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March 17, 2015

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The play experience is not exhaustively described in the game text. Lots of play experiences occur in the mind of the user, and outside the choices presented by the game text.

In Dragon Age: Inquisition, I am constantly making up my own dialog responses, and imagining how I would have choices, branching, and simulation downstream of my choices. It doesn't bother me that the game doesn't model my domain of choices. What counts is that it prompts me to have responses and notions.

I hardly ever imagine how I would act differently than a protagonist, supporting character, or innocent bystander in a novel or movie. Linear media do not preclude such thinking, but neither do they prompt it.

Bogost is not wrong. He's just thinking too narrowly. Which is often convenient when you want to write and post something readable and response-worthy. And simple wrong ideas are often convenient tools for prompting reflection.

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