{"id":508,"date":"2015-01-22T00:17:06","date_gmt":"2015-01-22T07:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sintellectual.org\/hstr491\/?p=508"},"modified":"2015-01-22T11:33:21","modified_gmt":"2015-01-22T18:33:21","slug":"professional-games-and-spectating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sintellectual.org\/hstr491\/archives\/508","title":{"rendered":"Professional Games and Spectating"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of particular interest to me in this week\u2019s readings were Huizinga and Parlett\u2019s claims that professionalized play, especially sports, tend to fall outside the definition of play. Certainly simple participation in \u201cball-games,\u201d as Huizinga calls them, falls under the category of play, but does this change if the game becomes big business and one signs a contract to play?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Huizinga and Parlett seem to say it does. A significant condition of play for Huizinga is that it must be completely voluntary. Due to the \u201cregimentation\u201d that can permeate organized sports, Huizinga argues that \u201cthe spirit of the professional is no longer the true play-spirit; it is lacking in spontaneity and carelessness\u201d (p. 197). Similarly, Parlett argues that \u201cprofessional sports are essentially a branch of the entertainment industry\u201d and goes so far as to claim that it is \u201ca failing of urban, industrial civilization that too many people pay to have other games for them\u201d (p. 25).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Along the same lines, these two pieces also inspired me to think about the act of spectating play. While it\u2019s certainly much more passive than actually participating in a game, there\u2019s something to be said about the communal aspect of spectating, as well as the ability to appreciate the tactics employed within that game. I\u2019m not just talking about popular spectator sports, either. The spectators depicted in the \u201cScholars Playing Weiqi under Pine Trees\u201d scroll in Parlett\u2019s piece (p. 21) seem pretty engaged. I have a couple friends who routinely watch competitive Starcraft<\/em> matches on Twitch with thousands of other people.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Griffin argued in his response that a key element of what makes games interesting is how players work within the system. They have \u201cagency\u201d and can make unique decisions and create unique narratives. I completely agree, and argue that these things can be just as interesting for the spectator as for the player. Ok, maybe not just as interesting in the case of many video games or monopoly; some games lend themselves to spectating better than others. Regardless, even if the act of spectating is not itself play, I think it can be something more than \u201ca failing of urban, industrial civilization.\u201d Whether it\u2019s football, Weiqi, or Starcraft<\/em>, some games, or perhaps some players, deserve to be watched.<\/p>\n

Edit by MCG 1\/22 to add image referenced above (<\/em>‘Scholars Playing Weiqi’)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of particular interest to me in this week\u2019s readings were Huizinga and Parlett\u2019s claims that professionalized play, especially sports, tend to fall outside the definition of play. Certainly simple participation in \u201cball-games,\u201d as Huizinga calls them, falls under the category of play, but does this change if the game becomes big business and one signs…<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25,20,26,22,28,27,11,29],"class_list":["post-508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-response","tag-art-of-contest","tag-huizinga","tag-images","tag-reading-response","tag-spectating","tag-sports","tag-week-2","tag-weiqi"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sintellectual.org\/hstr491\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sintellectual.org\/hstr491\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sintellectual.org\/hstr491\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sintellectual.org\/hstr491\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sintellectual.org\/hstr491\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.sintellectual.org\/hstr491\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":512,"href":"http:\/\/www.sintellectual.org\/hstr491\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508\/revisions\/512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sintellectual.org\/hstr491\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sintellectual.org\/hstr491\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sintellectual.org\/hstr491\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}