Videogames and Agency

Bettina Bódi is lecturer in media at Leeds Beckett University, UK. Dr Bódi’s research considers agency in and around videogames, as afforded by game design, and as discussed in paratexts and promotional surrounds.

• Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Understanding Agency; Agency in Game Studies; Agency in Game Design; Toward a Conceptualisation of Agency; 2. A Multidimensional Heuristic Framework for Analysing Player Agency; Agency Afforded in Space: The Spatial-Explorative Dimension; Agency Afforded in Time: The Temporal-Ergodic Dimension; Agency Over the Avatar and its Surroundings: The Configurative-Constructive Dimension; Agency and Narrativity: The Narrative-Dramatic Dimension; 3. An “Active Cinematic Experience”: Naughty Dog’s Uncharted Series; Naughty Dog and the Uncharted Franchise; Developing Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End; Agency and a “Cinematic Feel”; 4. “A Compelling Story with Choices That Matter”: BioWare’s Mass Effect Series; BioWare and the Mass Effect Franchise; Developing Mass Effect: Andromeda; Narrativity, Eventfulness, and Agency; 5. “The World is Your Play-Doh”: System Era Softworks and Astroneer; Independent Games: Definitions and TrendsDeveloping Astroneer; Agency and Playfulness; Conclusion; Index

Videogames and Agency offers an important contribution to debates around a central concept in Game Studies, providing a new framework to think through the relationship between production context, design and player agency. Using paratextual and textual analysis, Dr Bettina Bódi works adeptly across three engaging case studies to broaden our understanding of how games and their designers afford and constrain player action. This is vital reading for anyone who wants to understand more about one of the key questions in games research.Dr Nick Webber, Associate Professor in Media, Birmingham City University, UKBettina Bódi’s Videogames and Agency is a unique and indispensable book for scholars, students, and game designers. By considering agency as an affordance of videogames that is firmly rooted in their developers’ design ethos, Bódi ties together theoretical perspectives and industry practices of agency. Thoroughly researched, yet immensely readable, the book gives a much needed introduction to a central issue in the study of video games.Hans-Joachim Backe, Associate Professor, Center for Digital Play, ITU Copenhagen, Denmark