PoP Book 06.2s MidRes - Flipbook - Page 26
about such banal things here, is that it could be true not only of board,
card, playground and video games, but of games with any kind of
materials whatsoever. Without starting with something that resists us,
this idea says, it’s impossible for this kind of play to produce meaningful,
let alone enjoyable experiences. Drawing out to a wider view, the implication is clear. The potential experience you can have with any object or
situation isn’t about what it’ll give you without much effort on your part,
but by your own capacity for working with it, treating it as a playable item
on its own terms.20
If you play any kind of sport, game or musical instrument you know
this. And applying it to a whole range of crafts makes complete sense.
But it’s only cultural programming which limits play to these specific
domains. Really, we should try to think of everything around us as
playable — capable of being enjoyed in novel and interesting ways,
within the confines of its natural constraints. Play, this viewpoint says,
is an attitude we can apply to literally anything.
•
I like this outlook. I think it captures a certain frame of mind perfectly.
Unfortunately, though, Ian Bogost then goes and blows it. He says the big
mistake we all make is to think play is ever limitless and free. Play is
always structured, he insists, always pressed up against restraints. There
1.17
are always rules to negotiate — a ball, two goals, no hands. The footballer
plays with the physics of the ball and the tactics of opponents. The
Minecraft player has only cubes to build her world. ‘Pure, abstract play’,
he says, ‘is a fantasy.’ And right here we have the first plot-turn in the
story. People tend to view play from the sum of their experience. Having
spent years being a game designer and critic it’s no shock that Ian always
sees play in terms of games and rules. So he doesn’t see that the final
word in his quote is the big hole in the argument — and it’s one he can’t
help falling into.
1.18
•
A few years ago, the US National Museum of Play we mentioned, inducted
a new toy into its Hall of Fame. Usually spaces on their display plinths are
reserved for commercially made toys; objects that make adults pine with
nostalgia and give their kids a glimpse into childhoods past. Occasionally,
though, they nominate items so common and abstract they’ve never been
sold as toys. Things like a blanket, a cardboard box and, most recently, a
SA
MP
LE
MP
SA MP
A
LE S
MP LE S
SA MP LE
A
LE S MP LE
MP LE SA MP
SA MP LE SA MP
A
A
LE S MP E S
L
MP LE SA MP LE S
SA MP LE SA MP E
L
A
A
LE S AMP LE S MP LE
A
LE S MP LE S MP
MP LE SA MP E SA
Click
to buy
in full!
totally average brown stick. Curator Chris Bensch calls this latest addition
“very open-ended.” He jokes it’s the perfect price, and says it can be “a Wild
West horse, a mediaeval knight’s sword, a boat on a stream, or a slingWhat is Play? / Almost Nothing
30
