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In FPS games, one of the most significant aesthetic and emotional rewards forplayers seems to be a satisfying sense of empowerment deriving from theirexperienceofavoiding–oratleastpostponing–unplannedappearancesofthe“GameOver!”screenmostgamesendwith.ExpertFPSplayershavedevelopedaveryhighdegreeofcontroloverdemandingdecision‐makingprocessesinawelldefinedactioncontextrequiringextremelyfastreactiontimesandfinelytunedeye‐hand coordination. From player perspective, the better one becomes atplaying the game, the more experientially rich, both in one’s own and in peerjudgement quality terms, are the narrative programs one manages to coconstructinthecourseofanygivengamesession.Butthereisalsomoreherethanmeetstheeye.Theintentionalactofelectingtoaimatspeedrunsratherthanjustplayingthegameasitissupposedtobeplayedaccordingtotherules,mayalsohaveanimportantsecondarysymbolicfunctionfor players and their peers. It can be the first step on the way to a moresystematictestingofthelimitsnotonlyofthegamequagame,butalsothegameenginequagamepossibleworldgenerator,orbuilder.Thisrepresentsakindofmetadiscursivedistancinginrelationtoaplayer’searlier,moreimmediate,andperhapslessanalytical,formsofimmersioninthefictionalworldofthegame–anattempttotryandunderstandbetter“howitallworks”.Fromthere,playersmay then move on to teach themselves how to modify game objects or othermorecomplexaspectsofthefictionalworld,suchasgamelevels,orevenwholegames, giving rise to a whole new level of autonomous programming activityreferredtoingamingcirclesas“modding” 3 .Thisinitsturnmayalsobeanotherfirst step on the way to becoming an independent game designer, producer orevenresearcher,perhapsbywayofaseriesoffreelanceengagementsasobjectorlevelprogrammersforlargerestablishedgameindustryfirmsorconsortia.SinceIhaveworkedquitealotinthepastonprocess‐orientedwritinginrelationto text based virtual worlds, and have recently also begun to focus more andmoreoninnovationprocessesderivingfromexperiencesofcooperitionactivitiesin prosumer oriented online social networking environments like YouTube,Facebook, or simulated online worlds that offer property acquisition anddevelopmentpossibilitieslikeThere,SecondLifeorTwinity,Ifinddigitalgames