Gameology: Commentary and Resources for the Game Studies Community

I know that utopianism is a bad word, but that won't stop me from using it. I think we have enough descriptions of the present situation, but we have hardly anything to aspire to. That's one of the problems in the current situation.

Nevertheless, I take your point about co-optation. That's the problem that every seemingly transgressive practice faces, whether it's graffiti, hacking, cheating or punk rock.

But at the same time co-optation still operates within a binary logic. I don't want to sound like a broken record, but as long as we think in either/or categories, we won't get anywhere.

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I take your point that making Gamer Theory easier to play would have just created an artificial sense of playability, and you certainly achieved a certain measure of uncertainty through the multiple licenses.

Unfortunately that is exactly what every IP regime does. It pretends to create clear rules but what it really cretes is uncertainty for those affected by these rules. So we arrive at the question of co-optation again.

This seems to be the central point: if it is as you say, and the critical works from the inside, then how come this critique seems so ineffective? Is paying for your labour a critical practice? I really don't think so.

And of course you are right, I can't imagine abandoning play - because I can't imagine what else I would do with my time. Because play is one of the few truly non-binary practices we have at our disposal.