Chapter Five - Homo Ludens 2.0: Play, Media and Identity

Summary

Immense est le domaine du jeu.

– Émile Benveniste

Foreplay

A spectre is haunting the world – the spectre of playfulness. We are witnessing a global “ludification of culture”. Since the 1960s, in which the word “ludic” became popular in Europe and the United States to designate playful behaviour and artefacts, playfulness has increasingly become a mainstream characteristic of our culture. Perhaps the first thing that comes to mind in this context is the immense popularity of computer games, which, as far as global sales are concerned, have already outstripped Hollywood. According to a recent study in the United States, 8 to 18 year olds play computer games on average for one hour and a half each day on their consoles, computers and handheld gaming devices (including mobile phones). This is by no means only a Western phenomenon. In South Korea, for example, about two-thirds of the country's total population frequently plays online games, turning computer gaming into one of the fastestgrowing industries and “a key driver for the Korean economy”.

Although perhaps most visible, computer game culture is only one manifestation of the process of ludification that is penetrating every cultural domain. In our present experience economy, for example, playfulness not only characterizes leisure time (fun shopping, game shows on television, amusement parks, playful computer and Internet use), but also domains that used to be serious, such as work (which should chiefly be fun nowadays), education (serious gaming), politics (ludic campaigning) and even warfare (video games like war simulators and interfaces). According to Jeremy Rifkin, “play is becoming as important in the cultural economy as work was in the industrial economy”. In ludic culture, sociologist Zygmunt Bauman argues, playfulness is no longer restricted to childhood, but has become a lifelong attitude: “The mark of postmodern adulthood is the willingness to embrace the game whole-heartedly.” Bauman's remark suggests that in postmodern culture identity has become a playful phenomenon too.

In this article we want to re-visit Johan Huizinga's Homo ludens (1938) to reflect on the meaning of ludic technologies in contemporary culture. First we will analyze the concept of “play”. Next, we will discuss some problematic aspects of Huizinga's theory, which are connected with the fundamental ambiguities that characterize play phenomena, and reformulate some of the basic ideas of Huizinga.