Friday, March 9, 2007

Homo ludens

In French, the verb jouer is taken from the word jou and in German the verb spielen is taken from the word spiel. In English the verb ‘to play’ is taken from the word play. All the verbs are the same What is different from the French and German , is that jou and spiel mean ‘game’ rather than ‘play’.

Jou, Spiel and Game all mean in Latin as ‘Ludens’

The book ‘Homo Ludens’ written by Johan Huizinga, is about Huizinga’s theory that Humans should not be called Homo Sapiens but they should be called Homo Ludens. This is because Huizinga believes that play is the most essential part of Human life.

His theory is that play has to have four key elements…

These are:-

Ÿ Play is voluntary.

Ÿ Play is outside ordinary life.

Ÿ Play has fixed boundaries.

Ÿ Play promotes social groups.

When related to video games is Huizinga’s theory of play justified? When playing video games play is always voluntary; If someone does not want to play then he will not pick up the controller. Play always has to be enjoyable. When playing video games they are outside ordinary life. Video games have fixed boundaries as there are always a set of rules , and there is never an unlimited area or missions. Whether social groups are always promoted with 1 player games. It can be argued that 1 player games can promote forums and social groups can be promoted through the love of the game, but when actually playing a 1player computer game we do not talk to anyone else as we are absorbed in the game. “Gaming is frequently seen as an isolated activity that undermines ‘natural’ human interaction and ultimately leads atrophy of players social skills.” Schott and Kambouri (2006) Computer Games- Text, Narrative and Play. This can be justified when playing “Dead Rising” It is solely a 1 player game there is no other player involvement when playing it I did not expand my social group even further, if anything I felt I was not part of the social group whilst playing it.

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