The Activity of Play

Martin Pichlmair

    Research output: Contribution to conference - NOT published in proceeding or journalConference abstract for conferenceResearchpeer-review

    Abstract

    This paper presents Activity Theory as a framework for understanding the action of playing games with the intention of building a foundation for the creation of new game design tools and methods. Activity Theory, an epistemological framework rooted in Soviet psychology of the first half of the 20th century, has a long history and was only recently applied to HCI (Nardi 1996) and games (P. Barr et al. 2007), where Barr succeeded in situating play in the Activity Theory framework. Based on his work to establish a framework for analysing systems of values in games, this paper maps different levels of interaction with games to concepts of Activity Theory in order to be able to design gameplay on those levels more effectively. The authors think that Activity Theory can provide a foundation for a new theoretical framework for game design.
    Original languageEnglish
    Publication date2 Aug 2016
    Number of pages2
    Publication statusPublished - 2 Aug 2016
    EventDiGRA/FDG: The First International Joint Conference of DiGRA and FDG - The School of Arts, Media and Computer Games, Abertay University, Dundee, United Kingdom
    Duration: 2 Aug 20165 Aug 2016
    Conference number: 1
    http://www.digra.org/cfp-digrafdg-2016-1st-joint-international-conference-of-digra-and-fdg/

    Conference

    ConferenceDiGRA/FDG
    Number1
    LocationThe School of Arts, Media and Computer Games, Abertay University
    Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
    CityDundee
    Period02/08/201605/08/2016
    Internet address

    Keywords

    • activity theory
    • game design
    • games
    • videogames

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