A concept of game is justified and unfolded that revolves around the lure and threat of the unexpected. The author duo places their theory of ludic action in classical concepts of the game as well as in the current discourse of game studies. The phenomenal multiplicity of games is outlined in historical perspective and structured in a systematic manner. The authors explain the media-technical and communicative preconditions of the computer game boom and reflect on the discussion about escalations of ludic violence. The instrumentalization of games, which is becoming increasingly popular under the heading of gamification, is critically examined. The conspicuous inflation of the game metaphor is brought into connection with ludic connotations in the social structures of modern and digital society.
Fabian Arlt, M. A. , studied media management and is doing his doctorate in social and business communication at the University of the Arts (UdK) in Berlin.Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Arlt is a social scientist and publicist, he teaches at the Institute for Theory and Practice of Communication at the University of the Arts (UdK) in Berlin.
This book is a translation of an original German edition. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation.
Author(s): Fabian Arlt, Hans-Jürgen Arlt
Publisher: Springer
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 179
City: Wiesbaden
Preface
Contents
1: Introduction
1.1 “Don’t Think, Just look”
1.2 Incessant Talk about the Game
Connections to Different Points of View
The Following Six Chapters
References
2: Function and Stubbornness of the Game
2.1 Elementary Sociality: Interaction, Society, Person
“You Can’t Not Behave”
Interactions Are Socially Framed
Lighthouses of Expectation
What Is an “Outrageous Person”?
Normality: A “Temporary Solution in Perpetuity”
2.2 Theory Excursus: The Game, the Players and the Social Form of Action
Communication and Action Interact
Structure and Plot
It Doesn’t Depend on Müller and Maier, But It Won’t Work Without Them
Ludic Action in Their Environment
Experience and Action
Implementation, Performance, Enforcement
Distinctive Beginning, Defined End
Play as Part of a Whole
2.3 Self-Liberation: Temporarily Acting Without Commitment As If
Expect the Unexpected
A Presuppositional Undertaking
2.4 Self-Restraint: Qualities of Experience in the Nothing-Is-Impossible
Suddenly No Cat Is a Cat
Experience Orientation
Entertaining Success
Captivated Audience
What Kind of Society Are We Actually Playing in?
References
3: The Game Discourse: Consensus, Contact, Counterpoints
3.1 What Does “Acting As If” and “Without Obligation” Mean? With an Excursus on the Language Game
The As If Is Rooted in Communication
Sincerity Is Not Communicable
The Four Letters B a l l Don’t Roll Nor Bounce Not
Wittgenstein’s Language Game
Flamingo Bottles and Bottle Squares
Triad of the Real, the Fictive and the Imaginary
Non-binding: As If Nothing Had Happened
Broken Clubs Are Broken Even After the Game Is Over
3.2 Common Characteristics of the Game in a Theoretical Light
“To Be Pleasured Means to Agree”
3.3 The Ludic Action as a Pragmatic Paradox
The Rubicon Is Not Crossed
Where Kissing and Not Kissing Is the Same Thing
Delimitations in the Boundless
The Magic Circle Dispute: Disenchanted
The Play of the Waves Is Not a Play of the Waves
Glass Bead Games
For Children Everything Comes Unexpectedly at First
3.4 Without Play No Normality or Without Normality No Play?
No Cake Without Brown Bread
References
4: Functional Changes and Variations of the Game
4.1 Ludic Action Diversity, Historically and Systematically
Games in Transition
Patterns: From Trictrac to Backgammon
4.2 Play in the Tribal, Stratified, Modern, Digital Society
Wizards and Shamans
Tribal
Jesters and Jugglers
A History of Prohibition
The Unexpected: Problem and Solution at the Same Time
Modern
Ludic Actions Realize the Unexpected
Digital
In Summary
4.3 Playing with Oneself and with Others
Bounce, Daydream, Transform
Sport, Movement and Simulation
Gambling: Invitation to Fate
Duality of Cooperation and Competition
4.4 Playing with Themes, Signs and Media of All Kinds
Playful Art, Artistic Play
The Topic Area of the Unexpected
Topics
Object-, Success- and Dissemination-Media
Object-Media and Technology
Love and Power
Primary to Tertiary Order Dissemination Media
References
5: Playing in the Digital Sandbox
5.1 Computer as a Tool and Dissemination Medium
Microphone and Loudspeaker, Camera and Screen
Discretion and Recombination
From Steam Hammer to Thinking Machine
Operations in the Data Room
Playing On and with the Computer
Unpredictable Computing Power
Games, the All-Rounders of the Digital World
5.2 Interaction Between Addresses
Quantum Leap in the Play with Signs and Media
Sandbox Games
Social Control Makes Responsible
Less Control in, More Control Over Communications
Above and Below the Neck
5.3 A Triple Ego Experience as Player, Observer and Played
From GUI to NUI
Egological Primacy?
5.4 Killing Without Commitment: The Fascination of Violence and the Digital Ease of Death
Gripping Violence and the Fascination of Its Reproducibility
A Fundamentally Different Context of Meaning
Competition for the Cruelest Death
Violence and Sex as Media Events
References
6: Transitions I: Expansions and Corruptions of the Game
6.1 The Game is Willing
Quite a Few “Spoilers”
6.2 Good Game, Bad Game: Patterns of Interpretation in Dissent
Cautious and Differentiated Results
6.3 Gambling Addiction: A Seduction of the Game or Its Abuse?
Two Lines of Discourse
6.4 Dreams of Purity and Realities of Success: Education and Economics Dominate
Tennis for Two at the Nuclear Research Center
Playing as a Pedagogical Measure
Games Economy
E-sports: “Attitudes Differ Greatly”
Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Hollywood
6.5 Gamification – Bullshit or Gateway to a Better World
Employee Motivation, Further Training, Customer Animation
Serious Games and Exergames
“What If We Started…”
References
7: Transitions II: Modern Play Spaces and the Ludic Basic Feeling of Digital Culture
7.1 On a Voyage of Discovery
7.2 Comparison or Equation
7.3 Temporary Voluntary Participation: Associations and Work Organisations
Freedom of Assembly and Association
7.4 Non-binding: Plurality of Meaning, Positive Law, Experience-Orientation of Consumption
Chameleon-Like Changeability
“We Are Pope”
“Abyss of Arbitrariness”
Excitement Thanks to Shopping
7.5 Unexpected: An Insured Life in the as If
Calculating with Probabilities
Stock Gambling
7.6 Always on: Mindfulness and Connectivity
Disruption as a Disaster
The Rise of Three New Virtues
Pleas for Error Friendliness
More Flexibility and More Mobility
Dating and Ghosting
Instantaneous Presence: A Running Coming and Going
7.7 The Continuing Invocation of the Game: Good Reasons, Dubious Purposes
The Ludic Mask
References
