No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Playing against the rules: a new perspective on the potential of games and play as convivial and critical tools for imagining futures
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 May 2024
Abstract
Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.
In recent years, we have observed an increased interest within the field of design research in both the concept of conviviality and playful approaches as a pathway to co-design and participation. While play is often associated with freedom of expression and creativity, the implication of rules and mechanics in games poses questions regarding the tension between player agency and designed gameplay. This paper aims to provide reflection on these topics through a lens of ‘critical play’ and presents a model to explore games’ potential as convivial tools for imagining collective futures.
- Type
- Design Theory and Research Methods
- Information
- Creative Commons
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.- Copyright
- The Author(s), 2024.
References
Arnstein, S.R. (2019), “A Ladder of Citizen Participation”, Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 85 No. 1, pp. 24–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2018.1559388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Backlund, P. and Hendrix, M. (2013), “Educational games - Are they worth the effort? A literature survey of the effectiveness of serious games”, in 2013 5th International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications (VS-GAMES 2013): Bournemouth, United Kingdom, 11-13 September 2013, 9/11/2013 - 9/13/2013, Poole, IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, pp. 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1109/VS-GAMES.2013.6624226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandt, E. (2014), “Introduction to (participatory) design games”, Tijdschrift voor Human Factors, Vol. 39 No. 4, p. 5.Google Scholar
Brandt, E. and Messeter, J. (2004), “Facilitating collaboration through design games”, in Clement, A. and van den Besselaar, P. (Eds.), Proceedings of the eighth conference on Participatory design Artful integration: interweaving media, materials and practices - PDC 04, 7/27/2004 - 7/31/2004, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, ACM Press, New York, New York, USA, p. 121. https://doi.org/10.1145/1011870.1011885.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandt, E., Messeter, J. and Binder, T. (2008), “Formatting design dialogues – games and participation”, CoDesign, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 51–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/15710880801905724.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brooks, E., Dau, S. and Selander, S. (2022), “Perspectives on Innovative Designs and Learning”, in Brooks, E., Sjöberg, J. and Møller, A.K. (Eds.), Design, Learning, and Innovation, Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, Vol. 435, Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 183–194. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06675-7_14#Sec7.Google Scholar
Brown, J.S. and Douglas, T. (2010), “Learning for a World of Constant Change. Homo Sapiens, Homo Faber & Homo Ludens revisited”, in Weber, L. and Duderstadt, J.J. (Eds.), University research for innovation, Glion Colloquium series, Genève; Économica, London, Paris, pp. 321–336.Google Scholar
Caillois, R. (2001), Man, play and games, 1. Illinois paperback, University of Illinois Press; University Presses Marketing, Urbana, Ill., Wantage.Google Scholar
Coulton, P., Burnett, D. and Gradinar, A. (2016), “Games as Speculative Design: Allowing Players to Consider Alternate Presents and Plausible Features”, in DRS2016: Future-Focused Thinking, 28-30 June 2016, Design Research Society. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2016.15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2014), “Play and Intrinsic Rewards”, in Csikszentmihalyi, M. (Ed.), The collected works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Springer, New York, pp. 135–153. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9088-8_10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De la Pena, D., Jones Allen, D., Hester, R.T., Jeff Hou, J., Lawson, L.J. and McNally, M.J. (2017), Design As Democracy: Techniques for Collective Creativity, Island Press, Washington, D. C.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dreimane, S. (2019), “Gamification for Education: Review of Current Publications”, in Daniela, L. (Ed.), Didactics of smart pedagogy: Smart pedagogy for technology enhanced learning, Springer, Cham, pp. 453–464. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01551-0_23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunne, A. and Raby, F. (2013), Speculative everything: Design, fiction, and social dreaming, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Eggink, W. and Dorrestijn, S. (2018), “Philosophy of Technology x Design: the practical turn”, in DRS2018: Catalyst, 25-28 June 2018, Design Research Society. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2018.222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ehn, P. (1989), Work-oriented design of computer artifacts, 2. ed., Arbetslivcentrum, Stockholm.Google Scholar
Eriksen, M.A., Brandt, E., Mattelmäki, T. and Vaajakallio, K. (2014), “Taking design games seriously”, in Winschiers-Theophilus, H. (Ed.), Proceedings of the 13th Participatory Design Conference Research Papers - Volume 1, 10/6/2014 - 10/10/2014, Windhoek, Namibia, ACM, New York, NY, pp. 101–110. https://doi.org/10.1145/2661435.2661447.Google Scholar
Findeli, A. (2010), “Searching for Design Research Questions: Some Conceptual Clarifi”, in Chow, R.W.Y., Jonas, W. and Joost, G. (Eds.), Design Research Network: Questions, hypotheses & conjectures, A DRNetwork publication, iUniverse Inc, pp. 278–293.Google Scholar
Flanagan, M. (2009), Critical play: Radical game design, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flanagan, M. (2021), “If You Play It, Do You Believe It? Making Game Stories Become Real with Embedded Design”, in Suter, B., Bauer, R. and Kocher, M. (Eds.), Narrative Mechanics, transcript Verlag, Bielefeld, Germany, pp. 279–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glăveanu, V.P. (2018), “Perspectival Collective Futures: Creativity and Imagination in Society”, in Saint-Laurent, C. de, Obradović, S. and Carriere, K.R. (Eds.), Imagining Collective Futures: Perspectives from Social, Cultural and Political Psychology, Springer eBook Collection Behavioral Science and Psychology, Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, pp. 83–105. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76051-3_5.Google Scholar
Grace, L. (2014), “Critical Games: Critical Design in Independent Games”, paper presented at DiGRA 2014, Salt Lake City, USA. https://doi.org/10.13140/2.1.2607.3603.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, M.C. and Jenkins, K.M. (2014), “Interactive Narratives: Processes and Outcomes in User-Directed Stories”, Journal of Communication, Vol. 64 No. 3, pp. 479–500. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12093.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habraken, N.J. and Gross, M.D. (1987), Concept design Games (Book 1 and 2): A report submitted to the National Science Foundation, Cambridge MA.Google Scholar
Huizinga, J. (1994), Homo ludens: Vom Ursprung der Kultur im Spiel, Rowohlts Enzyklopädie, Vol. 435, 119. - 121. Tsd, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg.Google Scholar
Illich, I. (1973), Tools for conviviality, World perspectives, Vol. 47, [1st ed.], Harper & Row, New York.Google Scholar
Jimenez, A.P.M. (2018), “Game Co-Creation With Young Music Students: A Pedagogic Approach to Promote Creativity and Engagement”, in Ciussi, M. (Ed.), 12th European Conference on Games Based Learning (ECGBL 2018): Sophia Antipolis, France, 4-5 October 2018, Curran Associates, Inc, Red Hook, NY, pp. 792–799.Google Scholar
Khaled, R. and Vasalou, A. (2014), “Bridging serious games and participatory design”, International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 93–100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2014.03.001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Khan, A.H., Snow, S., Heiner, S., Hardgrove, R., Matthews, S. and Matthews, B. (2020), “The Politics of Materiality: Exploring Participatory Design Methods, Tools and Practices”, in DRS2020: Synergy, 11-14 August 2020, Design Research Society. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2020.246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kreminski, M. and Mateas, M. (2021), “A Coauthorship-Centric History of Interactive Emergent Narrative”, in Mitchell, A. and Vosmeer, M. (Eds.), Interactive Storytelling, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 13138, Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 222–235. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92300-6_21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lanezki, M., Siemer, C. and Wehkamp, S. (2020), “"Changing the Game—Neighbourhood”: An Energy Transition Board Game, Developed in a Co-Design Process: A Case Study”, Sustainability, Vol. 12 No. 24, p. 10509. https://doi.org/10.3390/su122410509.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Latour, B. (1992), “Where are the missing masses? The sociology of a few mundane artifacts.”, in Bijker, W.E. and Law, J. (Eds.), Shaping technology: Studies in sociotechnical change, Inside technology, [Nachdr.], MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, pp. 225–258.Google Scholar
Latour, B. (2005), Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory, Clarendon lectures in management studies, Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lerner, J. (2014), Making democracy fun: How game design can empower citizens and transform politics, MIT Pres, Cambridge, Massachusetts.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lerner, J. and Secondo, D. (2012), “By the People, For the People: Participatory Budgeting from the Bottom Up in North America”, Journal of Deliberative Democracy, Vol. 8 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.16997/jdd.148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, M.-L. and Milkoreit, M. (2020), “Imagination and transformations to sustainable and just futures”, Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, Vol. 8 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2020.081.Google Scholar
Norman, D.A. (2013), The design of everyday things, Revised and expanded edition, Basic Books, New York, NY.Google Scholar
Pearce, C. (2016), “Role-Play, Improvisation, and Emergent Authorship”, in Lewis, G.E. and Piekut, B. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies: Volume, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 445–468.Google Scholar
Piedade, P., Neto, I., Pires, A.C., Prada, R. and Nicolau, H. (2023), “PartiPlay: A Participatory Game Design Kit for Neurodiverse Classrooms”, in The 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, 22 10 2023 25 10 2023, New York NY USA, ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp. 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1145/3597638.3614496.Google Scholar
Poremba, C. (2007), “Critical Potential on the Brink of the Magic Circle”, paper presented at DiGRA 2007 Situated Play Conference, 24-28 Sept 2007, Tokyo, Japan.Google Scholar
Prax, P. (2016), “Co-creative Game Design as Participatory Alternative Media”, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2016.Google Scholar
Ratto, M. (2011), “Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in Technology and Social Life”, The Information Society, Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 252–260. https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2011.583819.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robazza, G. and Smith, M. (2022), “Co-design as Play: Junk Sounds and Architecture in Urban Space”, in Mohareb, N., Cardaci, A., Maruthaveeran, S. and Cavalagli, N. (Eds.), Cities’ Identity Through Architecture and Arts, Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation, Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 121–139. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99480-8_10.Google Scholar
Rüller, S., Giménez Ciciolli, B., Weibert, A., Aal, K., Blythe, M., Muller, M. and Kafai, Y.B. (2022), “Creative Entrances to Co-Design”, in Vlachokyriakos, V., Yee, J., Frauenberger, C., Hurtado, M.D., Hansen, N., Strohmayer, A., van Zyl, I., Dearden, A., Talhouk, R., Gatehouse, C., Leishman, D., Agid, S., Sciannamblo, M., Taylor, J., Botero, A., Gaudio, C.D., Akama, Y., Clarke, R. and Vines, J. (Eds.), Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 2022 - Volume 2, 19 08 2022 01 09 2022, Newcastle upon Tyne United Kingdom, ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp. 247–250. https://doi.org/10.1145/3537797.3537877.Google Scholar
Salen, K. and Zimmerman, E. (2004), Rules of play: Game design fundamentals, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.Google Scholar
Stoddard, J., Brohinsky, J., Behnke, D., Shaffer, D., Marquart, C., Tutweiler, M.S. and Chen, J. (2022), Designing Epistemic Games for Informed Civic Learning, International Society of the Learning Sciences. https://doi.org/10.22318/cscl2022.379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suter, B. (2021), “Narrative Patterns in Video Games”, in Suter, B., Bauer, R. and Kocher, M. (Eds.), Narrative mechanics: Strategies and meanings in games and real life, Media studies, transcript, Bielefeld, pp. 51–78. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839453452-003.Google Scholar
Sutton-Smith, B. (2009), The Ambiguity of Play, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Thiel, S.-K. and Lyle, P. (2019), “Malleable Games - A Literature Review on Communities of Game Modders”, in Tellioglu, H., Teli, M. and Nathan, L. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Communities & Technologies - Transforming Communities, 03.06.2019-07.06.2019, Vienna Austria, ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp. 198–209. https://doi.org/10.1145/3328320.3328393.Google Scholar
Thiel, S.-K., Reisinger, M., Röderer, K. and Fröhlich, P. (2016), “Playing (with) Democracy: A Review of Gamified Participation Approaches”, JeDEM - eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 32–60. https://doi.org/10.29379/jedem.v8i3.440.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verbeek, P.-P. (2005), What Things Do, Penn State University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780271033228.Google Scholar
You have
Access
Open access