Games Studies Circle discussing Metagaming

Games Studies Circle, a seminar/guided reading on games research in arts and humanities. A weekly Friday meetup at the Nerd Alert in Vršovice. We read and discuss texts about games, primarily focusing on board games but going beyond that — into videogames, sports, etc. Sometimes we play games to have some fresh impressions to reflect upon.

This week’s intro:

There is a magic circle surrounding any game. Within the circle, rules assign things special values, ban some actions while forcing others, and give importance to goals inconsequential beyond the game.
Gaming would mean following the rules of the magic circle. Yet there are countless ways to engage with the rules beyond that. Metagaming is a term to describe ways of tinkering with the rules and poking the magic circle of the game.

On Friday October 30th, we will start our journey to understand the effort it takes to construct the magic circles and what happens when we stop playing by the rules and start playing with, around, and outside the rules.

Our discussion will be centred around the first chapter of Stephanie Boluk’s and Patrick LeMieux’ Metagaming: Playing, Competing, Spectating, Cheating, Trading, Making, and Breaking Videogames. We will present the material for the discussion but you are welcome to read the chapter beforehand.

Join us this Friday at Nerd Alert at 19:00.