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Playing
Jesper Juul: "Playing". In Henry Lowood and Raiford Guins (eds.): Debugging Game
History - A Critical Lexicon. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 2016. pp. 351-358.
http://www.jesperjuul.net/text/playing/

Introduction
Many animals besides humansnotably mammals and birdsexhibit play behavior (Burghardt
2006), but here I discuss something more specificnamely humans playing games. We can think
of games as rule-bound and mostly goal-oriented activities that di er from other goal-oriented
activities in that the primary consequences of game playing are negotiable rather than obligatory
(Juul 2005, chap. 2). In addition, we tend to discuss game playing as a voluntary act whose
primary purpose is entertainment.
Game playing is therefore a subset of the larger set of play activities, which points directly to a
juxtaposition: play is broadly associated with free-form and voluntary activities, yet games are
also defined by rule structures that in part limit what players can do. This juxtaposition contains
the fundamental question of game playing: Is game playing a free activity, or is it determined and
controlled by the game rules?

Four Conceptions of Game Playing

There have historically been four central conceptions of the act of playing a game. They fall
roughly on a scale from the assumption that the game dictates the playing of the game to the
assumption that the player essentially creates a game by playing it. The four conceptions are:
1. Playing as submission, where the player is bound by the limits set forth by the game rules.
2. Playing as constrained freedom, where the game creates a space in which players acquire a
certain amount of freedom and the opportunity to perform particular acts.
3. Playing as subversion, where the player works around both the designers intentions and the
game objects apparent limitations.
4. Playing as creation, where the game is ultimately irrelevant for (or at least secondary to) the
actual playing.
Broadly stated, the first two conceptions are game-centric in that they focus on the game designs
contribution to the game-playing activity, whereas the two latter conceptions are player-centric in
that they emphasize the players contribution. Generally speaking, the player-centric conceptions
of game playing have appeared quite recently and o en as a reaction to earlier game-centric
theories.
These four conceptions are general claims about all game playing. I discuss hybrid and
prescriptive conceptions later in the chapter and question whether it is at all correct to consider
the issue of game playing as a conflict between games and players. In addition, each of the
conceptions can be used to cast games in either a positive or a negative light.
Submission
In Truth and Method, philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer argues that play is a type of submission to
the game: The real subject of the game (this is shown precisely in those experiences in which
there is only a single player) is not the player but the game itself. What holds the player in its spell,
draws him into play, is the game itself (2004, 106). For Gadamer, this is not a bad thing; it is
simply a particular trait of playfulness that Gadamer sees in both games and art. Many critical
views of video games agree with Gadamer that game playing is a kind of submission but rate this
relationship as profoundly negative, describing players as being controlled by the game to the
detriment of their free ability to act or make decisions. For example, in Mind at Play (1983)
Geo rey Lo us and Elizabeth Lo us discuss elements of video game design in terms of Skinner
boxes, referring explicitly to behaviorist experiments with rats.
Specifying the idea of game playing as submission, Scott Rettberg has argued that World of
Warcra (Blizzard Entertainment, 2004) involves players in a Protestant work ethic and that the
game is training a generation of good corporate citizens (2008, 20). Game playing can thus be
devalued on the assumption that submission is negative, but the same conception can
alternatively be viewed through a positive lens because this very control trains players for future
experiences of adversity. Benjamin Franklin thus extolled the lessons of perseverance that chess
playing could teach the player: We learn by chess the habit of not being discouraged by present
bad appearances in the state of our a airs, the habit of hoping for a favorable change, and that of
persevering in the search of resources (1786, n.p.).
Constrained Freedom
Johan Huizinga famously declared play to be a voluntary activity, one that we can then use for
stepping out of real life into a temporary sphere of activity with a disposition all of its own
(1950, 8). This definition does not posit game playing as a moment of absolute freedom but rather
as a situation where players are given a freedom that is usually temporally and spatially delimited
that is, taking place within a magic circle (Salen and Zimmerman 2004; Huizinga 1950). Thus,
conceiving game playing as a type of constrained freedom assumes that this freedom is enabled
by the game design. For example, Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman say that play is free
movement within a more rigid structure (2004, 304). Bernard Suits (1978) similarly argues that
although game rules on one level do limit player optionsfor example, by forbidding the golf
player to carry the ball to the hole by hand or by disallowing chess players to introduce an extra
king of their owngame rules also enable new meaningful actions that would not be possible
without the game (see also Juul 2005). It is only when the rules of chess have been specified for a
check or a checkmate that these actions become available and meaningful.
This conception of constrained freedom connects game playing with other art forms. Ragnhild
Tronstad (2001) and Clara Fernndez-Vara (2005) have in particular compared game playing to
theater and to performances more generally. Fernndez-Vara argues that the performance of the
player is a negotiation between scripted behaviours and improvisation based on the system
(2005, 7). Game playing, then, is like acting in a play, where actors are valued for their ability to
express fixed material in interesting ways.
Subversion
Playing can also be contrued as a type of subversion, where the player overcomes both the
designers intentions and the game objects apparent limitations. The di erence between
constrained freedom and subversion is that the former conceives the game as an enabler of player
activity, but the latter, like submission, sees the game as fundamentally limiting. The subversion
perspective argues that players actively overcome the limitations of the game structure as well as
the game developers possible intentions. For example, in Cheating (2007) Mia Consalvo stresses
how players may act against designer intentions. Espen Aarseth (2007), following Gadamer,
describes submission as the general law of game playing but argues that player subversions and
transgressions are moments of hope when players see the possibility of escaping the
submission that their game playing implies.
Placing subversion in a historical context, Jonas Heide Smith (2006) argues that for various
historical reasons, notably the predispositions of some types of critical theory, the field of game
studies has privileged the conception of the player as a subversive force, working against designer
intentions. Joshua Tanenbaum (2013) similarly argues that both scholars and the game industry
have set up a false conflict between designers and players when they view players as being
primarily subversive.
Creation
Unlike subversion, which sees the game as an actual set of limitations that the player can
overcome, the creation perspective sees the game rules as irrelevant or at least secondary to the
players contribution. Like subversion, creation comes in di ering strengths. In the weaker
variation, Mikael Jakobsson examines players of a Super Smash Bros. (HAL Laboratory, 2001)
tournament and does not discount the existence of a game, but he argues that the very nature of
a game can change without changing the core rules (2007, 293). Linda Hughes, studying
Foursquare players, argues that players can take the same game and collectively make of it
strikingly di erent experiences (1999, 94).
In stronger formulations, the game in e ect becomes secondary to game playing. Laura Ermi and
Franz Myr say that the essence of a game is rooted in its interactive nature, and there is no
game without a player (2005). In a yet stronger phrasing, Anne-Mette Thorhauge claims that
game rules are in actuality created by players: The player culture is not just something taking
place on top of the game, it rather defines the game as a product of the continuous
communication and negotiation among players (2013, 389).

Hybrid and Prescriptive Ideas

I have placed these four conceptions on a scale, and proponents of each conception also tend to
present their own position as being placed on such a scale. Some theorists argue that insu icient
emphasis has been put on game design, and some argue that players contribution is
undervalued. One agreement in the discussion, then, is that there is an underlying scale to be
tipped, and that any emphasis on the game must be to the detriment of any emphasis on the
player and vice versa. But what if this is wrong?
The alternative argument is that game playing operates di erently depending on both the game
and the player. A precursor of this argument can be seen in Roger Cailloiss distinction between
paidia (free-form play) and ludus (structured games) activities ([1958] 2001, chap. 2). However,
Caillois still emphasizes that paidia is an unstructured activity, and he therefore does not consider
the possibility that a strictly structured activity can give rise to freedom for the player. But the
distinction between games of emergence and games of progression (Juul 2002) as well as the
existence of games without goals (Juul 2009, chap. 7) suggest that a game design can be more
or less open to di erent uses by players. In this case, structured game design can in and of itself
enable player freedom, meaning that the perceived conflict between game-centric and player-
centric viewpoints may be a misunderstanding.
A further option is to remember that arguments are o en made for the benefits of particular types
of design. For instance, calls for emergent gameplay (H. Smith 2003) argue for the value of games
that leave room for the player. It is clear that such prescriptive ideas about game design must
assume that design matters and that game playing will be di erent with di erent games. For
example, the New Games movement of the early 1970s o en exhibited a distaste for the playing-
as-submission formula (New Games Foundation 1976) and therefore designed less-competitive
and more loosely structured group activities.
Along similar lines but for di erent ends, the experimental game developer Tale of Tales argues
that rules, goals in particular, get in the way of playfulness (Harvey and Samyn 2006). Here, the
constraints that game rules and goals impose are seen as working against the expressive or
experiential aspect of game playing. This question thereby connects to broader cultural
conceptions of expressivity and art. In a controversial statement, late film critic Roger Ebert made
the opposite argumentnamely, that video games can never be art because by their nature
[they] require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature,
which requires authorial control (2005). This distinction illustrates how the di erent conceptions
of game playing are invoked with references to broader cultural ideas, even though these ideas
may not be as fixed as presupposed: in fact, there is cultural disagreement about whether art
works, such as games, should control users or give them freedom.

The Value of Freedom and Constraint

Any discussion of freedom in games, such as this one, will automatically draw upon cultural
assumptions about the value of freedom relative to duty, order, submission, and so on. In the
present day and in the Western world, it may seem obvious that freedom and subversion are
preferable to submission, but the truth is that this view has changed historically. For the New
Games movement, working in California in the early 1970s, the value of freedom in the face of
oppressive systems was a given. But beyond that, think only of how Christianity, Judaism, and
Islamthe Abrahamic religionshave in di erent ways emphasized the story of Abrahams
sacrifice of Isaac, holding forth unwavering submission to Gods will as a something to be
emulated. In other words, submission has o en been understood as preferable to individual
freedom, and approaching game playing with this belief would make it possible to reverse many
of the arguments discussed earlier, seeing subversive gameplay as a problem rather than as a
moment to be cherished.
The seeming opposition between submission, constrained freedom, subversion, and creation
may then be an illusion: if a game can be designed such that players have more freedom to use it
in the ways that they see fit, then the player contribution is not at the expense of the role of the
game design or vice versa. Games may be more or less flexible, as players may be (Juul 2009), and
these variations are characteristic of this particularly human phenomenon of game playing. A
purely game-centric perspective will always have the flaw of denying the contribution by players,
and a purely player-centric perspective will have to ignore that players express aesthetic
preferences for particular games (Bjrk and Juul 2012). Game playing is therefore not a conflict
between games and players but a moment where games and players fit together and mutually
constitute each other.

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