Could you explain how players participate in shaping mythological characters and what this reveals about games as a medium of cultural reception?

Yeah, that's another really interesting part about games is that, you know, in games, players influence these cues through their own efforts, right? I mean, we can change the way our character looks, we can give them a name, sometimes we can, you know, change what they do, or, you know, how they engage with the world around them.

And so in the book, I call that ergodic characterization based on Espen Arseth's use of the word ergodic as requiring non-trivial effort for a reader or a player to traverse a certain text.

So ergodic characterization then, in my view, means characterization where players exert non-trivial effort to characterize a certain character.

And we see that in all of the games, I think, to varying degrees that are in the book.

Certain games, like Smite, for example, allow you to equip different skins on your characters.

If you have a god like Bacchus, for example, you can give him a more horror-like appearance.

Could you elaborate on this concept? What can games do with mythology that other media fundamentally cannot?

Could you explain how players participate in shaping mythological characters and what this reveals about games as a medium of cultural reception?

Yeah, that's another really interesting part about games is that, you know, in games, players influence these cues through their own efforts, right? I mean, we can change the way our character looks, we can give them a name, sometimes we can, you know, change what they do, or, you know, how they engage with the world around them.

And so in the book, I call that ergodic characterization based on Espen Arseth's use of the word ergodic as requiring non-trivial effort for a reader or a player to traverse a certain text.

So ergodic characterization then, in my view, means characterization where players exert non-trivial effort to characterize a certain character.

And we see that in all of the games, I think, to varying degrees that are in the book.

Certain games, like Smite, for example, allow you to equip different skins on your characters.

If you have a god like Bacchus, for example, you can give him a more horror-like appearance.

Could you elaborate on this concept? What can games do with mythology that other media fundamentally cannot?

Could you explain how players participate in shaping mythological characters and what this reveals about games as a medium of cultural reception?

Yeah, that's another really interesting part about games is that, you know, in games, players influence these cues through their own efforts, right? I mean, we can change the way our character looks, we can give them a name, sometimes we can, you know, change what they do, or, you know, how they engage with the world around them.

And so in the book I call that ergodic characterization based on Espen Arseth's use of the word ergodic as requiring non-trivial effort for a reader or a player to traverse a certain text.

And so ergodic characterization then in my view means characterization where players exert non-trivial effort to characterize a certain character.

And we see that in all of the games, I think, to varying degrees that are in the book.

Certain games, like Smite, for example, allow you to equip different skins on your characters.

If you have a god like Bacchus, for example, you can give him a more horror-like appearance.

Could you elaborate on this concept? What can games do with mythology that other media fundamentally cannot?

Could you explain how players participate in shaping mythological characters and what this reveals about games as a medium of cultural reception?

Yeah, that's another really interesting part about games is that, you know, in games, players influence these cues through their own efforts, right? I mean, we can change the way our character looks, we can give them a name, sometimes we can, you know, change what they do, or, you know, how they engage with the world around them.

And so in the book I call that ergodic characterization based on Espen Arseth's use of the word ergodic as requiring non-trivial effort for a reader or a player to traverse a certain text.

And so ergodic characterization then in my view means characterization where players exert non-trivial effort to characterize a certain character.

And we see that in all of the games, I think, to varying degrees that are in the book.

Certain games, like Smite, for example, allow you to equip different skins on your characters.

If you have a god like Bacchus, for example, you can give him a more horror-like appearance.

Could you elaborate on this concept? What can games do with mythology that other media fundamentally cannot?