November 27, 2003

Ludology vs. Narratology: They Will Fight Eternally

by Nick Montfort · , 11:13 am

In the latest installment of the ludology vs. narratology debate, Gonzalo Frasca says “that’s not an argument! there never was such a debate!” and I say “yes there was!”

Happy Thanksgiving; I’d like to give thanks to the military-academic-industrial complex for general-purpose computing and the Internet.

11 Responses to “Ludology vs. Narratology: They Will Fight Eternally”


  1. andrew Says:
    November 27th, 2003 at 11:44 am

    I’m heading out the door to have Thanksgiving at the “source” — Plymouth, MA. I’m already late for the festivities.

  2. Gonzalo Frasca Says:
    November 27th, 2003 at 3:18 pm

    Everything I had to say was written on that paper. Thankfully, I won’t fight eternally. Happy Thanksgiving!

  3. B. Rickman Says:
    December 1st, 2003 at 4:35 pm

    This is the first time I have come across the term “ludology”. Who came up with such a terrible term? Every time I read it I think it means “the study of lud[d]ism”.

  4. nick Says:
    December 1st, 2003 at 8:20 pm

    Gonzalo answers that question in his paper [PDF].

  5. B. Rickman Says:
    December 2nd, 2003 at 4:32 am

    It doesn’t answer my implied question, which was: why ludology? Does the stem “lud” refer to anything? The fourth son of Shem? LUD is the airport code for Luderitz, Namibia. Ludo appears to be a board game of British origins. Ludology seems to be little more than a private joke.

  6. Lud Lud Says:
    December 2nd, 2003 at 8:05 am

    In order to answer your implied question: ludus means game in latin.

  7. B. Rickman Says:
    December 2nd, 2003 at 2:38 pm

    Latin… of course. The ultimate private joke. :)

  8. noah Says:
    December 2nd, 2003 at 4:21 pm

    In English, the more commonly-used form is ludic.

    See, for example, Warren Motte’s Playtexts: Ludics in Contemporary Literature.

  9. andrew Says:
    February 25th, 2004 at 5:27 pm

    Check out Jesper’s latest comments on the topic.

  10. Matthew G. Kirschenbaum Says:
    December 5th, 2003 at 10:33 pm I Was a Teenage Grognard
    I have a confession to make. I was a teenage grognard. It’s something I’ve long repressed, but Thanksgiving weekend back home I fell off the wagon and I fear there may be no help for it. Deep down I think

  11. andrew Says:
    September 10th, 2004 at 3:40 pm

    Terra Nova has begun snacking on the can of worms recently re-opened by Julian Kucklich’s critique of First Person on EBR.

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