Videogames and Agency offers an important contribution to debates around a central concept in Game Studies, providing a new framework to think through the relationship between production context, design and player agency. Using paratextual and textual analysis, Dr Bettina Bodi works adeptly across three engaging case studies to broaden our understanding of how games and their designers afford and constrain player action. This is vital reading for anyone who wants to understand more about one of the key questions in games research.
Dr Nick Webber, Associate Professor in Media, Birmingham City University, UK
Bettina Bodi's Videogames and Agency is a unique and indispensable book for scholars, students, and game designers. By considering agency as an affordance of videogames that is firmly rooted in their developers' design ethos, Bodi ties together theoretical perspectives and industry practices of agency. Thoroughly researched, yet immensely readable, the book gives a much needed introduction to a central issue in the study of video games.
Hans-Joachim Backe, Associate Professor, Center for Digital Play, ITU Copenhagen, Denmark