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On Balinese Cockfights: Deeply Extending Play

Games and Culture Cover

Games and Culture Cover

Hot off the press over at Games and Culture is my essay, “On Balinese Cockfights: Deeply Extending Play.” This essay is a stepping stone to more recent theoretical work I’ve been exploring w/re to Meaningful Play. Yes, I recognize that it is a bit funny that Michigan State University also hosts a conference by the same name. I am also chairing the conference this year.

ABSTRACT
In this article, I advance three points, each in service of “extending play” as a critical conceptual category. The article begins with Clifford Geertz’s essay “Deep Play,” tracing through its lens the possibilities for “deeply extending play.” The essay extends Geertz’s argument that games and play are in/as/of/through culture. Games and play are not generative of, reflective of, or just culture. Rather they are intensely interwoven. I argue that games and play, as conceptual categories, need to be viewed as “experimental systems,” and those concepts deserve to be informed by alternative perspectives. Finally, the article returns to the notion of “meaningful play” as mechanism of sense making and cultural negotiations with structures. Meaningful play lies at the core of exploration and encourages a different kind of reading of play(ful) spaces. Meaningful play is part of what makes games and play so fundamentally an aspect of the human (and nonhuman) condition.

Get the PDF over at SAGE if you have access. If you don’t, then send me an email. Or grab the pre-peer-review version of the essay over on Academia.edu.

About Casey O'Donnell

Casey O'Donnell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Information at Michigan State University. He is part of the games faculty and Games for Entertainment and Learning (GEL) lab at MSU. He is also part of the game development collective Affinity Games. His research examines the creative collaborative work of videogame design and development. This research examines the cultural and collaborative dynamics that occur in both professional "AAA" organizations and formal and informal "independent" game development communities. His research has spanned game development companies from the United States to India. His research examines issues of work, production, copyright, as well as third world and postcolonial aspects of the videogame development workplace.

28 comments

  1. I don’t have access to SAGE, but would love to read your paper. I’m currently enrolled in your “Getting Started with Game Design” class on Coursera.

  2. I´m also enroll in the Course 2 of the especialization in Coursera and I would appreciate you can send me the pdf.
    Thanks in advance Casey

  3. Hello, Mr. Casey! How can i get your essay to read it if i have no acces to SAGE? I enrolled your course “GSwGD”.

  4. I´m also enroll in the Course 2 of the especialization in Coursera and I would appreciate you can send me the pdf.
    Thanks in advance Casey

  5. I would really love to read your essay. I’m a proud student of your mooc, that ejoys your concise teachings. Thanks a ton!

  6. I would really love to read your essay. I’m a proud student of your mooc, that enjoys your concise teachings. Thanks a ton!

  7. Neither I have acces to SAGE but I would like to read your essay.
    I enrolled in the Coursera course.
    Could you send me the pdf, please?
    Thank you, Mr. Casey 🙂

  8. Nizam Uddin GM Sikder

    I´m also enroll in the Course 2 of the especialization in Coursera and I would appreciate you can send me the pdf.
    Thanks in advance Casey

  9. Hi, I’m currently enrolled in your “Getting Started with Game Design” class on Coursera and would love to read your paper.

  10. Hi Casey,

    I’m also enrolled in your Getting Started with Game Design course in coursera and would love to read your
    article.

    Thanks in advance

  11. HI i’m enrolled in the specialization, i would apreiate if you send me your essay.

    Thanks

  12. Could I also get a copy please? I couldn’t get it on Academia.edu either…

  13. Hello Mr. Casey. I am on the coursera course “Principles of Game Design” and would like to read your paper but don’t have access to SAGE. Let me know if it is possible to get the paper from you.

    Kind regards,
    João.

  14. Hello Professor,

    If you could email a copy of your paper that would be great! I’m enrolled in your class on Coursera.

    Ray

  15. I would really love to read your essay! I’m enrolled to the Coursera’s Game Design Specialization
    Thanks Casey!

  16. I don’t have access to SAGE, but would love to read your paper. I’m currently enrolled in your “Getting Started with Game Design” class on Coursera.

  17. Thanks a lot!!!!!!!!!.

  18. I don’t have access to SAGE but would like to read your paper. I am currently enrolled to your coursera specialisation, Getting Started with Game Design . How can I read your paper
    Thanks a lot Casey.

  19. Hello Prof. Casey,

    I’m one of your students enrolled for “Principle of game design” and I would like to read this article.

  20. Predrag Nikolovski

    Dear professor O’Donnell,

    I wanted to ask you to send me your paper, but found it reading the comments.
    So I will use this opportunity to thank you for all the great knowledge you are sharing with us.
    The lessons you are presenting are already proving very valuable to me.

    Sincerely,
    Predrag.

  21. Hi Professor,

    Could I also get a copy of the article please? I really love the Principles of Game Design course so far 🙂

    Thanks a lot!

  22. I, like many of the others, am also enrolled in your Getting Started with Game Design course in Coursea and would love to read your article.

    Thanks a lot.

  23. Hey,

    I’m also one of the many people doing your Coursera course, and would love to read this article if you’d please be kind enough to send it my way 🙂 Thanks!

  24. I´m also enroll in the Course 2 of the specialization in Coursera and I would appreciate you can send me the pdf.
    Thanking you in advance John

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