Instrumental play

In game studies, instrumental play (also known as rationalized play, power gaming or min-maxing[1]) is a form of play that has external, non-intrinsic goals. Often, these goals are to maximize performance within the rules of a structured, organized game.

Theory and history

The study of play being used to achieve external goals extends back to Classical Greece[2] – Plato and Aristotle saw play as being necessary for the educational development of children. Aristotle and medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas noted play's use as activity separate from work.[3]

Instrumental play can be characterized as a form of instrumental rationality, which is in turn a form of social action that exclusively aims to achieve a goal through any means.[4] Sociologist Max Weber, the creator of these concepts, also wrote extensively about the rationalization – the "increasing importance of a style of reasoning" – of society.[5] This movement can cause the original purpose of societal structures to become distorted, as "meaningfulness devolves into practical advance".[6]

Gaming theorist Roger Caillois classified play into several categories including "paidia" – play without rules or organization – and "ludus": play with rules or organization, or a "taste for gratuitous difficulty".[7]

Literary theorist Wolfgang Iser conceptualized instrumental play in his 1993 book The Fictive and the Imaginary: Charting Literary Anthropology. Iser examined philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer's notion of play as oscillation[8] – back-and-forth movement that "renews itself in constant repetition".[9] From this framework, he introduced instrumental play as play with a goal, that ends when said goal is reached. As opposed to instrumental play, free play is play that stays in motion, without a predefined end.[10][11] No play can be purely free or instrumental; purely instrumental play is no longer play and simply becomes a task, and purely free play inevitably moves towards instrumental play.[8] Games make use of both, flowing from one to the other.[12]

Concepts

Optimization and theorycrafting

Instrumental play aims to find and implement the best way possible of playing a game.[13] It puts significant effort into understanding the technical details of a game and developing strategies around it (a practice called theorycrafting). Theorycrafting is highly quantitative, reducing a game into the simple numbers and logical rules that make it up. Through this it determines the "right" way to play the game.[1]

A player heavily engaged in instrumental play (a "power gamer") is willing to put in significantly more effort than a casual player to achieve their goals,[14] and push the technical boundaries of the game by using tools such as macros or engaging in actions like running multiple instances of a video game.[15]

Social rationality

Sociologist George Herbert Mead first described play as a system of social rationality. Play is used to communicate and judge one's status within a group, through the use of "publicly shared symbols". In the context of a game, social rationality describes how players assume roles, and form expectations of how others will act in their own roles.[16]

Critical theorists M. Grimes and Andrew Feenberg describe the process of a game becoming a system of social rationality, which they call ludification.[17]

Citations

  1. ^ a b Ask 2016, p. 191.
  2. ^ Henricks 2016, p. 295.
  3. ^ Russell & Ryall 2015, pp. 149–152.
  4. ^ Henricks 2016, p. 291.
  5. ^ Henricks 2016, p. 289.
  6. ^ Henricks 2016, pp. 293–294.
  7. ^ Caillois 2001, p. 27.
  8. ^ a b Armstrong 2000, p. 216.
  9. ^ Gadamer 2004, p. 104.
  10. ^ Glas 2013, p. 23.
  11. ^ Iser 1993, p. 237.
  12. ^ Iser 1993, pp. 237–238.
  13. ^ Taylor 2006, p. 74.
  14. ^ Taylor 2006, p. 76.
  15. ^ Taylor 2006, pp. 79–80.
  16. ^ Henricks 2016, pp. 304–305.
  17. ^ Grimes & Feenberg 2012, p. 30.

References

  • Armstrong, Paul B. (Winter 2000). "The politics of play: The social implications of Iser's aesthetic theory". New Literary History. 31 (1). Johns Hopkins University Press: 211–223. doi:10.1353/nlh.2000.0001. ISSN 0028-6087. JSTOR 20057594.
  • Ask, Kristine (October 2016). "The value of calculations: The coproduction of theorycraft and player practices". Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society. 36 (3). Sage Publishing: 190–200. doi:10.1177/0270467617690058. ISSN 0270-4676.
  • Caillois, Roger (2001). Man, Play and Games. Translated by Barash, Meyer (First Illinois paperback ed.). Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-07033-4.
  • Gadamer, Hans-Georg (2004). Truth and Method (2nd, rev. ed.). New York: Continuum Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8264-7697-5.
  • Glas, René (2013). Battlefields of Negotiation: Control, Agency, and Ownership in World of Warcraft. New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003691433. ISBN 978-1-003-69143-3.
  • Grimes, M.; Feenberg, Andrew (March 24, 2012). "Rationalizing play: A critical theory of digital gaming". In Feenberg, Andrew; Friesen, Norm (eds.). (Re)Inventing the Internet: Critical Case Studies. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. doi:10.1007/978-94-6091-734-9_2. ISBN 978-94-6091-734-9. OL 20547693W.
  • Henricks, Thomas S. (Spring 2016). "Reason and rationalization: A theory of modern play" (PDF). American Journal of Play. 8 (3). The Strong: 287–324.
  • Iser, Wolfgang (March 1, 1993). The Fictive and the Imaginary: Charting Literary Anthropology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. doi:10.56021/9780801844980. ISBN 978-0-8018-4499-7.
  • Russell, Wendy; Ryall, Emily (February 5, 2015). "Philosophizing play". In Johnson, James E.; Eberle, Scott G.; Henricks, Thomas S.; Kuschner, David (eds.). The Handbook of the Study of Play. Vol. 1. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4758-0796-7.
  • Taylor, T.L. (2006). Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. doi:10.7551/mitpress/5418.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-262-28471-4.
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