Workshop: Rationalizing Play: A Critical Theory of Digital Gaming

Tuesday March 1 6:00 - 9:00 PM
SARA GRIMES Faculty of Information (iSchool), University of Toronto

With Special guest Andrew Feenberg, School of Communication, Simon Fraser University

McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology
39A Queens Park Crescent E. – Parking available off 121 St. Joseph St. Toronto

In this workshop we will present and discuss a new framework for the study of games as sites of social rationalization based on Feenberg’s critical theory of technology. We will begin by making the case for a consideration of games (non-digital and digital) as systems of social rationality, akin to other modern systems such as capitalist markets and bureaucratic organizations. We will then present a conceptualization of play as a process through which the player focuses attention away from the undifferentiated action of everyday life toward a differentiated sphere of playful activity. This approach reveals how the experience of play changes as it becomes rationalized through the technological mediation, specifically computerization, and widespread standardization that occurs as games become largescale social practices. We will review our theory of the rationalization of play, ludification (Grimes & Feenberg, 2009), and outline the key components or processes found in socially rationalized games. Workshop participants will be invited to discuss different applications of ludification as an analytic framework, explore with us its limitations, as well as consider alternate or oppositional tendencies found within digital game technologies and culture.

Transcript

2. ™  “Other contributions, such as those of Kline, de Peuter, and Dyer-Witheford (2003), Brookey and Booth (2006), and Taylor (2006b, 2006c), which have focused on how the structural limitations of digital games (either commercial, social, or technological) impact player agency and interaction, have failed to relate these limitations back to play itself” (Grimes & Feenberg, p.105).
3. Operational definitions
4. ™  Three types of practice satisfy this condition: 1.  Exchange of equivalents; 2.  Classification and application of rules; 3.  Optimization of effort and calculation of results.
5. Australian Rules Rugby, 1866
10. 1.  The exchange of moves between players who are equalized at the outset; 2.  Strict rules and strategies; 3.  Play as a series of predictable and measurable units.
11. 1.  Players and player moves standardized through program code; 2.  Formal rules established by the game engine, operators & player community; 3.  Player efforts optimized and calculated through numeric leveling and points systems - further reinforced by status & social capital granted to players of high standing.
14. ™  Paidia: forms of play that feature open-ended fantasy and role-play, free-form diversions, and unscripted amusements (Caillois, 2001, p.13). ™  Ludus: “this frolicsome and impulsive exuberance is almost entirely absorbed or disciplined by a complementary, and in some respects inverse, tendency . . . to bind it with arbitrary, imperative, and purposely tedious conventions” (p.13).
15. It is not that social order recapitulates certain features of games, but rather that games have themselves become forms of social order.
17. ™  Reflexivity ™  Boundedness ™  Rule-governedness ™  Precision ™  Playfulness
23. What are some additional and/or different ways that we might think of applying “ludification” as an analytic framework? What are its limitations (for understanding digital games, player experience, etc.)? How can we use this as a starting point for discussing and understanding alternate and oppositional tendencies (away from “social order”) found within digital game technologies and culture?
24. ™ Gamification is the ultimate and sublime achievement of ludification.
25. ™ Gaming the System: The more rules there are, the more tricks you can play.
26. ™ Digital games can be designed to push the player away from ludification/social order. ©2012 Seigner, The Bonfire (Dark Souls) ©2012 thatgamecompany, Journey
27. ™ Contemporary martial arts emphasize the non-rationalized aspects of play.
28. Grimes, Sara M. and Andrew Feenberg (2009) “Rationalizing Play: A Critical Theory of Digital Gaming.” The Information Society, 25(2): 105-118. https://www.sfu.ca/~andrewf/play.pdf