Gamification and the Ambiguities of Digital Play in Contemporary Fiction.
Uncertainty and ambiguity are central dimensions of play. In video-game design and experience, they are dramatically amplified by the material uncertainties built into digital technologies. This article explores the ways in which contemporary fiction imagines and negotiates the ambiguity of digital...
| Published in: | Substance: A Review of Theory & Literary Criticism Vol. 54; no. 3; pp. 34 - 53 |
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| Format: | Literary Criticism |
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Johns Hopkins University Press
2025
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=189796625&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 189796625 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00492426 2FG jtl: Substance: A Review of Theory & Literary Criticism issn: 00492426 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: 2025 vid: 54 iid: 3 pid: 226 pub: Johns Hopkins University Press artinfo: ui: 189796625 10.1353/sub.2025.a975565 ppf: 34 ppct: 19 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 778KB tig: atl: Gamification and the Ambiguities of Digital Play in Contemporary Fiction. aug: au: Caracciolo, Marco affil: Ghent University su: Gamification Modern literature Video game design Digital technology Sutton-Smith, Brian, 1924-2015 Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow (Book : Zevin) Zevin, Gabrielle Playground (Book : Powers) Powers, Richard, 1957- 21st century (Literary period) sug: subj: Gamification Modern literature Video game design Digital technology Sutton-Smith, Brian, 1924-2015 Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow (Book : Zevin) Zevin, Gabrielle Playground (Book : Powers) Powers, Richard, 1957- 21st century (Literary period) ab: Uncertainty and ambiguity are central dimensions of play. In video-game design and experience, they are dramatically amplified by the material uncertainties built into digital technologies. This article explores the ways in which contemporary fiction imagines and negotiates the ambiguity of digital play. Building on Brian Sutton-Smith's play theory, I examine how the literary imagination invokes, combines, and opposes many of the discourses that coalesce around play in contemporary culture. Discussing fiction's engagement with both video-game design and larger gamifying trends, I show that play serves as a complex signifier of creative freedom, spiritual aspirations, but also moral crisis and loss of agency. My two examples—Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (2022) and Richard Powers's Playground (2024)—frame the ambiguity of digital play in relation to different forms of vulnerability: personal anxieties relating to illness and disability in the former novel, fears of ecological crisis and AI-driven societal collapse in the latter. The epistemological and affective challenges of play are thus primarily understood in interpersonal terms in Zevin's narrative, whereas Powers links them to the novel's formal "trick" of a covert AI narrator. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Literary Criticism src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Substance: A Review of Theory & Literary Criticism is the property of Johns Hopkins University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Substance: A Review of Theory & Literary Criticism holder: Johns Hopkins University Press dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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