Mangle of play

The Mangle of Play

Gameplay is:

• messy and complex
• multiple competing visions and goals
• different parties find different ways to achieve their goals
• not confined to just the space of the game

The Mangle of

(Identity) Play

...the contours of material agency are mangled in practice, meaning emergently transformed and delineated in the dialectic of resistance and accommodation (Pickering, 1993)

Guild Leadership

WoW Raiding Dependent on Mods

World of Warcraft raiding depended on a group's ability to monitor and manage its performance. A mod was created (early 2006) to help players keep track of a specific performance number, "threat."

By redistributing their cognition and responsibilities to a nonhuman actor, players could diagnose moments of failure and change their practice for future success.

Using the mod became common practice, which had a normalizing effect on what it meant to play WoW. WoW playing became even more numbers-centric and less about role-playing or other ways of interacting with the game and the social community.

Newcomers

to a raid group

What are the forms of practice in which a newcomer participates?

• How does newcomer experience with the activity influence participation?
• How does newcomer social status with the team influence participation?

Small Worlds &

Tiny Acts of

Subversion

"Designed Emergence"

Themes:

• Channel of communication influences interaction.
• Social familiarity with a group interacts with skill in activity.
• Games as designed challenges and innovative player solutions.
• Dialectic of resistance and accommodation.

Contact Us!

Mark Chen (University of Washington):

markchen@uw.edu @mcdanger

Ben DeVane (University of Wisconsin, Madison) :

ben.devane@gmail.com

Sara M. Grimes (Simon Fraser University):

smgrimes@sfu.ca

Sarah E. Walter (Stanford University):

swalt@stanford.edu

Moses Wolfenstein (University of Wisconsin, Madison): moses.wolfenstein@gmail.com

The Mangle

Summary of Findings

Cultural Resources

Social Resources

Material Resources

Research Context

Analysis of language: level of analysis is the where “social action takes place” (Linde, 1988)

• Mitigating language: Linde, 1988
• Positioning: Harré & Van Langenhove, 1991
• Face-saving: Brown and Levinson, 1987

Identity in

Digital Media and Learning

VENT:

...they summon like every 3k it looks like, I've been noticing. Or less. Um everyone's going to be in this corner, downing the Shaman. It's not going to be like short; it's going to take a while to down each one; they have like 20k each…

Um there's gonna be four waves that we have to deal with, we're going to fight them down here. Um, there's going to be a tank and a minstrel over here tanking this big giant in red that you see.

Don't worry about them, for the mean time. After - on the fourth wave, we're going to keep one of them alive, everyone is going to go into this corner that I am in right now.

NO VENT:

I'll just tell him to focus on someone's target.

Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO)

Learning is, in this purview,

more basically

a process of coming to be,

of forging identities

in activity in the world. (Lave, 1992)

Data collection: Participant-observation (~ 2 yrs)

• Video capture of ~ 5 months of activity
• Interviews with key informants
• Survey on raiding in LOTRO (N>500)

Research Questions

“participation in social practice is the fundamental form of learning”

- Lave & Wenger, 1991

The Mangle of Play - Constance Steinkuehler (2006)

"The game that's actually played by participants is not the game designers originally had in mind but rather one that is the outcomes of an interactively established (Pickering, 1995) "mangle of practice" of designers, players, in-game currency farmers, and broader social norms."

Game challenges and player workarounds

Mark Chen | Ben DeVane | Sara M Grimes | Sarah E Walter | Moses Wolfenstein

Peer Play & Groupings

• Friend lists rather than guilds
• Groups formed around performance (performatives) and display of virtual "commodities"
• Exchange of knowledge & "cheats" (broadly defined)
• Make-believe play scenarios
• Examples of user initiative

Safe Chat Mechanisms

Notably, the threat meter helped us remember.

Cross-promotional references:

• BarbieGirls: 75
• Nicktropolis: 237

Various UI elements do different things.

UI helped players interpret what is going on.

Pre-determined phrases:

• BarbieGirls: 323
• Nicktropolis: 634
• Club Penguin: 322
• Toontown: 228

Sometimes difficult to make sense of what was going on in a WoW fight.

Design Challenges Intertwined with Commercial Content and Priorities

Emergent Play

Performatives & "Flash Mobs"

Unanticipated Uses:

- Gender Bending

- Subverting gendered subjectivities

Narrow margins of manoeuvre afford highly reflexive forms of player initiative (workarounds, etc.)