Transgression in games and play

Contributors from a range of disciplines explore boundary-crossing in videogames, examining both transgressive game content and transgressive player actions. Video gameplay can include transgressive play practices in which players act in ways meant to annoy, punish, or harass other players. Videogames themselves can include transgressive or upsetting content, including excessive violence. Such boundary-crossing in videogames belies the general idea that play and games are fun and non-serious, with little consequence outside the world of the game. In this book, contributors from a range of disciplines explore transgression in video games, examining both game content and player actions. The contributors consider the concept of transgression in games and play, drawing on discourses in sociology, philosophy, media studies, and game studies; offer case studies of transgressive play, considering, among other things, how gameplay practices can be at once playful and violations of social etiquette; investigate players' emotional responses to game content and play practices; examine the aesthetics of transgression, focusing on the ways that game design can be used for transgressive purposes; and discuss transgressive gameplay in a societal context. By emphasizing actual player experience, the book offers a contextual understanding of content and practices usually framed as simply problematic. Contributor s Fraser Allison, Kristian A. Bjørkelo, Kelly Boudreau, Marcus Carter, Mia Consalvo, Rhys Jones, Kristine Jørgensen, Faltin Karlsen, Tomasz Z. Majkowski, Alan Meades, Torill Elvira Mortensen, Víctor Navarro-Remesal, Holger Pt̲zsch, John R. Sageng, Tanja Sihvonen, Jaakko Stenros, Ragnhild Tronstad, Hanna Wirman.

Guided by transgression: defying norms as an integral part of play / Jaako Stenros -- Asynchronous transgressions: suffering, relief, and invasions in Nintendo's miiverse and streetpass / Torill Elvira Mortensen and Victor Navarro Remesal -- Forms and practices of transgressivity in videogames: aesthetics, play, and politics / Holger Potzsch -- The bracketing of moral norms in videogames / John Richard Sageng -- Kaceytron and transgressive play on Twitch.tv / Mia Consalvo -- Let's play performance as transgressive play / Hanna Wirman and Rhys Jones -- Queering games, play, and culture through transgressive role-playing games / Tanja Sihvonen and Jaakko Stenros -- Guilt in Dayz / Marcus Carter and Fraser Allison -- When is it enough? uncomfortable game content and the transgression of player taste / Kristine Jorgensen -- Transgressive realism in this war of mine / Kristian A. Bjorkelo -- The renaissance ass: Ezio Auditore and digital menippea / Tomasz Z. Majkowski -- Destruction, abjection and desire: aesthetics of transgression in two adaptations of Little Red Riding Hood / Ragnhild Tronstad -- Exploited or engaged? dark game design patterns in Clicker Heroes, Farmville 2 and Worl…