Choose Your Own Adventure: Examining the Fictional Content of Video Games as Interactive Fictions

This article explores the unique philosophical challenges that video games pose as forms of interactive fiction and examines the different types of fictional truth which they present in order to lay the groundwork for further discussion of video games as fictions not only by generating useful vocabulary and an ontological framework to aid continued study but also by using the fictional truths found in video games to challenge one of the most influential models of fictional truth: that of Kendall Walton. I argue that Walton's definition of fictional truth cannot account for all of the fictional content presented by video games and use video games to provide two counterexamples to his claims. By shedding light on these challenges, this article establishes video games as an interesting and unique form of narrative art worthy of the attention of philosophers not only for the fictional content which they present but also for the way in which they present it.