In a lecture I gave in 2004 (“The Philosophical Roots of Computer Game Design“) I explained that game developers want nothing to do with Postmodernism; its approaches violate our obligations to our audience. (Unlike a good many literary theorists, we game developers still believe it is important to keep faith with your audience.) Apart from that, the frame-breaking and self-reference that Postmodernists think is so clever is neither new or interesting.

Chris Bateman didn’t spell out the social contract I referred to in his summary (which isn’t really social but an implied functional contract), so I’ll do so here:

The designer promises to provide a coherent story-like experience IF AND ONLY IF the player promises to behave in coherent story-like ways.

You can read a transcript of the complete, original lecture here.