The complex interweaving of play and spectatorship and the resulting social interactions and tensions found in arcade rooms Trying to catch a glimpse of the game being played while waiting in line or, in other cases, simply acting as spectators. These images almost invariably depict a player with a variable number of onlookers looking over his shoulder, The wealth of photos from the so-called golden age of arcade gaming readily available on the web testify Spectacular-and thus potentially spectated-devices since their inceptionДЄs commercial products. If we are to adopt HuhtamoвЂ™s media-archaeological perspective, we may think of video games as Interestingly, non-interactive forms of spectacular entertainment, such as the use of automata to attract customers in department Games actually fit within a tradition of other practices such as electro-mechanical play (e.g., pinball machines) and, more HuhtamoвЂ™s thesis is that instead of being born out of technological innovation in the early 1970s, arcade video Traces a connection between arcade video games and other forms of popular entertainment, dating back to the end of the nineteenthД¬entury. In his article вЂњSlots of Fun, Slots of Trouble: An Archaeology Short history of video game spectatorship Studies, as in many cases this practice constitutes an integral part of the playing experience and of game culture in general. The way, I argue for the relevance of analyzing the conditions and meanings of spectatorship in the context of video game Of linearization (machinima, letвЂ™s play, and live streams), and three theses concerning their larger meaning. My chapter will unfold following three paths: a historical reconstruction of the phenomenon, a description of three forms Play that is, its reduction to a linear audiovisual object, stripped of its ergodicity and thus ready for spectatorial consumption. This chapter seeks to understand what I will define as the linearization of digital Period, from the protagonist to the spectator, who merely watches the struggles of others appointed for that purpose.вЂќ Of the Romans, for example, invited a vicarious form of play, in which вЂњthe competitive impulse shifted, at an early

Undisputed forefather, play and spectacle are 136inextricablyД¬onnected, and their relation changes according to specific historical, social, and technological conditions. According to Johan Huizinga, game studiesвЂ™ To converge, and, at the same time, it invites a specific type of spectatorship. In a park, or a speedrunner streaming a record attempt at Super Meat Boy (Team Meat,Дў010), play has a magnetic quality: it constitutes a specific type of performance in which spectacle and athleticism seem Whether it is a sports game on television or in an arena, the unruly play of children Nevertheless, occasionally, we all watch someone else play. This is certainly a convincing rhetoric, if not a product of a playerвЂ™s common Machines in need of activation or, if we settle for a much maligned term, вЂњinteractiveвЂќ objects that require a Video games are said to be вЂњergodic,вЂќ a term that defines them as textual Of Play was certainly preoccupied with the implications and characteristics of analog play, scholarship on digital Intuition, playing is the only way of understanding what play is. Playing is doing or, following Sutton-SmithвЂ™s That should be done in order to be understood.

This opening sentence suggests that play is an inherently embodied activity, something All play occasionally, and we all know what playing feels like.вЂќ Thus Brian Sutton-Smith opens his book The Ambiguity of Play (1991).

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