{"id":68,"date":"2017-10-16T05:45:13","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T05:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rhetoricofgaming.digitalwcu.org\/customizingidentity\/?page_id=68"},"modified":"2017-10-17T04:33:52","modified_gmt":"2017-10-17T04:33:52","slug":"thesis","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/rhetoricofgaming.digitalwcu.org\/customizingidentity\/thesis\/","title":{"rendered":"Identity at Play"},"content":{"rendered":"

Identity is a game we play.\u00a0 And, sometimes, games play with identity.\u00a0 According to Ian Bogost<\/a>, \u201cVideo games are models of real or imagined systems\u201d (136).\u00a0 Whenever anyone starts playing a new video game, they are thrown into a world that mimics some quality of life outside of that game.\u00a0 And that model critiques, whether consciously or not, the very system that it simulates \u2013 a system that has been designed by humans in order to be operated and navigated by humans in return.\u00a0 Eric Zimmerman and Heather Chaplin richly add onto this idea in their \u201cManifesto for a Ludic Century<\/a>\u201d when they assert that \u201cA playful system is a human system, a social system rife with contradictions and with possibility\u201d (2).\u00a0 This point continues, \u201c\u2026as we play, we think about thinking and we learn to act in new ways.\u00a0 As a cultural form, games have a particularly direct connection with play\u201d (Zimmerman and Chaplin 2).\u00a0 As members of humanity, we create systems that are imperfect.\u00a0 Every system consists of rules that must be followed in order for that system to work, but our freedom to construct these rules can lead to features, elements, or products that become noticeably artificial and hollow, rather than concrete and whole.\u00a0 But those are the rules of the game, so, more often than not, we adjust and play along.\u00a0 In Nature and Significance of Play as a Cultural Phenomenon<\/em><\/a>, Johan Huizanga presents the argument that \u201cIn play, there is something \u2018at play\u2019 which transcends the immediate needs of life and imparts meaning to the action\u201d (97).<\/p>\n

The concept at play<\/em> here is identity, in all of its bending, ever shifting nature \u2013 its customizability.\u00a0 If video games are models of real or imagined, playful systems, then \u201cVideo games make arguments about how social or cultural systems work in the world \u2013 or how they could work, or don\u2019t work\u201d (Bogost 136).\u00a0 \u00a0And if that\u2019s the case, then video games can quite effectively make arguments about identity, as a social system that our culture constructs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Identity is a game we play.\u00a0 And, sometimes, games play with identity.\u00a0 According to Ian Bogost, \u201cVideo games are models of real or imagined systems\u201d (136).\u00a0 Whenever anyone starts playing a new video game, they are thrown into a world that mimics some quality of life outside of that game.\u00a0 And that model critiques, whether … <\/p>\n

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