The Narrativization of Quantified Play in Videogame Fanfiction

This study examines how fanfiction based on the Chinese MMO Jianxiaqingyuan Online (Jian 3) translates the game's quantified systems, such as leveling, rewards, and punishments, into narrative form, and what ideological consequences follow when ludic elements cross from the game into prose fiction. Drawing on theories of intermediality and liminality, it argues that these "system fictions" extend the boundary of the video screen and that the narrativization of quantified play deepens a form of hegemonic masculinity already latent in the game's mechanics. The authors position their work as a challenge to earlier claims that fanfiction rarely incorporates the ludic features of its source games.

The analysis is based on three long slash stories averaging roughly 620,000 words each, selected from 204 results returned by keyword searches on the Jinjiang literature website, Baidu, and Google. The sample was chosen by purposive sampling according to readership numbers, and the texts were collected between September 2020 and January 2021. The methodology relies on close reading of both the game and the three fanfics, rather than on statistical or survey-based data, so the findings are interpretive and limited to this small, popularity-selected corpus.

The central finding is that the fanfics present their narratives in terms of health, strength, and experience, often through an overarching "System" that observes, measures, and scores the protagonist's actions. This framing reduces characters and behavior to data that can be sorted by objective criteria, and the protagonist comes to perceive himself and others through extreme quantification. Following Rogers (2020), the authors read this as a characteristic expression of traditional masculinity, suggesting that narrative form intensifies rather than merely reproduces the quantified logic of the game.