An Inclusive Perspective on Gameplay: Towards a wide understanding of gameplay in theory and praxis

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Jahn Björn Möring Sebastian
2018 DiGRA '18 - Proceedings of the 2018 DiGRA International Conference: The Game is the Message

In this paper we want to argue for a more inclusive understanding of the notion of gameplay which implies practices that are normally considered non-default, marginal, transgressive, subversive, or other forms of gameplay. Instead of considering these practices of gameplay as non-standard forms which exist at the margins of whatever could be considered gameplay, we argue that these practices should very much be considered as standard forms of gameplay or simply as “normal” gameplay. We believe that these practices are essential for a comprehensive understanding of the medium. While this idea seems not to be controversial in game culture or in the realm of game praxis it seems that especially computer game theory and the computer game industry are driving this form of “othering”. In both cases the distinction which comes with this provides certain discursive agents (such as theorists and industry representatives) with power over other agents (practitioners and players). To show these mechanisms we will first re-read common notions of gameplay and show how non-standard practices of gameplay are either given different, at times derogatory names, or they are completely omitted in order to mark them as “other” forms of gameplay. We will then look at notions of non-standard forms of gameplay such as spoil sporting, cheating, innovative gameplay, transgressive, subversive play, authentic gameplay and show how this othering is here perpetuated on the theoretical level while although most of the authors of these analyses paradoxically intend to rehabilitate these practices as belonging to a wider notion of gameplay. Eventually we will suggest an inclusive perspective on gameplay which is based on a wide notion of gameplay and which not only includes practices that are commonly considered marginal but puts them in the center of gameplay.

 

Ethics of Online Cheating: From Chess to Esports and Back

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Puro Jukka-Pekka Karhulahti Veli-Matti
2016 DiGRA/FDG '16 - Abstract Proceedings of the First International Joint Conference of DiGRA and FDG

 

What Videogame Making Can Teach Us About Access and Ethics in Participatory Culture

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Kafai Yasmin B. Burke William Q. Fields Deborah A.
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

In “Confronting the Challenges of a Participatory Culture”, Jenkins and colleagues (2006) outlined three challenges in their participatory competencies framework that need to be addressed to prepare youth for full involvement in a digital culture – participation, transparency, and ethics. Expanding upon the framework of our earlier work, in this paper we examine more closely two aspects of Jenkins and colleagues’ challenges – the participation gap and the ethics challenge – as they apply to game-making activities in schools. We report on a four-month ethnographic study documenting youth’s production of video games in both an after school club and classroom setting. The growing use of videogamemaking for learning in schools offers youth the opportunity to no longer simply be consumers but also producers of technology. But as kids learned to contribute as such producers, both participatory and ethical issues arose in the ways they were willing or reluctant to share their own ideas and projects with their peers. Schools’ long-standing focus on individual achievement and traditional notions of plagiarism drew these issues of participation and ethics to the foreground, making them especially relevant considerations given on-going efforts to bring more game playing and making activities into schools.

 

The Cheating Assemblage in MMORPGs: Toward a sociotechnical description of cheating

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Paoli Stefano De Kerr Aphra
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

This paper theoretically and empirically explores cheating in MMORPGs. This paper conceptualises cheating in MMORPGs as a sociotechnical practice which draws upon a non-linear assemblage of human actors and non-human artefacts, in which the practice of cheating is the result or the outcome of an assemblage. We draw upon the assemblage conceptualizations proposed in [16] and [8] and on empirical data taken from a pilot study we have conducted during the period September-November 2008 and from an ethnography we are conducting in the MMORPG Tibia (http://www.tibia.com) since January 2009. This game in particular was chosen because CipSoft, the company that develops the game, launched an anticheating campaign at the beginning of 2009.

 

Breaking Reality: Exploring Pervasive Cheating in Foursquare

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Glas René
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

This paper explores the notion of cheating in location-based mobile applications. Using the popular smartphone app Foursquare as main case study, I address the question if and how devious practices impact the boundaries between play and reality as a negotiated space of interaction. After establishing Foursquare as a prime example of the gamification phenomenon and pervasive gaming, both of which require us to rethink notions of game and play, I will argue that cheating in location-based mobile applications challenges not just the boundaries of play, but also of playful identity.