[-empyre-] playing vs productivity (and what does it has to do with videogames?)

[Cicero Inacio da Silva]

I will also suggest that in some cases leisure is something that we
don't relate with games...and in some specific cases, we do not know
exactly when are we working or just having fun. Some projects that
support the idea of "serious games", developed and researched by
people at UCSC are a kind of approach to this issue...if someone
decide to say that he is playing "serious games" means that he is not
having fun? Another project that I think that is radical on this is Ge
Jin, aka Jingle (from UCSD) “Chinese Gold Farmers: a feature length
documentary on real money traders in MMORPGs”. On youtube you can see
these farmers playing for 18 hours a day to sell all the gold that
they collect in games to put on sale on Ebay etc...and in their
leisure time guess what are they doing?
Best
Cicero

On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 9:46 AM, Gabriel Menotti
<gabriel.menotti at gmail.com> wrote:
>> [Simon Biggs]
>> All interesting. No mention though of Huizinga's work, or that of numerous
>> related theorists, on the role of play in the formation, practice and value
>> of cultural activities.
>
> Thanks, Simon! Huizinga is a very good reference, which had completely
> escaped me – probably because I was not really taking into account how
> the dynamics of play drive general cultural activities and structures.
> Moving away from the ludologistic perspective, I wondered instead how
> these other activities are in fact enmeshed within what we call
> “playing.”
>
> Although generally suspicious of cultural analytics, I admit it does a
> good job demonstrating that the interaction with some modern
> videogames is mostly constituted by watching CGs and making otherwise
> dull system management and navigation. [1]
>
> On the other hand, it is true that the all-pervasiveness of play is
> one door through which videogames are being re-functionalized and
> incorporated into larger productive systems – in that sense, one might
> recall “games” such as EpicWin [2] and the somewhat controversial
> Google Image Labeler [3]. I’m sure Daniel Cook can give much better
> examples.
>
> However, doesn’t that defeats the idea that “play” should be a
> gratuitous and aimless activity, an end-in-itself? Given the
> complexities at hand and the way playing can be easily appropriated as
> labour, where should we trace the line that defines this concept?
>
> Do videogames have essentially anything to do with “playing” anymore?
>
> And with “videos”?
>
> And with “games”?
>
> Best!
> Menotti
>
> [1] http://lab.softwarestudies.com/2008/06/videogameplayviz-analyzing-temporal.html
> [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmKwF_Si734
> [3] http://images.google.com/imagelabeler
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> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
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