{"id":2304,"date":"2017-01-19T10:18:32","date_gmt":"2017-01-19T09:18:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/?p=2304"},"modified":"2017-01-19T10:18:32","modified_gmt":"2017-01-19T09:18:32","slug":"the-darkening-of-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/2017\/01\/19\/the-darkening-of-play\/","title":{"rendered":"The Darkening of Play"},"content":{"rendered":"

These are some comments from my keynote at Rutger’s\u00a0Extending Play conference<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>in 2016,\u00a0co-presenting with Shaka\u00a0McGlotten<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Hasn’t our\u00a0sense of play<\/em> suddenly become quite dark?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"There is a change in our primary conceptions of playing, and game-playing. In Brian Sutton-Smith’s Ambiguity of play,\u00a0<\/i>he lists 7 common rhetorics of play, meaning\u00a07 common ways in which play is framed.<\/p>\n

When the field of game studies began, we probably used four quite positive rhetorics of play:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Rhetoric of play as progress.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Rhetoric of play as fate.<\/li>\n
  3. Rhetoric of play as power.<\/li>\n
  4. Rhetoric of play as identity.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Rhetoric of play as the imaginary.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  6. Rhetoric of the self.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  7. Rhetoric of play as frivolous.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This is not surprising. The field of game studies started out arguing against negative views of video games (“they make children crazy!”), and we therefore\u00a0celebrated play, and games.<\/p>\n

    We\u00a0emphasized\u00a0learning (play as progress), playing with identity, we emphasized the positive creations of the imaginary, and we emphasized the me-time<\/em>\u00a0of\u00a0playing (the self).<\/p>\n

    \"\"But now\u00a0it seems we are in a darker place.\u00a0This became clear to me when I rediscovered\u00a0Howard Rheingold’s 2002 book Smart Mobs<\/em>. Compared to this book, there is a distinct dystopian feeling now. We rarely\u00a0discuss internet or\u00a0game culture as something positive.<\/p>\n

    We no longer\u00a0talk about smart mobs, just\u00a0mobs<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    We discuss\u00a0game culture as a problem, and we think of self-organized\u00a0online groups as dangerous, both in games, and in, ahem, politics.<\/p>\n

    Returning to Sutton-Smith, the primary framing\u00a0of play now seems one of power and domination. Play now appears\u00a0to be a dark place from which grows discrimination, dominance, and threats of violence.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Rhetoric of play as progress.<\/li>\n
    2. Rhetoric of play as fate.<\/li>\n
    3. Rhetoric of play as power.<\/span><\/strong><\/li>\n
    4. Rhetoric of play as identity.<\/li>\n
    5. Rhetoric of play as the imaginary.<\/li>\n
    6. Rhetoric of the self.<\/li>\n
    7. Rhetoric of play as frivolous.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      My hope is simple: I hope we can keep our focus here, that we can be aware of what is happening and do what\u00a0we can to change things.\u00a0But also that we don’t become\u00a0the school that bans recess<\/a>\u00a0for fear of lawsuits. That we can be\u00a0aware of what is happening in the world around us, while we still remember the good sides of play.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      These are some comments from my keynote at Rutger’s\u00a0Extending Play conference\u00a0in 2016,\u00a0co-presenting with Shaka\u00a0McGlotten. Hasn’t our\u00a0sense of play suddenly become quite dark? There is a change in our primary conceptions of playing, and game-playing. In Brian Sutton-Smith’s Ambiguity of play,\u00a0he lists 7 common rhetorics of play, meaning\u00a07 common ways in which play is framed. When … Continue reading “The Darkening of Play”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}