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Additional Lines of Resistance
At the very beginning of his book Homo Ludens, philosopher and historian Johann Huizinga makes the profound assertion that,"In play there is always something 'at play.'"[11] Games always already play, an activity that explores and expands structures, stretching and re-forming them. In this sense, games are particularly well-suited for modification by players, for the creation of friction between fixed structures and mobile interventions. The concept of games as cultural resistance grows naturally out of what we already know about play. Because a game by its very nature has room for the movement of free play, it is always possible for players to drive a wedge into the system, bending and transforming it into a new shape. In Games as Systems of Uncertainty and Breaking the Rules, we looked at how children subvert the ritual of counting-out through a number of subtle and devious strategies, from adding an extra "eenie-meenie-minee-moe" to switching places in the counting-out circle in order to avoid becoming "It." This kind of game "modification" is certainly different from the examples discussed in this schema, yet there are important similarities. In all cases, players "play" with the structure of the game itself. They are creating meaning by recognizing Huizinga's insight: in play, there is always something at play.
We have commented in several chapters on the importance of players and fans to a game's larger cultural identity. Fans play an important role in maintaining the game and keeping it alive in culture, but they can also take on roles of resistance as well. Our next example offers a scenario where two groups of players, acting within and without the magic circle, bend the "shape" of the game system in two competing ways. [11]Johann Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955), p. 1.
