Comments on: Circles, Charmed and Magic

By: Minal Hajratwala

Minal Hajratwala — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 01:42:31 +0000

I think this is so interesting, Adrienne. It also makes me think of what J Halberstam is putting out these days about failure — how success might be defined amongst gamers vs outside. Queerness as a defiance of normative values of “success,” etc. Is it necessary to be or be seen as a or be willing to be a failure … when it comes to, say, assimilating into mainstream culture … in order to succeed at being queer / achieving a level of mastery at a game / becoming a superhero on one’s own terms?

By: Adrienne Shaw

Adrienne Shaw — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:43:10 +0000

An excellent point Samantha! I think that a lot of ways in which “good play” is distinguished from “bad play” is through productivity. For example, the research emphasizing play as important to human (and animal) development, tends to emphasize the “natural” and “inherent” importance of play, dismissing out-of-hand that play as frivolous is wrong. Queer theory offers a critique of all of those underlying assumptions, as you point out.

By: Samantha Close

Samantha Close — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 09:04:43 +0000

This is a really interesting point, particularly from my perspective as someone who often is a solitary player but also often finds myself making the social argument in explaining games to skeptical audiences.

What occurred to me in reading your post is that many of these magic circle lines get drawn via considering questions of productivity–i.e. gaming in a group is more okay than gaming alone to a general audience because you’re “producing” relationships with those other people. Similarly, extensive solo play or online guild play is revered in serious MMO gaming circles because they see it as producing skill. Queer theory has a lot to say about the relationship between productivity/consumption and normativity, which might be an interesting direction for the future!