Considering play: From method to analysis

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

This paper deals with play as an important methodological issue
when studying games as texts, and is intended as a practical
methodological guide. After considering text as both the
structuring object as well as its plural processual activations, we
argue that different methodological considerations can turn the
focus towards one of the two (without completely excluding the
other). After outlining and synthesizing a broad range of existing
research we move beyond the more general advice to be reflective
about the type of players that we are, and explore two
methodological considerations more concretely. First of all, we
discuss the various considerations to have regarding the different
choices to make when playing a game. Here we show how
different instrumental and free strategies lay bare different parts
of the game as object and/or process. Secondly, we consider how
different contexts in which the game and the player exist, can
function as different reference points for meaning construction and
the way they can put limitations on the claims we can make about
our object of analysis.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)205-242
JournalTransactions of the Digital Games Research Association (ToDIGRA)
Volume4
Issue number2
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2018

Keywords

  • Play as method
  • games as processes
  • games as objects
  • instrumental play
  • free play
  • game context
  • player context
  • ludoliteracy

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