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Instrumental play

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Professionals sat at a table playing chess, visibly focused
Chess is a game that tends towards highly instrumental play[1]

In game studies, instrumental play (also known as power gaming) is a form of play that seeks to achieve particular goals within the rules of a structured, organized game.

Background and history

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Further information: Play (activity)

While play is often characterized by a lack of seriousness, it is not defined by it. It is easy to come up with a counterexample to this: a chess player is unambiguously engaging in play, but is completely serious while doing it.[2]

The act of play creates invisible social boundaries. If the player were to cross these boundaries, failing to acknowledge the validity of the rules, the play loses all meaning.[3] Doing so is an act distinct from mere cheating; a cheater attempts to subvert the rules, but does so in a way that still acknowledges their existence.[3][4] In his 1938 book Homo Ludens, cultural historian Johan Huizinga called this boundary the magic circle.[3]

Baseball field, all players in position
Every player of a baseball game has a role that every other player expects them to fufill[5]

Players of a game take roles, which define what they must do and how they interact with each other. Each player must be aware of how they expect others to act in their roles, and their own actions are based on those assumptions. It follows that each player's actions are controlled by what the other players assume their actions will be.[6]

Theory

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Instrumental play is dissimilar to the forms of play typically associated with fun or leisure. Its main focus is on efficiency, skill, and understanding the game to find the best way possible of playing it. Someone who engages in instrumental play (a power gamer) enjoys developing strategies to play the game as 'correctly' as possible, both by considering how they could be playing differently, and how they are currently playing incorrectly.[7] However, it is not always clear what exactly it means to be the best at a game. As this is what a power gamer desires, they must define the goals they want to achieve.[a][8] To achieve those goals, power gamers develop strategies to more efficiently interact with the game,[9] are willing to put in large amounts of time and effort doing things they may not particularly enjoy in the moment, and break down the game to analyze it and the strategies that can be used to 'attack' it,[10] seeing the game as a problem to be solved.[11][12]

Football game; goalie misses the ball, large crowd in background, many with visible reactions to the goal
Sports such as association football grew from simple premises to high-stakes events with large audiences[13]

Games, even ones that originated as "solitary pastimes", naturally evolve into competition. Caillois argued that any game would eventually lose its appeal if there was no one to compete against and no one to watch, as players have an innate desire to defeat opponents – either directly, or indirectly by setting records or otherwise achieving feats "difficult to equal". To facilitate this, they form communities where they can compare their skill, establish rules for organized competition, and create spectacle.[13]

When players develop new strategies for a game, other players adopt them, until the strategy becomes a norm.[14] Power gamers mathematically and statistically analyze of the mechanics of a game to understand it and develop new strategies for it, an act called theorycraft.[15] The strategies formed by theorycraft fundamentally change how the game is played,[16] distilling a large variety of options into the few that are objectively correct. The use of numbers to describe games makes the conclusions feel 'objectively true', polarizing the perceived qualities of the strategies the numbers do or do not support into being 'correct' or 'incorrect'.[17]

Players expect these correct strategies of each other.[17] They form communities of practice, which are a group of people that collectively engage in a shared behavior.[18] In order to achieve success at a game themselves, a new player must adopt the culture of this community, which involves adopting their practices, forming social connections to join the 'in-group'.[19] The players that are the best at the game garner respect and reputation from others.[20]

Rationalization

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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.[21] Sociologist Max Weber, the creator of these concepts, also wrote extensively about the rationalization – the "increasing importance of a style of reasoning" – of society.[22] This movement can cause the original purpose of societal structures to become distorted, as "meaningfulness devolves into practical advance".[23]

When players engage in instrumental play within the view of others, it legitimizes it as the correct way to play a game,[24] which spreads the use of instrumental play across games within society.[25]

Notes

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  1. ^ This is especially an issue in video games, as they can change frequently; thus, the goals must change frequently in turn.

Citations

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  1. ^ Caillois 2001, p. 30.
  2. ^ Huizinga 1955, pp. 5–6.
  3. ^ a b c Huizinga 1955, pp. 10–11.
  4. ^ Caillois 2001, pp. 45.
  5. ^ Mead 1934, p. 154.
  6. ^ Mead 1934, pp. 151, 153–154.
  7. ^ Taylor 2006, pp. 72–74.
  8. ^ Taylor 2006, p. 75.
  9. ^ Taylor 2006, p. 79.
  10. ^ Taylor 2006, pp. 76–78.
  11. ^ Taylor 2006, p. 74.
  12. ^ Caillois 2001, p. 29.
  13. ^ a b Caillois 2001, pp. 37–38.
  14. ^ Paul 2011, "Introduction": paragraph 1.
  15. ^ Karlsen 2011, p. 1.
  16. ^ Paul 2011, "Theorycraft: A History": paragraph 3.
  17. ^ a b Paul 2011, "Conclusions": paragraph 2.
  18. ^ Karlsen 2011, p. 2.
  19. ^ Chen 2012, pp. 33–36.
  20. ^ Grimes & Feenberg 2012, p. 23.
  21. ^ Henricks 2016, p. 291.
  22. ^ Henricks 2016, p. 289.
  23. ^ Henricks 2016, pp. 293–294.
  24. ^ Ask 2016, p. 199.
  25. ^ Grimes & Feenberg 2012, p. 28.

References

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