertes.
The play Hamlet does not specify this, but every
performance of Hamlet must.
This seems almost exactly like video games and
the problem posed at the beginning of Comman-
der Shepard’s gender in Mass Effect. Mass Effect
simply does not specify Commander Shepard’s
gender just as Hamlet does not specify Hamlet’s
height. And just as Hamlet does have one specific
height in every performance of Hamlet, so Com-
mander Shepard has one specific gender in every
playthrough of Mass Effect. This comparison be-
tween theater and video games is very useful and
should help us solve the question of what bears
fictional content in video games.
In theater, there seems to be at least two bear-
ers of fictional content: the play itself, which is
usually outlined by the play’s script, and the var-
ious individual performances of the play. There
are some fictional truths that may be present in
one performance of a play or another but are not
considered part of the play itself, while there are
other fictional truths which are part of the play
itself, and thus also true in every faithful perfor-
mance of the play.4 For instance, it is fictionally
true that Hamlet says “to be or not to be, that is
the question.” Not only is this fictionally true in
any given performance of Hamlet, provided that
performance is faithful, but it is also true in Ham-
let itself. However, if we want to know whether
or not it is fictionally true that Hamlet is taller
than Laertes, we cannot refer to Hamlet itself be-
cause the play does not specify. But we can ask this
question of specific performances of Hamlet and
say whether or not Hamlet is taller than Laertes
in each performance.
I refer to these different kinds of fictional truths
as play-truths (Hamlet says “to be or not to
be”) and performance-truths (Hamlet is taller
than Laertes). Plays themselves contain only play-
truths, while performances contain both play-
truths and performance-truths. In any particular
performance, it is not always easy to tell which fic-
tional truths are play-truths and which are perfor-
mance-truths unless one has also encountered the
same play through a different performance or has
read the script of the play. All play-truths are fic-
tionally true in every faithful performance, but it is
46
important to note that it is not the case that some-
thing is a play-truth simply because it is true in ev-
ery extant performance of the play. For instance,
if it so happened that every production of Hamlet
ever performed starred a Hamlet who was taller
than his corresponding Laertes, it would still not
be fictionally true in Hamlet that Hamlet is taller
than Laertes. If a new production of Hamlet was
cast with a Hamlet who was shorter than Laertes,
this new production would be no less faithful than
any other production.
I suggest that video games function very simi-
larly to plays when it comes to the bearers of fic-
tional content. Just like plays, video games have
two bearers of fictional content: the video game it-
self and individual playthroughs of the game. Also,
similarly to plays, that which is fictionally true in
the video game itself is true in every playthrough
of the game, but not everything which is fiction-
ally true in the playthrough is true in the game
itself. Thus, playthroughs contain two types of fic-
tional truths: those which are fictionally true in a
playthrough but not in the game itself and those
which are fictionally true in both the playthrough
and the game itself. I refer to these as playthrough-
truths and video game-truths, respectively.
The ability to differentiate between play-
through-truths and video game-truths should help
us answer many of the questions I have raised
so far. For example, “Commander Shepard is fe-
male” is a playthrough-truth, while “Lara Croft is
British” is a video game-truth. However, establish-
ing which fictional truths are which is not always
this simple.
iv. identifying video game-truths
One way in which we could go about determin-
ing which fictional truths in a playthrough are
playthrough-truths and which are video game-
truths would be playing a game multiple times,
generating multiple playthroughs, and comparing
them. Aspects of the game that are different in
each playthrough are clearly playthrough-truths.
However, we must again be wary of coincidence.
As with Hamlet’s height, if it so happened that
every time anyone ever played Mass Effect she
chose to make Commander Shepard female, that
would not make Commander Shepard female in
Mass Effect itself; it would not make “Commander
Shepard is female” into a video game-truth. Nor
The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
would it prevent any future playthrough of Mass
Effect from featuring a Commander Shepard who
is not female or make such a playthrough some-
how incorrect. It would be better to say that video
game-truths are those which are fictionally true in
every possible playthrough of the video game. This
definition of video game-truths is, I think, techni-
cally correct. However, we must be careful using
this definition as well because of an important dif-
ference between video games and the performing
arts.
Unlike two performances of the same play, two
different playthroughs of a video game may vary
widely in what I call scope. Imagine that I play
Dragon Age: Origins twice, generating two distinct
playthroughs of the same video game. Dragon
Age: Origins is a rather long game with one cen-
tral plotline but with much more content that may
be pursued or ignored as the player sees fit. How-
ever, after finishing the main plotline, the player
may not go back to investigate all of the content
which he may have passed over before. Let us say
that, in my first playthrough, I only play through
the central part of the game, completing all of the
main missions but none of the side quests and do-
ing only as much exploring as necessary to reach
the end of the plot. In the second playthrough,
I spend much longer in each area and section of
the game, making sure that I experience every-
thing the game has to offer. In the first of these
playthroughs, I would miss out on learning certain
fictional truths. For example, in Dragon Age: Ori-
gins the character Alistair has a sister. This infor-
mation is not central to the plot but may be discov-
ered by the player. In the second playthrough—
the longer and more detailed approach—I would
learn this fictional truth while playing the game.
However, in the first playthrough, which only
plays through a small percentage of the game in
order to finish the main plotline as quickly as pos-
sible, I would not learn of Alistair’s sister. Unlike
with Commander Shepard’s gender, which may
vary between playthroughs, it is not the case that
any fictional truth inconsistent with the claim that
Alistair has a sister is presented by the shorter
playthrough. There is no playthrough in which it
is established that Alistair has no sister. Rather,
in some playthroughs, the subject has simply not
come up. We can have one of two responses to
this. Either (A) it is not fictionally true within
the shorter playthrough that Alistair has a sister
because this information is not revealed to the
Willis Choose Your Own Adventure
player, or (B) it is fictionally true that Alistair has
a sister in both playthroughs of the game, even
though this fictional truth is never encountered in
the shorter playthrough.
If we choose option A, then we must say that
since there is a playthrough in which it is not fic-
tionally true that Alistair has a sister (namely, my
shorter playthrough), then “Alistair has a sister”
cannot be a video game-truth but must rather
be a playthrough-truth. However, this seems to
severely limit the amount of information which
can be counted as video game-truths. It also raises
the question of what counts as a playthrough for
any specific game. Would it count as a playthrough
of Dragon Age: Origins if I started the game but
then turned it off one minute later and never
played it again? How much of the game would
I need to play in order for it to count as a
playthrough? What if I encountered less than one
percent of what I could have potentially encoun-
tered by playing the game? This kind of question
becomes even more difficult with less linear games
such as Minecraft. If that which is true in a video
game is only that which is true in every possible
playthrough of that video game, and that which is
true in a playthrough only includes that which is
portrayed to the player during a playthrough, and
there is no limit to how much of the potential con-
tent must actually be portrayed to the player for it
to count as a playthrough, then for most games, al-
most nothing would count as a video game-truth—
including many things which we might normally
say are true in the video game.
However, if we accept reading B and maintain
that it is fictionally true in any given playthrough
of Dragon Age: Origins that Alistair has a sister
whether the player encounters this information
during the playthrough or not, then these prob-
lems do not arise. If this is the case, however,
then it is clear that if we are to identify video
game-truths as that which is fictionally true in
every possible playthrough, then we must distin-
guish that which is fictionally true in a playthrough
from that which is represented to the player in that
playthrough.
v. present but unportrayed fictional truths
If we accept this reading, we must acknowledge
that within a video game there may be certain
fictional truths which are fictionally true in the
47
playthrough which are never represented to the
player. That Alistair has a sister is not explicitly
stated in and also cannot be implied from the
shorter playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins. If
this was the only playthrough available to us, there
would be no reason to think that Alistair has a
sister. In each playthrough, this fictional truth is
either directly established or it is not represented
at all. The only way in which I may learn that Alis-
tair has a sister in the first, shorter playthrough is
by finding it explicitly stated in the second, more
thorough playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins.
In order to provide a model for these fictional
truths which, by their natures as video game-
truths, are present in every playthrough of a video
game whether they are ever represented to the
player or not, I would like to compare video games
once again to another form of art: serialized fic-
tion. Just as some fictional truths can only be ac-
cessed by playing a different playthrough, so some
fictional truths can only be accessed through other
works in the same series. For instance, is it true in
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope that Darth
Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father? The fictional
truth is never portrayed to the audience in this
film, but is established in its sequel, Star Wars
Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. If someone
only ever watched the first of these films, he or she
would have no way of knowing that Darth Vader
is Luke Skywalker’s father. And yet, it is not the
case that Darth Vader becomes Luke Skywalker’s
father in the second film or that he was not, in
fiction, Luke’s father since before the first film.
Playing a video game but not discovering all of
the fictional truths present within the playthrough
may be comparable to watching just one film or
reading just one book out of a series: There may
be fictional truths which are fictionally true in the
playthrough which are not revealed to the player
without further investigation, which may only be
available through a separate playthrough.
Perhaps a more helpful way of identifying which
fictional truths encountered in a playthrough are
video game-truths would be to include all fic-
tional truths that are presented by at least one
possible playthrough and never contradicted in
any other possible playthrough. These truths, we
would say, can be seen as always being fiction-
ally true in any playthrough, whether they are
represented to the player or not. Thus, the fact
that Alistair has a sister is a video game-truth—
true in Dragon Age: Origins itself and also true in
48
every playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins,
whether explicitly represented or not, because it
is true in at least one possible playthrough and
never contradicted by another. Meanwhile “Com-
mander Shepard is female” is a playthrough-truth,
but not true in Mass Effect itself because there are
some possible playthroughs which directly con-
tradict it. While neither of these fictional truths
are represented in every playthrough of their re-
spective games, and both are represented in some
possible playthroughs and not in others, Alis-
tair’s sister can be either included or left out of a
playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins but not con-
tradicted; but Commander Shepard’s gender can
either be female or male in any given playthrough.
This, then, is how I would identify fictional
truths within video games. Fictional truths that
are present in at least one possible playthrough
and never contradicted in any other possible
playthrough are video game-truths and are fic-
tionally true both in the video game itself and
in all possible playthroughs, whether they are
represented or not. Fictional truths that are
present in at least one possible playthrough but
are contradicted by at least one other possi-
ble playthrough are playthrough-truths—true in
some playthroughs but not in the video game
itself.
vi. application
So far, I have made several important claims about
the nature of video games and their fictional con-
tent. First, that video games are instanced by
playthroughs and players encounter video games
through these playthroughs. Second, that there
are two types of fictional truth in playthroughs:
playthrough-truths and video game-truths, the lat-
ter of which is also true in the video game itself.
Third, that because of the nature of video game-
truths and the way in which playthroughs may vary
in scope (the amount of potentially accessible con-
tent that is actually portrayed to the player in the
playthrough), there may be some fictional truths
present within a playthrough that are never por-
trayed to the player. I now hope to place these
claims within the wider context of the philosophy
of art.
In order to do this, I will focus on Kendall Wal-
ton’s theory of make-believe. Walton’s view is, of
course, not the only theory of fictional content,
The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
but it is one of the most influential in recent years,
especially in the philosophical debates surround-
ing video games.5 In addition to this, the idea of
playing games is central to Walton’s theory. Wal-
ton compares the appreciation of all representa-
tional art to a child’s game of make-believe. It
seems that if any form of representational art is
like such a game of make-believe, video games are
such. If any theory of representational art applies
to video games, we might expect it to be Walton’s.
And if Walton’s theory applies to any represen-
tational art, we might expect it to apply to video
games. I, however, argue that it does not.
I provide a basic overview of the part of Wal-
ton’s theory pertinent to video games and fictional
truths, and along the way I point out the specific
challenges which my own theory about fictional
truths in video games raises to Walton’s. I ar-
gue that both video games and their playthroughs
contain fictional truths not accounted for in Wal-
ton’s theory. If my observations so far are cor-
rect, then video games and their playthroughs
may both function as counterexamples to Walton’s
theory.
vii. waltonian fictions
First, it is important to note that Walton’s view of
what constitutes a fiction is significantly broader
than most everyday uses of the word—so much
so that some authors refer specifically to “Walto-
nian fictions” or “Walt-fictions” when discussing
them (Meskin and Robson 2012, 201). To Walton,
all “representations” are fictions (Walton 1990, 3).
This includes many things which are not normally
considered to be fictions, such as portrait paint-
ings or even, in certain circumstances, children’s
toys. Walton defines representations, and thus fic-
tions, as “things possessing the social function of
serving as props in games of make-believe” (69).
Walton argues that when we engage with a repre-
sentation, we enter into a game of make-believe
in which the representation serves as a prop. A
game of make-believe is an exercise of the imag-
ination which follows certain rules, often guided
by props, which “are generators of fictional truths,
things which, by virtue of their nature or exis-
tence, make propositions fictional” (37). Strokes
of paint or ink, spoken or written words, the ac-
tion of actors, the movement of light and color
across a screen, etc. can all prompt us to imagine
Willis Choose Your Own Adventure
certain things, and thus function as props, and are,
therefore, Waltonian fictions (38).
viii. are video games waltonian fictions?
Based on this broad outlook, Meskin and Robson
have argued that it should not be at all contro-
versial that video games are, at minimum, Walto-
nian fictions, as they function as props in games
of make-believe (Robson and Meskin 2012, 2).
I, however, argue that video games themselves
are not, in fact, Waltonian fictions. But their
playthroughs are.
On my understanding, Meskin and Robson ar-
gue that the following claims are uncontroversial:
(1) When someone plays a video game, she en-
ters into a game of make-believe in that what she
is seeing and hearing serves as a prop, generat-
ing certain fictional truths by mandating that they
are imagined. (2) Based on this, we can say that
video games function as props in a game of make-
believe, and therefore (3) video games are Walto-
nian fictions. I agree with Meskin and Robson that
the first of these premises should not be controver-
sial, and the third is a straightforward application
of Walton’s view based on the second point. Point
(2), however, conflates the playthrough and the
video game itself.
I find that it should be uncontroversial that
video games are to be encountered via play. As I
have argued, what is actually encountered during
play is not the video game itself, but an instance
of the video game, a playthrough, just as what is
encountered during an outing to the theater is not
Hamlet itself but an instance of Hamlet, called a
performance. Because of this, I argue that when a
player plays a video game and enters into a game
of make-believe based upon the prop presented
to them, it is not the video game itself which func-
tions as a prop in this game, but the playthrough.
My argument on this is similar to how I phrased
Meskin and Robson’s: (1a) When someone plays
a video game she enters into a game of make-
believe in which what she is seeing and hear-
ing serves as a prop, generating certain fictional
truths by mandating that they are imagined. (1b)
What the player is seeing and hearing when she
plays a video game is a specific playthrough of
that video game. (2) Based on this, we can say
that playthroughs of video games function as
props in games of make-believe, and therefore
49
(3) playthroughs of video games are Waltonian
fictions.
This distinction between the video game itself
and its playthroughs brings out two important
points. First, that individual playthroughs of video
games are in fact Waltonian fictions, and, there-
fore, Walton’s understanding of fictions should ap-
ply to them. And second, that video games them-
selves are not Waltonian fictions, as they do not
serve as props in games of make-believe. I do not
mean by this to say that video games are not works
of fiction. Rather, that they are not Waltonian fic-
tions. Video games themselves, apart from their
playthroughs, do not serve as props in games of
make-believe.
This distinction is important, as this type of dis-
tinction may be applicable to all works of fiction
instanced in a similar manner, but again, we must
take care. On this view, it might seem that plays
themselves are not Waltonian fictions, although
each of their performances is. However, unlike
video games, most plays can be encountered apart
from their usual instances. One may encounter
a play either by watching a performance or by
reading the play’s script. And although we might
argue that one was never meant to encounter
a play by merely reading its script, the script
would serve as a prop in its own right, and that
prop would mandate the imagining of all of the
play-truths and no performance-truths. Because
of this, we could say that the play itself functions
as a Waltonian fiction when someone reads the
play’s script. But it is not so with video games.
Video games do not have easily accessible scripts
to serve as props and cannot be encountered as
props apart from their playthroughs. The closest
thing video games have to a script is the complex
code which a machine uses to run the game. As
previously stated, this by itself, run by the ma-
chine but without being played by the player, is
little more than a menu screen. And even if one
were trained to read the code directly, it would be
very difficult for this code to function as a prop
in the way the script of a play might, by man-
dating that the reader imagine all of the video
game-truths. And even then, it would still be miss-
ing its central character: the player. Because they
cannot be encountered by means other than their
playthroughs, I argue that video games themselves
do not function as Waltonian fictions but rather
as tools for generating Waltonian fictions of a
certain type.
50
ix. fictional content in video games
themselves
This brings me to my first challenge to Walton’s
theory: Video games are not Waltonian fictions,
but they do have fictional content. As I have
argued, video games contain all fictional truths
which are fictionally true in at least one possi-
ble playthrough of that video game and are never
contradicted by any other possible playthrough.
The fact that video games themselves have fic-
tional content is important for two reasons. First,
because it is the presence of these fictional truths
in both the game itself and all playthroughs of the
game that allows us to say that two playthroughs—
which may contain very different playthrough-
truths—are both playthroughs of the same video
game (and therefore that two people who have
both played different playthroughs of Mass Effect
have both played Mass Effect). Fictional content
is an important part of what makes each instance
of a video game an instance of that video game.
Second, as I argue later, it is because appealing to
the video game itself is the only way in which we
can make sense of unportrayed fictional truths in
playthroughs.
According to Walton’s theory, fictional con-
tent belongs to those things that function as
props in games of make-believe. But video games
have fictional content without functioning as
props in games of make-believe. If I am correct
that video games have fictional content but are
not Waltonian fictions, then video games them-
selves may serve as a counterexample to Walton’s
theory.
Video games may not actually be the only coun-
terexample of this kind. Another example is that
of serial fiction, like Star Wars. The overarch-
ing fiction of a series is perhaps instanced by
each of its individual volumes or episodes but
is not identical to any of them—just as video
games are instanced by but not identical to their
playthroughs. As I show in the next section,
these kinds of overarching, non-Waltonian fic-
tions are important to how we consider fictional
truth in both video game playthroughs and in-
stances of serialized fiction. This is because video
games, as non-Waltonian bearers of fictional con-
tent, are not the only major challenge to Wal-
ton’s view that games raise. Playthroughs, which
are Waltonian fictions, present a challenge to
Walton too.
The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
x. unportrayed fictional truths
Walton’s definition of that which is fictionally true
in a work as that which “is (or would be) fictional
in any game in which it is the function of the [work]
to serve as a prop, and whose fictionality in such
games is generated by the [work] alone” (1990,
60) highlights what is perhaps the biggest apparent
conflict between my own view of fictional truths
in playthroughs of video games and Walton’s view
of fictional truths in general. I have argued that
some things, such as “Alistair has a sister,” ought
to be considered fictionally true in a playthrough
even if it is never portrayed to the player, and
thus the player is not mandated by the playthrough
alone to imagine it. For a playthrough which never
reveals to the player that Alistair has a sister, it
does not seem to be the case that “Alistair has a
sister” is or would be fictionally true in every game
of make-believe in which it is the function of that
specific playthrough to serve as a prop. In fact, if
this were the only playthrough available to us, we
would have no way of knowing that Alistair has a
sister. It is only through other playthroughs that
we receive this fictional information.
As previously mentioned, this is very similar
to the case of works which are parts of a series.
For instance, it does not seem to be the case that
“Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father” is or
would be fictionally true in every game world in
which it is the function of Star Wars Episode IV:
A New Hope to serve as a prop. However, “Darth
Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father” is or would be
fictionally true in every game world in which it
is the function of Star Wars Episode V: The Em-
pire Strikes Back to serve as a prop. Because of
the relationship of these two films, we know that
it is fictionally true that during Episode IV that
Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father, unbe-
knownst to us the viewers (or, for that matter, to
Luke). Like video game players who have played
only playthroughs too narrow in scope to portray
all video game-truths, viewers who have watched
only Episode IV and not Episode V simply do not
have all relevant information to understanding all
of what is fictionally true in Episode IV. If we con-
sider Darth Vader to be Luke Skywalker’s father
in Episode IV or claim that it is fictionally true
that Alistair has a sister even in a playthrough of
Dragon Age: Origins in which this is never por-
trayed to the player, we cannot do so using Wal-
ton’s description of fictional truths.
Willis Choose Your Own Adventure
xi. walters’s theory
In order to find an alternative description of fic-
tional truths that would be better able to account
for the fictional content of video games, I turn to
the theory of Lee Walters. Walters uses this same
example of Star Wars when considering one of
Walton’s later essays, in which Walton reveals a
“gap” in his own definition of what it is for some-
thing to be fictionally true in a work (Walton 2015,
17). In this later work, Walton writes that “[a]
proposition is fictional in (the world of) a particu-
lar work, W, just in case appreciators of that work
are to imagine it, just in case full appreciation of W
requires imagining it” (17). However, Walton goes
on to provide several interesting counterexamples
and challenges to his own view and acknowledges
his own definition as “half right,” that is, necessary
but insufficient for defining what is fictionally true
(17). Walton admits in this essay “I don’t know
how to fill the gap; I don’t know what, in addition
to a prescription to imagine, is required to make
a proposition fictional” (28). Walters, in response
to Walton, uses another counterexample: that of
serialized fiction, such as Star Wars, in that in-
formation important to full understanding of one
work is revealed in another. Walters attempts to
provide his own solution to Walton’s gap.
Walters argues that given the fact that “Darth
Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father” is true in
Episode IV despite the film never mandating that
the audience imagine this, then “There is a work,
W, such that there is some proposition, P, true
in W, but proper engagement with W does not re-
quire one to imagine that P, at any stage” (Walters
2017, 17). Walters uses this counterexample to cri-
tique Walton’s account and denies that Walton’s
requirements are both necessary and sufficient to
define fictional truth, but he does not abandon
Walton’s ideas completely. Instead he offers his
own “Waltonian” approach, proposing that “A
proposition, P, is fictional in the world A of a
particular work, W, iff there is some fiction F that
concerns A, of which W is a part, such that appreci-
ators of F are to imagine P” (Walters 2017, 20).6 To
phrase this using Star Wars as an example: “Darth
Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father” is fictional in
the world of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
if and only if there is some fiction F (Star Wars
itself) that concerns the world of Episode IV, of
which Episode IV is a part, such that appreciators
of Star Wars itself are to imagine “Darth Vader is
51
Luke Skywalker’s father.” This proposed account
of fictional truth, while complex, allows for works
within a series to influence what is fictionally true
within each other while being recognized as indi-
vidual works.
I believe that Walters’s account, or one like it,
would also help to solve the problem of unpor-
trayed fictional truths in video games if we under-
stand the playthrough to be a work in the sense
that it is a Waltonian fiction. For example, we
could say that “Alistair has a sister” is fictional in
the world of a particular playthrough of Dragon
Age: Origins if and only if there is some fiction
F (Dragon Age: Origins itself) that concerns the
world of that particular playthrough of Dragon
Age: Origin, of which that particular playthrough
is a part, such that appreciators of Dragon Age:
Origins itself are to imagine “Alistair has a sister.”
However, this definition is not enough if we
are to set up an understanding of fictional truth
that accounts for all types of fictional truth found
in video game playthroughs. Although Walters’s
approach to fictional truth works well for video
game-truths, it would not account for playthrough-
truths. If we apply the same theory to a propo-
sition such as “Commander Shepard is female”
and say that this is fictionally true in the world
of a playthrough of Mass Effect if and only if
there is some fiction F (Mass Effect itself) that
concerns the world of that playthrough of Mass
Effect, of which that playthrough of Mass Effect is
a part, such that appreciators of Mass Effect itself
are to imagine “Commander Shepard is female,”
then the result is that “Commander Shepard is fe-
male” is not fictionally true within the world of
the playthrough. Because of this, I instead suggest
a combination of Walton and Walters’s views;
A proposition P is fictionally true in the world A of a
particular work W iff EITHER (1) appreciators of W are
to imagine P and full appreciation of W requires imag-
ining P, OR (2) there is some fiction, F, that concerns A
of which W is a part, such that appreciators of F are to
imagine P.
Using this yet more complex theory of fictional
truth, we should be able to account for both
playthrough-truths such as “Commander Shep-
ard is female” and video game-truths such as
“Alistair has a sister” or “Lara Croft is British.”
Some fictional truths fit one set of requirements,
some fit the other, and some fit both. In my view,
52
neither Walton’s nor Walters’s requirements on
their own are necessary to define something as
fictionally true (although in every case, one or the
other is necessary), but either can be sufficient.
And while this view may not entirely fill in Wal-
ton’s “gap,” this kind of combination thinking to
which video games lead us to may be a step in the
right direction.
Both video game playthroughs and serialized
fiction function as counterexamples to some of
Walton’s claims about fictional truth. However,
they are claims that Walton himself recognizes as
incomplete. Walters’s alternative approach to fic-
tional truth may provide a good way to bridge
this gap and make room for unportrayed fictional
truths in both serialized fiction and video games,
and my combination of Walters’s and Walton’s
approaches would include playthrough-truths as
well. However, I would question whether Wal-
ters’s approach is in fact “Waltonian,” because it
brings us straight back to the first challenge I pre-
sented against Walton. Walters’s account relies on
the existence of “some fiction F,” a fiction which
appears to have fictional content but does not ap-
pear to function as a prop itself (2017, 20) and
therefore is not a Waltonian fiction. Star Wars it-
self, apart from its individual episodes, functions
no more like a prop than Dragon Age: Origins
does apart from its playthroughs. This means that
just like a video game, while Star Wars itself may
be a work of fiction, it is not a Waltonian fic-
tion. Yet both Star Wars and Dragon Age: Origins
have fictional content and are important to under-
standing what all is true in each of their instances
(playthroughs or episodes).
According to Walton, a fiction is something
that functions as a prop, and something is fic-
tionally true in a work when that work mandates
that the appreciator of the work imagine it. Video
games, however, have fictional content without
functioning as props, and their playthroughs in-
clude many fictional truths which the playthrough
alone does not mandate that the player imagine.
Walton’s theory cannot account for the fictional
content of video games or their playthroughs, and,
as such, both may serve as counterexamples to
his claims. While my combination of Walters’s
and Walton’s approach may help create an ex-
panded view of fictional truth to work around one
of these counterexamples, the resulting view still
relies on and cannot account for the fictional con-
tent of non-Waltonian works of fiction such as the
The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
overarching fiction of serialized media or of video
games themselves.
xii. conclusion
I have investigated the fictional content of video
games in order to better understand what sorts of
things are fictionally true in video games and to
establish a vocabulary with which to discuss these
fictional truths and discuss video games as fic-
tions. I have distinguished between the video game
and the playthrough—the playthrough being the
interactive, audiovisual representation which the
player generates and interacts with when he or
she plays a video game, and the video game it-
self being the work of which the playthrough is an
instance. I have described different types of fic-
tional truths that may be found in playthroughs—
playthrough-truths and video game-truths—and
have argued that some of these truths—namely,
video game-truths—are fictionally true not only
within the playthrough but also within the video
game itself. I have described how to distinguish
these two types of fictional truths and have ar-
gued that in order to understand all of what is fic-
tionally true in any playthrough of a video game
and to determine which fictional truths are video
game-truths and which are not, we may often need
to play several different playthroughs of the same
video game, just as we may have to watch sev-
eral performances of the same play or multiple
episodes of the same series to fully understand
the fictional truth present in each episode or in
the play itself. Through these arguments, I have
offered both video games and their playthroughs
as counterexamples to Walton’s theory of make-
believe, as each contain fictional content for which
his theory cannot account. If I am correct in what
I have argued here, we may need to rethink what
it means for something to be fictionally true in a
work and expand our understanding beyond Wal-
tonian fictions.
The philosophy of video games and interactive
fiction as a whole is still a very new field, and there
is still a lot of work to be done. What I have pre-
sented here is only a few of the challenges which
single-player video games may present, and there
are doubtlessly more to be found. Much of what I
have said may also apply to other interactive fic-
tions which may prove even more challenging and
complex, such as multiplayer video games, table
Willis Choose Your Own Adventure
top roleplaying games, or even board games and
“Choose Your Own Adventure” books, and each
of these is worth exploring. If we want to come to
an ever greater understanding of fiction, we must
explore fiction in all of its mediums and never dis-
miss something as “just” a game.
Through all of these arguments I have, I hope,
established useful new vocabulary and laid the
groundwork for further study of video games as
challenging but rewarding works of fiction and of
interactive fiction as a whole. There is doubtlessly
much more to be said about the fictional content
of video games, and, if I am correct in positing
video games and their playthroughs as coun-
terexamples to Walton’s claims, more work to be
done in determining the nature of fictional truth
as well.7
MARISSA D. WILLIS
Flower Mound, Texas 75028
internet: willisrissa@gmail.com
references
Davies, Stephen. 2003. “Ontology of Art.” In The Oxford Hand-
book of Aesthetics, edited by Jerrold Levinson, 155–180. Ox-
ford University Press.
Meskin, Aaron, and Jon Robson. 2012. “Fiction and Fic-
tional Worlds in Videogames.” In The Philosophy of Com-
puter Games, edited by John Richard Sageng, Hallvard
Fossheim, and Tarjei Mandt Larsen, 200–217. Dordrecht:
Springer.
Robson, Jon, and Aaron Meskin. 2012. “Videogames and the
First Person.” In Mimesis: Metaphysics, Cognition, Pragmat-
53
ics, edited by Gregory Currie, Petr Kot’átko, and Martin
Pokorny, 435–464. London: College Publications.
Tavinor, Grant. 2005. “Videogames and Interactive Fiction.”
Philosophy and Literature 29: 24–40.
. 2009. The Art of Videogames. Oxford: Wiley-
Blackwell.
Walters, Lee. 2017. “Fictionality and Imagination, Revisited.”
The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 75: 15–21.
Walton, Kendall L. 1990. Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the
Foundations of the Representational Arts. Harvard Univer-
sity Press.
. 2015. “Fiction and Imagination—Mind the Gap.” In
In Other Shoes: Music, Metaphor, Empathy, Existence, 17–35.
Oxford University Press.
1. For the purpose of this article, I make no distinction
between “video games” and “computer games.”
2. For a thorough discussion of this question, see Rob-
son and Meskin (2012) and Tavinor (2009).
3. For more on the comparison between video games
and the performing arts, see Meskin and Robson (2012, 215).
4. There is some debate over what makes a “faithful”
performance. For the sake of my argument, I assume that
faithful performances include all fictional truths that are
contained within the work itself. For more on faithful per-
formances, see Davies (2003).
5. See Tavinor (2005) and Meskin and Robson (2012).
6. Walters (2017) provides a slightly longer definition
than this to try and better include ongoing series, but this
definition works well enough for video games and Star Wars.
7. This article started life as the first half of my B.Phil.
thesis at Oxford University. As such, I am indebted to my su-
pervisor, Dr. James Grant, without whom this article would
surely have never been completed, as well as my fellow stu-
dents. I am also thankful to the editor of this journal and
my anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments,
to my parents and my God for getting me through graduate
school, to the Extra Credits team and McElroy family for
inspiring this article, and to all the wonderful video game
creators out there. Great job.