Global gaming networks are heterogenous collectives of localized practices, not unified commercial products. Shifting the analysis of digital games to local specificities that build and perform the global and general, Gaming Rhythms employs ethnographic work conducted in Venezuela and Australia to account for the material experiences of actual game players.

Monday, November 28, 2005

Johan Huizinga

I suppose there are a few people out there who have read Homo Ludens. It one of those books that gets cited alot, but never really has an in depth discussion of his actual argument, apart from the usual cliches about play being a time and space of its own. He is a lot more famous for his work as a 'Cultural Historian', than his is for his work on games. However, I think his perspective on games and their relation to culture is important to the development of Game Studies. Escpecially in terms of countering some of the extremeness of Aarseths 'game is a game' position (see his discussion with Stuart Moulthrop in First Person).

Anyway I'm up late tonight giving Huizinga a close reading... ...lots of fun!

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About Me

This blog started as a PhD blog, for my project 'Global Rhythms: Video games and the Transformation of Play'. It finally become a book. This is a "historic" record of the trials a tribulations.