thinking about when i was small, how my mom told me that pipe cleaners were just a tool until people started idly shaping things with them and it grew so popular that they were marketed as crafting materials. and that story about how the original frisbees were disposable pie plates that students flattened to throw. and how when i was a child i had a wooden mancala set with shiny, colorful stones, but on invention it was played with rocks and grooves dug into the dirt. and middle school, paper football and tic-tac-toe and mash and mad libs, games that just need pen and paper. and before that, games of pretend with pirates and princes and masked marauders. how at slumber parties after lights out, we used to whisper storytelling games, i say one sentence and you say the next. and shadow puppets. and the way all the kids in the neighborhood used to divide into teams and throw fallen pine cones at one another. and the floor is lava game, and the quiet game, and the games i play with my coworkers that are just words and retention. and "put a finger down" on the high school bus. and little girls clapping together, and how the first jump-rope was undoubtedly just a length of rope who knows how long ago, and how natural it is to play, how we seek play at every age and with any resources we have and with whatever time we can squeeze it into in a day. i'm not an anthropologist or a psychologist but i think after food and shelter and water and air what comes next is games and stories and laughter. i think that there is nothing -- not sex or fighting or forming unlikely bonds with animals -- there is nothing more human than to play.
I did a whole paper on Play theory also called Ludology and the source all my other sources cited was a book called Homo Ludens by Johan Huizinga. The name of our species is Homo Sapiens which means Man the Thinker, but Huizinga argues that in reality humans are less defined by their capacity to think and by their capacity for play and so rather than being Homo Sapiens we should be called Homo Ludens, Man the Player.
Taking screenshots is easier on Mobile so I’m going to reblog this now so I can write up a whole thing in a bit before this gets lost in my notifications
Okay so Huizinga wrote Homo Ludens in 1937 well before video games were “a thing” but thankfully for us he also defined how he sees play. There are five key features that he identified as being the the defining factors of play, I want to get into that but first I’m reading the book because it’s been nearly ten years since i read the parts of it I did for the paper. And I have to say if you find yourself as moved by the existence of play as OP you should read it because it is amazing. Here’s a sample passage.
Since the reality of play extends beyond the sphere of human life it cannot have its foundations in any rational nexus, because this would limit it to mankind. The incidence of play is not associated with any particular stage of civilization or view of the universe. Any thinking person can see at a glance that play is a thing on its own, even if his language possesses no general concept to express it. Play cannot be denied. You can deny, if you like, nearly all abstractions: justice, beauty, truth, goodness, mind, God. You can deny seriousness, but not play.
“Play is a voluntary activity” This is the first qualification for something to be play. You do it because you want to. If you are forced to do it it is no longer play. Huizinga dislikes the deterministic approach of calling it an instinct saying that Play being a voluntary act requires the participants to have freewill. Further it is important to note that play must be done for it’s own sake. “The need for it is only urgent to the extent that the enjoyment of it makes it a need. Play can be deferred or suspended at any time. It is never imposed by physical necessity or moral duty. It is never a task.”
The second rule is that play is not “ordinary” or “real.” It exists in a way that allows people to step aside into a “temporary sphere of activity” that is play. He talks about how children can explain when they are “only pretending” He also explains that this is part of what does not preclude play from being serious. in fact he says that play fluctuates between serious and silly at all times. D&D didn’t exist when Huiizinga was alive but for evidence of this you can look to how serious people can take dramatic scenes even scenes of trauma in D&D and larp and continue to play and inhabit that roll because they know it exists in a safe external place. It’s not happening to them but they get to experience it.
As regards its formal characteristics) all students lay stress on the disinterestedness of play. Not being "ordinary" life it stands outside the immediate satisfaction of wants and appetites) indeed it interrupts the appetitive process. It interpolates itself as a temporary actIvity satisfying in itself and ending there. Such at least is the way in which play presents itself to us in the first instance: as an intermezzo, an interlude in our dally lives. As a regularly recurring relaxation, however, it becomes the accompaniment, the complement, in fa ct an integral part of life in general. It adorns life, amplifies it and is to that extent a necessity both for the individual-as a life function-and for society by reason of the meaning it contains, its significance, its expressive value, its spiritual and social associations, in short, as a culture function.
The next characteristic of play is that it exists within certain limits of time and place. “Play begins, and then at a certain time it is “over”” Play happens and then ends. And it can be repeated and altered. You might go bowling every Tuesday Night. You might have a monthly D&D game. You might keep playing your game until you have 100% completion. And each iteration leaves you with memories. In this way play can become tradition. Further there is a space in which this play happens “The arena, the card-table, the magic circle, the temple, the stage, the screen, the tennis court, the court of justice, etc., are all in form and function play-grounds, i.e. forbidden spots, isolated, hedged round, hallowed, within which special rules obtain.”
Fourth all play has rules. All participants in play accept the rules of the game and adhere to them or else playing ends and real life asserts itself. Play is ruined when you break those rules. Even games which seem to have no rules or which all for leeway in rules have them as part of the rules.Calvin-ball as played in Calvin and Hobbes has one rule “anyone can make a New Rule” D&D has multiple books full of rules but Rule Number Zero is “The Story and fun are more important than any of the rules listen in the book.” Kids will often play games without establishing rules ahead of time. My brothers and I used to play with toy light-sabers all the time we just swung at each other but play abruptly ends when someone breaks the unspoken rule and hits to hard and the person who was hit starts crying.
The last qualification for play is that his creates feeling so tension and joy. You create tension and strive to resolve it. You have a goal and play to achieve that goal within the game. Whether the games are competitive, cooperative or solitary their is something you want to do and a chance you won’t get to do it that keeps you coming back for more.Shoot more basket’s than your opponent, slay the dragon, get the ball in the cup on a stick.
So if you were looking to Huizinga to answer your question on if video games are play or not or and how single player games fit into that model, he would likely say yes. They certainly are played for their own sake (voluntary) they create with in them a outside space from ordinary life, they are confined to certain lengths of time and place and they create the feeling of joy and tension. Now whether they are good play is a different question but that probably varies from game to game. Just as some games are more enjoyable than others. As for single player games, play does not all ways have to be social and some rewarding forms of play are indeed solitary. Further consideration should also be applied to the challenges that players often add to games above and beyond the ones programed into the games. If a player has mastered a game such that it no longer supplies the needed tension many players will add arbitrary additional rules to enhance their play. Look at Nuzlocks and Speedruns on Youtube and you’ll find plenty of evidence of that.
Woah I can’t believe I just wrote all that. Granted there was a time and occasionally still are times where I think about getting a PhD in Ludology, but that’s probably a long way off. Anyway I hope you enjoy and maybe read some of Homo Ludens
First off, thank you so much for taking the time to respond so thoroughly and thoughtfully to my little musings. This is totally fascinating! I’ve never given much thought to the intrinsic desire humans have for play, not just fun, but play specifically. It’s so expected and customary to simply quash that pull at some point as we begin to grow toward adulthood. But it explains why so many adults continue to play video games, cooperative games like D&D, team sports, and even just join in playing with little kids or animals. Again, thank you for bringing light and knowledge to something I hadn’t even considered myself to be in the dark on!
It was a pleasure! I was originally a little apprehensive about adding my first bit of commentary because I was worried about derailing OP’s musings on the nature of play and humanity by going “actually that’s an area of academic study.” But when you and OP responded positively to my first reblog it gave me the confidence to jump back into Homo Ludens and and really expound upon it. So thank you for asking the question to let me just write up a whole essay on it.
