I Fought the Law: Transgressive Play and the Implied Player

Abstract

What is a player? In what sense does a player exist? When does a player exist? Can there be a player, if there is no game? Before there is a game? Clearly, players cannot exist without a game they are players of. A generic player is an unthinkable, not merely ahistorical, figure. Games, on the other hand, can exist without actual, current players, as mate-rial and conceptual game objects (‘texts’). While the game without a player is a limited perspective, it does denote a hierarchical relation-ship: the historical player cannot exist without a game, but the game, at some point in its existence (e.g. before the first play-testing session in a development cycle), can exist without players, and always without one particular, historical player.