KIM, Vienna; PALEP, Benoit (eds.)
Non-Playable Characters

A book that brings together the contributions of 8 theorists, curators, artists, journalists and game modders, each offering a distinct lens on what it means to be a “non-playable character” (NPC) in today’s networked society.

At the core of this collection lies a deeper inquiry into NPCs and AI, agency vs. servitude, NPC-ification, surveillance capitalism, and the emotion economy. It examines how automated roles and behaviours are embedded in our digital environments, and how they shape our affective, cultural and political realities.

Non-Playable Characters is one of the first efforts at assembling disparate ideas and explorations of what the NPC is, what it does, and how it might even speak back. Through it, we explore what the NPC phenomenon reveals about our own humanness in the age of Big Tech and AI accelerationism.

With contributions by Kyle Chayka, Günseli Yalcinkaya, 2girls1comp (Marco De Mutiis & Alexandra Pfammatter), Nora O’ Murchú, LAN Party (Vienna Kim & Benoit Palop), Morgane Billuart, Angela Washko, and Alex Quicho.

[publisher's note]

Published by LAN Party, 2026
Design by Ruby Bailey (L00bi)
Anthologies / Essays / Technology / Media Studies