ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how user groups like modding communities contribute to, and at times radically alter, a game's meaning potential by generating content in all of the available modes. It also examines the concept of user-generated content and its potential impacts on multimodal semiotics. From the perspective of semiotics and multimodality, what level editors ultimately represent, then, is how creators can alter a play experience through altering the mode of layout. While the visual, auditory, and haptic signs are largely unchangeable, how they are constructed within a virtual level, and multimodal ensemble, can be arranged in compelling ways. From the perspective of multimodal (social) semiotics, what the gender mods represent is an audience's ability to alter an existing multimodal ensemble. The chapter argues that the social, contextual, and paratextual components of a game are vitally important to an audience's engagement with a game.
