Theorizing the Player-Playable Figure Relationship

The paper revisits a central question in the study of characters digital games: Do players of, for example, racing game steer virtual car directly themselves, or are they controlling body driver? This seemingly technical is shown to be primarily cognitive and conceptual: draw on their real-life fictional frames reference an ongoing epistemological process situating themselves vis-à-vis gameworld playable figure. traditional metaphor this relationship, that cyborg, neither captures variety relationships suggested by games, nor range interpretations open players. To overcome limitation, I propose six conceptual types, based significance tools vehicles have ask: there co-dependence between equipment user, it permanent, do metonymic relationship each other? These abstract categories connected archetypical proto-narratives epitomized from mythology popular culture, which implicitly refer conceptualizing gameworld. essay, then, offers framework player-playable figure-relations, which, drawing cultural history, should equally transparent scholars studies narratology.