Post # 11, Pearce, Part 1

The first thing I notice about Pearce is how different her approach is from that of Gee and Bogost. Gee, a linguist by trade, took it upon himself to come into the gaming world with no previous experience in order to learn how to be a  gamer and in order to see what videogames could offer the world in a pedagogical sense. Bogost is a programmer who takes a scholarly and theoretical approach to examining games. Pearce is an anthropologist and an avid gamer, so much so that her in-game avatar, Artemesia, is featured as a co-author of her book. Pearce presents many opinions in the first 4 chapters of her book and relies very heavily on citation. I'm not sure if this is a custom of anthropologists, but I found it a bit startling to see the overabundance of citations she uses. Perhaps this is because, as she points out in the first chapter of her book, adult play is always being looked upon with disapproving eyes. So, maybe she decided to quote every source under the sun in order to defend adult play. I can understand her motivation.

A common misconception about adults that I can't believe we persist on perpetuating is that we don't play. This is so far from the truth, at least as far as it applies to me. I'm not embarrassed to say that I play all the time. My imagination takes control from time to time and I literally play in a manner almost identical to the way I did when I was a child. Of course, I'm usually alone in the privacy of my home when I do so. But I'm just playful by nature and, on the spur of a moment, I will engage in play with my friends, as well. So, if playing is such an undeniable part of my personality, I can only assume it part of other adults' as well, and the surge of play communities is indicative of this. Besides these play communities, we have celebrations like Mardi Gras and St. Patrick's Day (although the latter was never intended to be the holiday of revelry and debauchery that it has become).  As Pearce points out, play and games have always been a part of human society and history. Ancient Africans, Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Chinese, etc. all had games, and they were mostly multiplayer games. It seems that play is an innately communal activity for humans, thus, play communities have always been with us and always will be.

Of particular interest to me was Pearce's reference of Dungeons & Dragons. What I did not know prior to reading Pearce was just how popular D&D was in the 70's and 80's, although I suppose I should have inferred that based on the fact that there was a rather popular 80's cartoon by the same name that I was particularly fond of as a little child. Either way, when Pearce mentioned the marginalization that adult play suffers in America and Europe, I cringed. I was once one of the people who denigrated D&D players. When I was 24, I befriended and lived with a guy named James. James was a hardcore D&D fan; he had well over 20 D&D books and frequently asked me to play with him. I always declined, and usually with some snide remark (for instance, I always referred to it as Dungeons and Dorks). I’m not sure why I was so opposed to D&D; perhaps it was because of the ridicule the game famously faces. One thing that definitely turned me against the game was seeing, as I put it then, “A bunch of grown ass men and women dressed up in costumes, pretending to be wizards and fairies.” While I resisted playing the game, I was openly fascinated with the mythology and artwork of D&D; that was inevitable, given my fondness for world mythologies and my innate artistic talents. I suppose I resisted D&D out of cowardice. I was too afraid of what the larger portion of my peers would think of me if I played a game that people were ridiculed for. Eventually I got over that and played with James and a few of his friends who didn’t dress up in costumes (not that there’s anything wrong with that, as I know now).

A game of Dungeons & Dragons in progress.

When I finally got over my hangups and played D&D, I was amazed at how much I actually enjoyed the game. It was very rewarding to create a character and live vicariously in another world through him. My character, Hyperion Starwing, was an Aasimar (a human with divine lineage) psion (a being with various mental powers) who joined a band of pirates in order to help them conquer an evil sect of demon worshiping Drows (dark elves). I became so rapped up in my character and his world that I was very much heartbroken when James had a massive falling out with our dungeon master that resulted in him (and me, by association) being banned from our group. I can very much relate to the Uru Diaspora that Pearce mentions. Likewise, I can understand the concept of avatars being perceived as real entities, though I am not sure an avatar deserves rights associated with a living, breathing human being. I am more inclined, however, to believe that play communities constitute valid cultures. I'm interested to see  how Pearce expounds upon these ideas.

Questions:

1) How old were you when you were discouraged from playing with toys and do you think that's a practice that affects how American society views adult play?

2) Do you think avatars should be afforded rights and how would that even be realized outside of play communities?

3) Do you think that game cultures are as valid as the more traditional cultures that we are accustomed to?