Contemplating on the practices of fan-fiction

Following on my commentary on Klastrup article, I would like to follow up with some insights I gain from interviewing a player about his practice of writing fan-fiction. Let's give him the name BoyX. Now, Boyx had been writing fan-fiction of a game called MU Online for a long time.

Background:

MU Online was the first MMORPG BoyX played. The fiction consists of a number of pieces he wrote over a period of time and he wrote them in his own language. He uploaded the pieces in a game forum. But he did not complete the story because he had lost interest and could not bear the demand for a new chapter (readers ask him to continue writing). He found it stressful to continue writing.

BoyX was happy to find that people had copied his writings to their websites. He made a google search lately and found them on other forums too. A google for his fiction reveals more than one millions search results. However, except for two people, the rest did not make reference of his writings back to him. Still, he feels happy but a little disappointed when many people did not give him due credit for his works. The very least, he said, they did not claim those works theirs. He reasoned that his unfinished fiction had received the most views because it was too long and people have to read a lot of time to get the story. He shared that only one forum reader found out who he was in the game.

The interesting parts are here.

Boyx admited that he wrote because he loved the game, and when he stopped playing, he lost interest and could not write anymore. He admits that he may finish the fiction someday. He stopped playing MU Online because of bad administrator. He agreed that writing fan-fiction did not affect how he play MU Online (i.e. it does not make him wanting him to play MU Online more) but acknowledges that playing the game makes him wanting to write.

So BoyX, in Klastrup’s words, “continuous presence…helps keep the fiction of the world alive”, and for him personally, he continued writing so long as he was playing the game”. When his stopped playing, naturally he stopped mediating on the fiction of the gameworld and the fictions players create which are impacted by his presence and gamepay. He also ceased to become "part of the many "texts" which enable the collective and ongoing (re)creation of the world".

BoyX did write fan-fiction for GE because he has no time to do so. He also does not do fan art because he says that he has no talent for that. He admitted that his English is not fluent and even if he has the time, he may not write in English because of this. He felt that knowing how to write well is more important than having time to write. To him it is important to write something that people would read and he would make sure that someone likes his writing. He agreed that he writes with having the audience at the back of his mind, i.e. to serve the audience.

So participation in the "collective andd ongoing (re)creation of the world" are also mediated by non-game related factors. I wonder too whether did writing make him play the game differently. Like did his play to suit the story line of his writings?

MMOG as 21st Century Fiction

Lisbeth Klastrup has a great article in Game Studies entitled The Worldness of Everquest: Exploring 21st Century Fiction. She study MMOG from the perspective that MMOG is a entertaining fictional "text" like novels and films. I quote below interesting excerpts below.

On whether MMOG can be considered as fiction, she says (brackets [] added):

" ...one could argue that our understanding of the ontology of the [MMOG] world is that we know it is a fiction and by entering the world we as players become part of the fictional discourse ourselves, while we are at the same time well aware that what goes on inside it is indeed a social reality and that this reality, as T.L Taylor has aptly pointed out in Play Between Worlds (Taylor 2006), often is, or will be, closely interwoven with our social world outside the fiction. An analysis of an online world should therefore also include an exploration of the interplay between the fictionality and sociality and how these two aspects of experience inform each other. "

I am thinking how about players who see MMOG as another window where bring into their real life engagements and decisions that they make in the game world are intertwined with real life agenda. Would the ontology of the MMOG world is still a fiction? I am just curious.

Kalstrup does not see MMOG as a narrative which is understood as the presentation of a series of events. She says:

" ...in the case of gameworlds, though stories about the world exist, told in companion manuals and official and fan-based websites, the online world is more than a mental construct (a world projected by a story), it is unique in that it presents an actualised version of an imaginary universe. Contrary to earlier forms of fiction, the way we make sense of gameworlds in general follows not from what we are told (what is being presented to us), but from how we experience gameplay and the architecture of the world itself, the way we are forced to act in certain ways as players, the way we simulate that we live in this world. In other words, it is neither a case of of showing or telling but of acting out. This is not to say that players do not have the experience of taking part in an unfolding story. In fact, online worlds are unique because they enable the unfolding of many stories at the same time, not the least through the design of completable quests with a story-like structure "

I agree that "we are forced to act in certain ways as players" and very often such incident happens because of how the game is designed and other times, because of the gameplay of other players like grief play. However, Brett Staebell in The Espapist (A Griefer's Life for Me) proves how grief play has potential to enhance game play experience of other players. So while gameworlds affords many stories unfolding at the same, these stories also cut into each other.

Klastrup also sees gameworld in MMOG as reflective lab where actions in the gameworld reflect players' "a mediated understanding of what a world is or should look like". She explains (bold added):

" ...the simulated online world, the description of it (the back stories and the stories introducing new expansions) as well as the myriad player-generated stories about the world, functions much in the same way as the presentation of fictional universes in "analogue" storytelling: they are frameworks of interpretation which allows us to judge whether events in the world are, for instance, "moral" or "immoral", "good" or "bad" according to the "world rules", the designated morals of that particular world. This ties well in with Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Smith & Tosca’s observation that, in general, the function of the fictional world in relation to games is to "prompt players to imagine that their actions take place within a meaningful frame" (Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Smith & Tosca 2008: 171) "

Klastrup notices there is what she calls "seamless oscillation between taking part in the fictional discourse and stepping outside it" of players' behaviour in MMOG gameworld. This is part of their wholeness or immersion experience in the gameworld, and it does not "dilute" their experience.

Another interesting excerpt is when Klastrup hypothesizes (bold added):

" A hypothesis would be that what players come to think of as memorable experiences could be especially those experiences which marked the transition from one stage of knowledge to another. The continuous presence of players helps keep the fiction of the world alive; when their experiences are communicated to other players either in-world or on out-of-world websites, they themselves create and become part of the many "texts" which enable the collective and ongoing (re)creation of the world. "

Klastrup identifies three stages of experience and knowledge players go through in MMOG. The first stage is "getting to know the world", the second stage is "interacting with the world", and the third stage is "to perform in the world". About the final stage, she again hypothesizes (bold added):

" Thus, an interesting hypothesis is that this final stage of one’s life in a gameworld is also characterised by the emergence of player-told stories which emphasise and commiserate the important social events in a player’s or a guild’s ongoing history. "

With regard to Klastrup hypothesis, I would like to add commentary and share interesting insights from my interviews with players with regard to fan-fiction and guild's ongoing history. To prevent from making this post too long, I will do that in a separate post.