Yesterday, I hosted a talk at my department by Jonas Linderoth (University of Gothenburg) entitled The effort of being in a fictional world: Upkeyings and laminated frames in MMORPGs. Its topic was hard core role playing subcultures within the World of Warcraft community, and it illustrated how these players — wanting to achieve a maximum level of authenticity and immersion in their gaming — navigate the nexus between rules/ludology and fiction/narratology. Immersion does not come easy, which is something that the moral entrepreneurs who see nothing but dangers in MMO gaming seem to think. Rather, it takes a lot of hard work to actually “lose grip of reality”.

The presentation made me realize that I really have to look more into Goffman’s frame analysis, which is something that I have been meaning to do for quite some time now. Also, “Hamlet on the Holodeck” by Janet Murray seems to be important reading to anyone interested in cultural and linguistic aspects of digital cultures. There is more information on Jonas Linderoth here, and those who understand Swedish will definitely enjoy his talk WTF r u female IRL?!? from the latest Dreamhack festival.