![]() This logic reflects the structure of the field, which need not be the same as that found in other fields.Ħ. The field accommodates diverse ‘ position-takings’ on the part of initiates and its inner logic, once established, determines relations of power, including dynamic relations that pertain to these possibilities. Once constituted the field positions the new objects and the human initiates in relation to other societal institutions and cultural practices.ĥ. This involves the production and circulation of discourse – specific combinations of stretches of language with practices – that mediate bodies and objects in the formation of new identities (eg. It works on a prior set of physiognomic attributes, or dispositions of selves within bodies, to generate and sustain new habitus, a process that is operative in our interactions with the field’s privileged object(s).ģ. It structures human perceptions so that they identify certain objects under specified conditions as necessitating specific kinds of behavioural response.Ģ. The idea of such a field has a number of elements:ġ. This paper argues that the ‘computer’, ‘video’ or ‘digital’ game is a social construct in a way that is analogous to Pierre Bourdieu’s suggestion that art is a field structured around an historically specific illusio. In this sense, the stalled character of the field’s development is its defining property. Viewed in this light, some of gaming’s more problematic aspects, including things that game scholars sometimes view as obstacles to be overcome, turn out to be constitutive for gaming and probably therefore incorrigible. I conclude (4) with reflections on the ‘quasi’ character of gaming’s autonomy: the field’s failure to develop a fully autonomous vocabulary for evaluating and criticizing its objects turns out to be constitutive. The use of gameplay as the central concept in game appraisal corresponds to the formation of a gamer habitus and a rupture through which gaming establishes itself as an autonomous (or quasi-autonomous) cultural practice, with its own field. I then (3) present a thematic analysis of the magazine contents in which I emphasise the formative significance of the discovery or invention of ‘gameplay’ as an evaluative category in game criticism. I begin (section 1) with a brief account of relevant ideas from Bourdieu, followed (2) by a description of the magazines, the rationale for their selection and the methods used in their analysis. Taking UK computing and gaming magazines published between 1981-1995 as my object of analysis, I argue that we can discern the emergence of a new cultural field, a formation that is constitutive for gaming as a culture and for the computer game as a socially shaped artifact. In this paper I draw on ideas from Pierre Bourdieu (1996 2005) to examine the formative period of computer gaming culture. Keywords: Gaming culture 1980s magazines media analysis gameplay Bourdieu field theory ![]() The thwarted autonomy of gaming discourse then becomes its most interesting characteristic, since it positions gaming as essentially transgressive in relation to key cultural distinctions that it cannot fully leave behind (technology/art childhood/adulthood health/pathology). The resulting discourse explains what is and can be meant by ‘computer game’ in our culture. ![]() The analysis shows a structural break associated with the introduction of the term ‘gameplay’ around March 1985, after which the appraisal of games takes on a limited independence from technical, educational and other normative criteria that get applied to other objects in the computer culture. It argues that a quasi-autonomous gaming culture was established in the mid-1980s, which established the perceptions and habits that make gaming possible and create the ‘gamer’ identity. The paper is based on a study of UK gaming magazines in the 1980s and 90s. Constitutive Tensions of Gaming’s Field: UK gaming magazines and the formation of gaming culture 1981-1995 by Graeme Kirkpatrick
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