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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9102113" data-attributes="member: 71699">Our views are not quite in direct conflict, but also not quite in agreement either.I say that the voluntary suspension of agencies in just the right way - how agency is structured - is what defines a game. This proceeds from arguments long accepted in game studies. So if you say that form of play X has some other agencies than Y, you are at that point speaking of two different games. It is then meaningless to try to compare amount of agency. And counter-productive, obscuring the very questions we might hope to address.Focus on the meaningful differences between the games! How do they play differently? What mechanics are involved. What will I experience differently? "More agency" just begs the question. What does your putatively "more agency" feel like? What does it lead to? All of those questions have answers and have been answered in various ways and to not one of those ways is the best answer "more agency lets me experience more agency". We don't play games for the sake of agency: to think so is a major misconception.In game X I am able to do Y in the given way Z: enabling me to satisfy an urge to do or experience Q. This kind of analysis is not enhanced by any claim to "more agency" in what is in fact a different game from X because that different game will be destroyed by changing the voluntary suspensions of agency that comprise it. So far as I can make out, the only purpose served in claiming more agency is to claim some sort of high ground. Before you complain, think about what you lose if you drop that claim? Nothing right? If it's not what I just described.</blockquote>

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