The Game Frame: Systemizing a Goffmanian Approach to Video Game Theory [Extended Abstract]

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Authors:	Deterding Sebastian
Source:	Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory
	London: Brunel University, September, 2009
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Abstract:

This paper offers a review, explication and defense of Erving Goffman’s Frame Analysis (1974) as a valid contemporary sociological theory of play, games, and video games. To this end, it provides an introduction the frame analytic conception of play, games and video games. It demonstrates that this account provides an explanatory (rather than merely descriptive) model for the sociality of the game/non-game boundary or ‘magic circle’, as well as phenomena that trouble said boundary, like pervasive games or ARGs. To substantiate the timeliness of a frame analytic approach to games, the paper compares it to and partially takes issue with practice theory, specifically Thomas Malaby‘s recent “new approach to games”. The conclusion summarizes the key characteristics, advantages and limitations of a frame analytic account of video games.

Keywords: frame, frame analysis, key, upkeying, magic circle, metacommunication, alternate reality games, pervasive games, playbour, play, games, fiction, practice theory