In “Gaming Literacy”, Eric Zimmerman argues that “there is an emerging set of skills and competencies, a set of new ideas and practices that are going to be increasingly a part of what it means to be literate in the coming century”. He proceeds to distinguish between traditional literacy that focuses on the ability to make meaning through text and gaming literacy that focus on making meaning through systems, play, and design.
There are some reservations I have regarding this argument. The first is whether we need such a top-down, academia definition of what “gaming literacy” means, and whether deliberate attempts at promoting this literacy is necessary or useful. This pertains particularly to the “play” and “systems” components of his definition. Compared to reading and writing, playing with and within systems seems to be a much more natural faculty of human beings: children can play and play games spontaneously without needing to “learn” to play. Players around the world actively navigates the systems they inhabit and are already creating innovative ways of engagement in modding and other creative forms, as Zimmerman himself cites. There is perhaps a difference in the level of “awareness” between a player and a game studies scholar who is more actively aware of the system, but 1. I wonder how large of a difference there is 2. and whether this means that the question is a really more a question of mindfulness and not necessarily ‘literacy’. From a practical perspective, I’m not sure many will really and tangibly benefit from the training programs that he outlined at the end, and whether these resources could be more fruitfully spent in supporting traditional literacy training that is much more dire and rewarding for many families in need.
Zimmerman speaks in a fairly optimistic light regarding our ability to play with structures and creating new structures. However, the darker side is that these abilities are also being increasingly incorporated into schemes of control that is reinforced with power, something that is a lot less easy to play with or destroy. Moreover, when schemes and structures of control themselves become games, is play its game really a powerful method of resistance and transformation? In this light, isn’t Zimmerman’s program simply training and moulding a new generation of subjects to be subjected? This is of course not to say that we reject systems and play thinking completely, but more detail and complexity would have to be offered regarding how playing subjects relate to structures.
This is a great nuanced take on our readings of Zimmerman. I found myself as well getting frustrated at some points because of the nature in which he believes is best to improve gaming literacy; however, I think the darker undertones of game design when it comes to exploitation is hopefully ameliorated by this rise in gaming literacy. While teaching people these skills could open up Pandora’s box when it comes to employers exploiting their staff through work gamefication, I hope that having a more literate working base when it comes to gaming literacy will fix this. If we are able to instill within people the ideas of rules, play, and design, then maybe we can have them see and counter against systems that are designed to keep them down.
I really like your notes on this reading. I’m especially struck by your reservation on whether we need a “top-down, academia definition.” I’ve been thinking about this a lot during the quarter due to our extensive talks about genre. At what point does putting everything in a box hurt more than it helps? I feel like it’s a double edged sword because of how necessary it is to talk about categorizations, but also how it seems to get convoluted and take away from the subject matter.