Instrumental play

Instrumental play (also known as power gaming or min-maxing[1]) is a style of playing a game concerned with being as good at playing it as possible.[2]

Theory

Literary theorist Wolfgang Iser conceptualized instrumental play in his 1993 book The Fictive and the Imaginary: Charting Literary Anthropology.[3] Iser examined philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer's notion of play as oscillation—back-and-forth movement that "renews itself in constant repetition".[4] From this framework, he introduced instrumental play as play with a goal, that ends when said goal is reached. As opposed to instrumental play, free play is play that stays in motion, without a predefined end.[5][6] No play can be purely free or instrumental; purely instrumental play is no longer play and simply becomes a task, and purely free play inevitably moves towards instrumental play.[3] Games make use of both, flowing from one to the other.[7]

Description

Instrumental play aims to find and implement the best way possible of playing a game.[8] It puts significant effort into understanding the technical details of a game and developing strategies around it (a practice called theorycrafting). Theorycrafting is highly quantitative, reducing a game into the simple numbers and logical rules that make it up. Through this it determines the "right" way to play the game.[1]

A player heavily engaged in instrumental play (a "power gamer") is willing to put in significantly more effort than a casual player to achieve their goals,[9] and push the technical boundaries of the game by using tools such as macros or engaging in actions like running multiple instances of a video game.[10]

See also

Citations

  1. ^ a b Ask 2016, p. 191.
  2. ^ Taylor 2003, p. 303.
  3. ^ a b Armstrong 2000, p. 216.
  4. ^ Gadamer 2004, p. 104.
  5. ^ Glas 2013, p. 23.
  6. ^ Iser 1993, p. 237.
  7. ^ Iser 1993, pp. 237–238.
  8. ^ Taylor 2006, p. 74.
  9. ^ Taylor 2006, p. 76.
  10. ^ Taylor 2006, pp. 79–80.

References

  • Ask, Kristine (October 2016). "The value of calculations: The coproduction of theorycraft and player practices". Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society. 36 (3). Sage Publishing: 190–200. doi:10.1177/0270467617690058. ISSN 0270-4676.
  • Gadamer, Hans-Georg (2004). Truth and Method (2nd, rev. ed.). New York: Continuum Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8264-7697-5.
  • Glas, René (2013). Battlefields of Negotiation: Control, Agency, and Ownership in World of Warcraft. New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003691433. ISBN 978-1-003-69143-3.
  • Iser, Wolfgang (March 1, 1993). The Fictive and the Imaginary: Charting Literary Anthropology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. doi:10.56021/9780801844980. ISBN 978-0-8018-4499-7.
  • Armstrong, Paul B. (Winter 2000). "The politics of play: The social implications of Iser's aesthetic theory". New Literary History. 31 (1). Johns Hopkins University Press: 211–223. doi:10.1353/nlh.2000.0001. ISSN 0028-6087. JSTOR 20057594.
  • Taylor, T.L. (January 1, 2003). Power gamers just want to have fun?: Instrumental play in an MMOG. Level Up. Tampere: Digital Games Research Association. pp. 301–311. doi:10.26503/dl.v2003i1.51.
  • Taylor, T.L. (2006). Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. doi:10.7551/mitpress/5418.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-262-28471-4.
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