Abstract This paper draws on the philosophy of Jacques Maritain, a “semiotic Thomist,” to examine lingering issues from the ludology–narratology debate in video game studies. Participants in this debate were explicitly concerned with the compatibility of narrative and play. However, some of their positions anticipated a persistent ambiguity in scholarly accounts of how simulation accomplishes representation. We propose a clarification grounded in Maritain’s Thomistic metaphysics and derived semiotics, arguing that simulation is a highly developed form of representation, not its antithesis. We also articulate what distinguishes video games from other media: they exhibit distinctive representational depth and intimacy. The signified, in terms of its own formal causality, uniquely inheres in the simulative (procedural) sign, while the subjectivity of the player is integrated into the fundament of signification.
Michael Porretta (2026) studied this question.