Episode 51: AI NPCs & Game Democracy with Dom Ford

Host Scott Rettberg sits down with Center for Digital Narrative postdoctoral researcher Dom Ford to explore the intersection of myth, community, and artificial intelligence in video games. Tracing gaming history from early experiments like Façade and RuneScape to modern generative NPCs, they examine how players construct meaning and negotiate intentionality within digital worlds. The conversation dives into the utopian promises of dynamic procedural narrative, the growing cultural and labor backlash against AI-generated assets, and why players often prefer handcrafted, narrative-driven worlds over algorithmic efficiency.

References

Aarseth, E. (2012). A Narrative Theory of Games. Proceedings of the International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG '12), 129–133.

Barthes, R. (1972). Mythologies (A. Lavers, Trans.). The Noonday Press / Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Gualeni, S., & Fassone, R. (2022). Fictional Games: A Philosophy of Worldbuilding and Imaginary Play. Bloomsbury Academic.

Gualeni, S., & van de Mosselaer, N. (2020). The Implied Game Designer: On the Epistemology of Video Games and Authorial Intent. Journal of the Philosophy of Games, 3(1), 1–25.

Mateas, M., & Stern, A. (2005). Structuring Content in the Façade Interactive Drama Architecture. Proceedings of the First AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE'05), 93–98.

Walton, N. (2019). AI Dungeon: A Text-Based Generative Adventure. Latitude.