The document presents an exploratory frame analysis of different modes of video gaming. It discusses how "gaming" can be framed as a leisurely activity or an instrumental task through keyings. The method involved interviews with 19 participants who game both leisurely and instrumentally. Results identified multiple forms of leisurely gaming centered around types of enjoyment (relaxing, socializing, engrossing etc.) and instrumental gaming centered around goals (reviewing, analyzing, training etc.). Instrumental play is seen as a keying that frames gaming as a controlled, work-like task rather than voluntary play. The frame analysis accounts for informal games and the lack of one single video gaming frame.

1. disambiguating playan exploratory analysis of gaming modes
Sebastian Deterding
MAGIC Lab, Rochester Institute of Technology
DiGRA 2013, Atlanta, August 27, 2013
c b

2. 1
Research
problem
3
Method
2
Theory
4
Empirical
results
5
Summary
2

3. 3
Method
2
Theory
4
Empirical
results
5
Summary
3
1
Research
problem

4. the trouble with formalist game studies
4

5. Game:
an object with formal
features
5
what it sees

6. Gaming:
a specific mode of
engagement
6
what it takes for granted

7. jumping cracks on walkways six degrees of wikipedia
7
informal games: gaming w/ many objects

8. debugging
playtesting/reviewing
making a machinima
testing screen resolution
a scientific study
learning (serious games)
sports (e-sports)
work (goldfarming)
instrumental play: gaming Forms ...
8
Taylor 2006, Sicart 2011

9. …that lack typical »game« features
9

10. The challenge of instrumental play
• Instrumental play has features (folk-theoretically)
associated with work, not play nor games Taylor 2006; Yee
2006; Malaby 2007; Nardi 2009
• Often involuntary, inautonomous, exotelic
• Often serious, predefined, non-negotiable
consequence
• Often negative emotions
• Often repetitive, pre-organised, effortful
10

11. Jesper Juul
»According to Roger Caillois, the professional player or
athlete is working rather than playing. This quickly becomes
counterintuitive since a contest such as a marathon may
include professional athletes as well as amateurs who are
running “for the fun of it.” This logically means that the
marathon is or is not a game at the same time. A better
explanation is that even professional players are playing a
game, but that in this specific game session, the consequences
have been negotiated to be financial and career-
determining.«
half-real (2005: 62)
11

12. how to disentangle
situational forms of
engaging with games?

13. 13
What is this?
What forms does it
take?

14. 14
What sense do
they make of their
experience?

15. frame analysis
15

16. A frame analytic account of the
conventions, understandings,
experiences of »video gaming«
in leisurely and instrumental
contexts
research goal
16

17. 1
Research
problem
3
Method
4
Empirical
results
5
Summary
17
Theory
2

18. A frame is »the definition of a situation«:
»principles of organization which govern
events ... and our subjective involvement
in them.«
Erving Goffman
frame analysis (1986: 8, 10-11)
18

19. Basic tenets of frame analysis
• Frames are people’s socially co-oriented and reproduced
»organising principles« for types of situations
• They organise both covert experience and overt
behaviour
• Frames do so materially (how situation X is), and
epistemically (how people perceive, conceive, identify,
expect X), and normatively (how people demand/sanction
X ought to be)
19

20. gaming frame
Total mesh of actors, objects, processes reproducing-changing the reoccurrence of similar types of situations over space & time
framing as »gaming«
Process of constituting a situation
as being »gaming« game objects/settings
Stabilise affordances relative to
dispositions
20
the gaming frame
frame understanding
Current understanding of
situation as »gaming«
gaming dispositions
Enable understanding, perception,
enactment relative to objects

21. 1
Research
problem
2
Theory
4
Empirical
results
5
Summary
21
3
Method

22. Method
• Purposive sampling of interviewees gaming leisurely
& instrumentally: journalism, design, research, e-
sport (n=19)
• Semi-structured interviews, 90-120 min. each
• Interviewees invited to report »typical« flow of
events, then report norm (breaches) following
conceptual framework, then compare contexts
• Transcription of all interviews
• Coding and analysis w/ MAXQDA following directed
qualitative content analysis Hsieh & Shannon 2005, Gläser & Laudel 2011

23. 1
Research
problem
3
Method
2
Theory
5
Summary
23
4
Empirical
results

24. »gaming« is a multitude
24Photo: Robert Hedge

25. »I would call it a game –
but I did not play it.«
Object
Framing
Instrumental gaming

26. instrumental keyingsleisurely modes
Exotelic instrumental goal
Professional norms
Highly consequential
Mostly controlled
Autotelic enjoyment
Sportsmanship norms
Slightly consequential
Mostly autonomous
26
Review gaming
Analytic gaming
E-sport training
E-sport tournament
Relaxing gaming
Socialising gaming
Engrossing gaming
Hardcore gaming
Competitive gaming
instrumental
gaming
leisurely
gaming

27. not a completely new insight ...

28. modes of leisurely gaming
relaxing socialising engrossing hardcore competitive
Motivational
relevancy
Relaxation Relatedness Engrossment Competence Achievement
Telicity Very low Low Medium High Very high
Absorption Very low Low Very high High Very high
Arousal Very low Medium-high Medium High Very high
Gameworthiness Very low Low Medium High Very high
Harmony Very low/absent Very high Low/absent Very low/absent Very low
Typical
contexture
Mostly singleplayer F2F Multiplayer Mostly singleplayer Mostly singleplayer Multiplayer
Typical genres
Social & casual
games
Party & board
games
RPG, adventure,
TBS, simulation
Shooter, RTS,
action, MMORPG
Combat, sports,
shooters, RTS
Typical devices Mobile, tablet, PC Console, PC PC, console Console, PC PC, console
Typical settings
Transit, recreation
spots, home
Private or shared
room at home
Private room at
home
Private room at
home
Private room at
home
28
Cf. Strong 1979

29. instrumental gaming
• Again, multiple forms of instrumental gaming:
reviewing, analysing, training, tournament
• Participants reported instrumental gaming to be
»not playing«, used emic terms to distinguish them
• Experience of instrumental gaming is very different
• But: Behaviour and material configurations are
highly similar to leisurely gaming
‣ Instrumental play is a keying: a re-framing
29

30. Keyings are »conventions by which a
given activity, ... meaningful in terms of
some primary framework, is transformed
into something patterned on this activity
but seen by the participants to be
something quite else.«
Erving Goffman
frame analysis (1986: 43-44)
30

31. e.g.A rehearsal
31

32. Johan Huizinga
»First and foremost,
all play is a voluntary
activity.«
homo ludens (1938/1950: 7)
Cf. Caillois 2001, Suits 2005, Pellegrini 2009, Burghardt 2005

33. controlled motivation
• Instrumental gaming gives rise to experience of
controlled motivationDeci & Ryan 2012
• Occurs when current needs mismatch situational
givens and salient controlling motivations keep
individual from changing or leaving
• Leisurely gaming typically allows freedom to change
or leave the situation: Taken-for-granted absence of
controlling motivation is part of game enjoyment
• Events framed as »play« feel »work-like« if
experienced as controlled motivated, events framed
as work feel »like play« if autonomously motivated
33

34. 1
Research
problem
3
Method
2
Theory
4
Empirical
results
34
5
Summary

35. summary
• Frame analysis distinguishing »games« as objects from
»gaming« as situational framing accounts for
• Informal games: Situational actor-object relation affords gaming, but actors
constitute it with objects
• Instrumental play: A keying of gaming as instrumental task
• The is no one video gaming frame, but leisurely modes of
gaming around types of enjoyment and instrumental
keyings around types of instrumental goals
• Leisurely gaming is enjoyable partially because it provides
the autonomy to reconfigure or leave the situation
35

36. sebastian@codingconduct.cc
@dingstweets
codingconduct.cc
Thank you.