Games Communities

Examining the sociological relationship between games and communities has been an important aspect of research within many disciplines. The cultural importance of games can be clearly seen throughout the historical record. Games played in classical antiquity are simultaneously understood as politically charged expressions of state power, cultural hegemony, and mass distraction. As Johan Huizenga famously pointed out in his classic study, Homo Ludens, games are ritualized practices that create a space in which actions are understood as play and are accorded a special set of [Page 307]ethics that allow for different degrees of experimental freedom. He dubbed this space the “magic circle,” which is best understood as a mental understanding that within the gamespace, social norms are loosened so that learning and experimentation might take place in relatively controlled ways. The idea of the magic circle has been sometimes contested by games scholars, but the general concept of a special gamespace has remained intact. In the work of scholars such as Roger Caillois, or more recently Jesper Juul, a game is broadly defined as a constrained space or activity that assesses players by assigning merit to some actions but penalties to others. These constraints might involve specific rules that can be enforced upon the space or activity, or they might be phenomenological factors that help players separate their activities and/or the gamespace from everyday life. More specific definitions are entirely contextual, contingent upon numerous factors, including purpose, design, or sometimes whether or not the game is computer based. In any event, gamespace is an arena mutually constructed by participants who must agree on its affordances and constraints. It asks for play from those inside the arena and encourages ardent fan participation from those who remain at its edges.

“We Dancing Online,” here during the 2008 Taipei Game Show, is hugely popular in Taiwan, played both online and in person.