Introduction

Abstract

It is a spring afternoon in an after school video game club in the inner western suburbs of Sydney. Twenty-four young children excitedly play console video games in twos or threes. Researchers join them and in one case two boys, Sam and Timothy, are playing a hectic game of Star Wars Racer, while their game is being videoed by the team. We see Sam telling Timothy that he wants to play a Jedi, to which Timothy, the better player, tells him firmly, ‘you can’t be a Jedi in this’. Persisting, Sam tries to ‘use the force’ to gain enough playing power to beat Timothy. Meanwhile, Timothy has subtly ensured that nothing is left to only his skill at playing in his quest for winning, by turning off the console and starting again when he thinks he may not win. This takes no more than a few minutes, but a huge amount has happened within that time. How do we understand what has happened and what it means?