To be completely repetitive, I felt the same as many of the others in the class in that the reading was suprisingly manageable. It was also very interesting, with a lot to take in. I would say rather than being confusing, it was extremely dense, with many new area’s of video game study to digest. There was one passage that I read several times and still cannot comprehend.

It is perhaps important to stress that, while many of these enabling acts are the center of most games…Thus the “xyzzy” comand in Adventure,  which teleports the player character to and from home base, is technically a nondiegtic machine act, but its nondiegetic status is covered over by the narrative of the game, which insists that the command is a magic spell, and thus, although it is nondiegetic, the command cooperates with the diegesis rather than threatening it….This wormhole through space and time reveals the tension often present in games whereby deigetic objects are used as a mask to obfuscate nondiegetic (but necessary) play functions.

On the opposing side, I want to point out one passage I thought was really interesting that I had not considered before which is on pages 18 to 19 and discusses the role of the player within the game.  It was interesting to see a comparison of a relationship between the machine and game itself and the play, and what implications this has on gameplay, and the players role in the game.