forced to be free, partially participation norms in leisurely video gaming encounters Sebastian Deterding PlaIT Lab, Northeastern University DiGRA 2015, Lüneburg, May 17, 2015

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<1> introduction

The theory: Play entails voluntary

participation

Johan Huizinga

»First and foremost, all play is a voluntary activity.«

homo ludens (1938/1950: 7)

Roger Cailloisman, play, and games (1958/2001: 6)

»There is also no doubt that play must be defined as a free and voluntary activity […]. A game which one would be forced to play would at once cease being play.«

The problem: instrumental play

Goldfarming

Professional (E-)Sports

Serious Games

Gamification

Review Gaming

Analytic Gaming

instrumental play/play to orderTaylor, 2006; Yee, 2006; Malaby, 2007; Dibbell, 2008; Nardi, 2009; Deterding, 2014

»Sometimes, you have to play, you have to get further – and then, play is work.«

Deterding, 2014

offered Solutions

• Discount instrumental play: instrumental play is not play (Caillois, 2001)

• Ignore play as activity and voluntariness, focus on games as artefacts: instrumental play is still engagement with games (Juul, 2005)

• Distinguish play as activity from playfulness as mindset defined by voluntary engagement: instrumental play is non-playful play (Stenros, 2015)

• Distinguish and relate framing and voluntariness: Instrumental play is re-framed play-as-work, less socio-materially affording of voluntariness (Deterding, 2014)

google “deterding modes of play ediss”

the question: what about

leisurely gameplay?

<2> theory

our guide for the morning

frame analysis of gameplay

• Frames are socially co-oriented and reproduced »organising principles« for types of situations

• As social categories, they organise experience and behaviour materially (how X is), epistemically (how we perceive, expect, understand X), and normatively (how X ought to be)

• Includes the avowed purpose or ethos of the situation – in the case of leisurely gameplay, autotelic enjoyment (“fun”)

• Includes rules of exclusion who may legitimately participate in situation in what role

Goffman 1961: 29-30; Goffman 1966: 10; Goffman, 1986; Deterding, 2014

From rules of exclusion

to participation norms

participation norms

• Participants: Who may enter and exit a gameplay situation under what conditions

• Time: When a gameplay situation may take place

• Content: What game(s) to play

Deterding, 2014

<3> Method

Method

• Purposive sampling of interviewees gaming leisurely & instrumentally: journalism, design, research, e-sport (n=19)

• Semi-structured interviews, 90-120 min. each

• Interviewees invited to report »typical« flow of events, then report norm (breaches) following conceptual framework, then compare contexts

• Transcription of all interviews

• Coding and analysis w/ MAXQDA following directed qualitative content analysis Hsieh & Shannon 2005, Gläser & Laudel 2011

<4> findings

“What actually plays more a role there is that, the leisure time, or rather, the decision how one, (2s), what one now wants to do. The feeling, I want to play on the computer now, and nothing speaks against that, because I don’t want to do anything else as well, then I do that” (P4/384)

“It’s a play community. Who wants to, comes.” (P5-1/25)

“You stop playing when you’ve simply lost interest again” (P10/125)

voluntariness is a normative expectation

“Those are the really regular windows … after work and after I have brought the little one to bed. … And otherwise, if it works out time-wise on the weekend, then it depends. Well, the, the family has priority, for sure.” (P5/29)

“I- if it’s dark, I can somehow say to myself, it’s evening somehow, I can call it a day, and then I can perhaps also simply play with a cleaner conscience.” (P10/21)

adult responsibilities mediate voluntariness

“There is of course the thing that you play with colleagues in coop, where you absolutely don’t want to play any longer and another person still wants to play.” (P3/579)

“So if you play together in a clan, then there are situations where things aren’t over yet, where you just have to finish the session. There I cannot, of course I could decide voluntarily to leave, but that would be inappropriate, if I would leave. Because then I would let my team hang.” (P9/290)

“There are certainly a couple of unwritten rules how to behave in a raid, yes. To be punctual.” (P18/164)

“We also do that, but it’s, it’s like this in this group, that we like to play cards together, and the ladies suggest that. I’m actually not the type for that. (...) I wouldn’t necessarily have to have that, but they, they suggest it again and again and then we just do it.” (P17/692-696)

Ethos of shared enjoyment regularly leads to involuntary play

“Well, well, there are such things, people attach importance to that, well, if you depend on going in with ten people, then you of course expect, that if somebody can’t come, that that is given notice of so early, that you have a chance to replace that person somehow in a sensible fashion. That’s just always shitty, if you learn about it only after the raid started.” (P18/158)

setup effort & participation dependency moderate participation norms

“(Skyrim) was really so extreme, that I, even when I came home at 9 pm in the evening I said to myself, <<Ok, you wanted to go to bed at midnight, it’s not worth starting the game again for just three hours.>> ((smiling)) ... there you then just need time, to, let me put it that way, to achieve something, in quotation marks.” (P10/58-64)

“StarCraft are practically always matches. So there I know for sure, a match takes between ten and twenty minutes on average, that’s something I, that’s something you can simply time very well. There you can say: Ok, I’ll play. So I can, when I want to, simply play my two matches and thereby have two closed experiences, so to speak.” (P10/68)

closure points moderate participation norms

“because I’m not so connected to these people [in online gaming], and because there’s also no visual connection, it’s like, and now it’s connection once more, it’s more non-binding to play with them. ... basically, it absolutely *doesn’t matter* if I screw up with these people by insulting them, or some such, because out there there are millions of other people with whom I can play. I don’t depend on these people. But the people with whom I play a board game, those are usually my friends, on whom I depend.” (P1-2/177)

“Well, when, when I play online … I have a greater sense of freedom to start and end the gaming experience at any time, when I want to. (...) Yes, it’s, it’s simply, it’s less of a commitment, and you’re more anonymous.” (P9/302-304)

social closeness mediates participation norms

“In the first place it should serve as entertainment and not as making or spending money” (P17/580)

“Because then there’s the pressure that you have to win. Of course, everybody who plays wants to win somehow. Or have some successes, at least. Otherwise you wouldn’t play, presumably. Bu::t when it’s about money, that’s a real thing, and, that you have to work hard for. That wouldn’t have a playful character for me then” (P8/297-303)

muted consequence supports voluntariness

“When I in principle have no time limit, that is, when I can say, I can play until I say: <<I don’t want to anymore.>> No appointments and no obligations, both inside the game and outside of the game, then I find, that’s an experience of freedom.” (P9/308)

solitary play is more voluntary play

“P9: Freedom I would also say, certainly in the private context ...

Interviewer: Is that experience of freedom also present when you play together with several people on your couch?

P9: Y::::, to a certain extent it is, yes, but there the considerateness for the friends dominates, for the people with whom I’m sitting there. So then it’s less the case, that I focus on the game and say: <<I am now, now I am free and can determine this.>> Instead it’s also more about me being the host, and being a guest of somebody and still take regard of that.” (P9/309-311)

solitary play is more voluntary play

<5> conclusions

Summary

• Adult responsibilities and participation norms fuelled by ethos of shared enjoyment lead to normal moments of involuntary leisurely gameplay

• Social closeness, setup effort, participation dependency, closure point span moderate participation norms

• Muted consequence of leisurely gameplay supports voluntary participation

• Absence of co-players and thus, participation norms in solitary gameplay is socially and experientially significant

Voluntary participation & Play?

• Voluntariness not as essential defining feature of a Platonic archetype “play”, but empirical feature of an empirical social category “play”

• Is a social understanding, expectation, norm: leisurely gameplay ought to be voluntary; deviation is therefore possible, labelled “strange”, “inappropriate”

• Is a socio-material affordance: ethos of enjoyment; games designed to be enjoyable; muted consequence make experience of voluntariness likely

• Is therefore a frequent subjective experience, in turn reinforcing understandings, expectations, norms

sebastian@codingconduct.cc

@dingstweets

codingconduct.cc

Thank you.