ABSTRACT
In this chapter I will not deal yet with World of Warcraft as a fictional world but will instead focus on World of Warcraft as a game, or as Galloway puts it: the ‘gamic elements that all are inside the total gamic apparatus yet outside the portion of the apparatus that constitutes a pretend world of character and story’ (2006: 7–8). Sure enough, much of the gamic apparatus is articulated to the player through the fictional world. While one could describe World of Warcraft’s rules and structures using only abstract descriptions (referring to characters as player-controlled objects for instance), rules and fiction are inextricably intertwined. In this section, I will not refrain from referring to fictional elements if it helps to convey the underlying instrumental rule system.
