Brock, TGJ and Fraser, E (2018) Is Computer Gaming a Craft? Prehension,
Practice and Puzzle-Solving in Gaming Labour. Information, Communication
and Society, 21 (9). pp. 1219-1233. ISSN 1369-118X
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2018.1468920
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Is Computer Gaming a Craft? Prehension, Practice and Puzzle-Solving in Gaming La-
bour
Tom Brock
Department of Sociology, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK
Emma Fraser
Department of Sociology, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK
Corresponding Author:
Dr Tom Brock
GM413 Geoffrey Manton Building, Oxford Rd
Manchester, UK, M15 6BH
t.brock@mmu.ac.uk
1
Is Computer Gaming a Craft? Prehension,
1
Practice and Puzzle-Solving in Gaming La-
bour
Abstract
This article applies sociological theories of ‘craft’ to computer gaming practices to conceptu-
alise the relationship between play, games and labour. Using the example of the game Dota
2, as both a competitive esport title and a complex game based around a shared practice, this
article examines the conditions under which the play of a computer game can be considered a
‘craft’. In particular, through the concept of ‘prehension’, we dissect the gameplay activity of
Dota 2, identifying similarities with how the hand practices craft labour. We identify these
practices as ‘contact’, ‘apprehension’, ‘language acquisition’ and ‘reflection’. We argue that
players develop these practices of the hand to make sense of the game’s rules and controls.
From this perspective, it is the hand that initiates experiences of craft within computer game-
play, and we offer examples of player creativity and experimentation to evidence its labour.
The article concludes with a discussion on the need for future research to examine the quality
of gaming labour in the context of esports.
Keywords: Play, Games, Craft, Labour, Sociology.
1
Sennett, R. The Craftsman. p.153-155
2
Introduction
Craftsmanship may suggest a way of life that waned with the advent of industrial society
- but this is misleading. Craftsmanship names an enduring, basic impulse, the desire to
a job well for its own sake (Sennett, 2008, p. 9).
Richard Sennett’s seminal work, The Craftsman, develops the argument that qualities
of ‘craftsmanship’ cut far wider than what is traditionally conceived as skilled manual labour.
He argues that aspects of craft can be found in all walks of life, from computer programming,
to nursing, artistry, parenting, and citizenship. “In all these domains”, argues Sennett (2008,
p. 9), “craftsmanship focuses on objective standards, on the thing in itself”, and it is this aspi-
ration for quality that he highlights as evidence of truly rewarding work: that sense of excel-
lence, pride, but also competitive pressure and frustration, that comes from doing “good
work”. This article considers whether Sennett’s (and other’s) analysis of craft is relevant to
examining player motivation and what, if any, overlap exists between the act of computer
gaming and the experience of craft labour. In particular, it seeks to challenge the claim that
gaming is a ‘distraction’ from reality (Crawford, 2015) by bringing the rewarding aspects of
skilled handwork (Tallis, 2003) into an analysis of gameplay practices. As such, the paper in-
tends to add to our understanding of the relationship between work and play in the twentieth-
first century by arguing that computer games offer a viable source of craft-like experiences.
In order to dissect these ideas, much of the following presents a close study of the
game Defence of the Ancients 2 (Dota 2), which links examples of computer gameplay to key
aspects of craft and work found within Sennett’s discussion of the hand. It is important to
note that this approach may not apply to all computer games in a uniform way – as computer
games are exceptionally diverse. Rather, this article seeks to address the claim that games are
‘meaningless distractions’ by initiating a discussion about the labour practices that go into
playing games well.
To begin, it is necessary to detail some of the key conceptual points that underwrite
the philosophical position of this article. Following Sennett (2008, p. 269-286), we intend to
argue that there is a lot of common ground between those practices found at work and play.
For example, citing the play theorist Friedrich von Schiller, Sennett argues that play teaches
us some of the earliest attitudes needed for ‘good work’. It was a playful attitude, Schiller be-
lieved, which helped humans to develop a sense of discovery and creativity alongside rigor-
ous and repetitive working practices. Sennett (2008, p. 269-271) adopts Schiller’s perspective
to argue that play, in fact, inaugurates craftsmanship, and gives the example of children play-
ing with blocks to show that play is critical in establishing our cognitive development to-
wards skilled working practices. For instance he suggests that children, in learning to negoti-
ate the rules of play, and the material limitations of its objects, establish the very ‘rhythms of
repetition’ needed for skilled labour; they learn how to create a stable tower through practice
and analytical judgment of the height and weight distribution of each block. Thus, by grasp-
ing, touching, and creatively positioning toy blocks, children produce a viable object by the
rules of geometry. Here, Sennett makes an important claim: children must use their senses to
initiate an understanding of the rules by which objects operate, such that, within this process,
an enduring impulse towards quality work (‘craft’) emerges.
3
It is surprising that, despite this deep connection between work and play, research con-
tinues to problematise computer gaming as a ‘distraction’ from reality. The theme of distrac-
tion has been at the heart of games research for decades (Gunter, 1998, Rigby and Ryan,
2011) and typically suggests that players use games to ‘withdraw’ from reality, albeit mo-
mentarily, by developing a sense of mastery or control over the machine (Grodal, 2000). In
this regard, Matthew Crawford (2015) is a particularly vocal critic, suggesting that computer
games are designed to facilitate repetitive, rhythmic and routine experiences that distract
players into a ‘passive’ state of ‘absorbed automaticity’. He writes,
You are neither learning something about the world, as the blind man does with his
cane, nor acquiring something that could properly be called a skill. Rather, you are
acting within the perception-action circuits encoded in the narrow affordances of the
game, learned in a few trials. This is a kind of autistic pseudo-action, based on exact
repetition, and the feeling of efficacy that it offers evidently holds great appeal. (pp.
90-91).
In Crawford’s view, what makes gaming a distraction is that it requires minimal input from
players, in the form of repetitive button-pressing actions, which deliver satisfying experiences
of control through reliably produced effects. He holds this position out as something qualita-
tively different from craft labour, and argues that the experiences that typically accompany
woodworking or automobile repair cannot be reproduced through games. Indeed, it is sug-
gested that the predesigned or rule-bound nature of computer games forecloses on the possi-
bility of craft-like experiences; a position that is echoed by David Gauntlett (2011, p. 174)
who suggests that games are “more-or-less closed worlds which do not enable the users to
make their mark on the system”.
We will argue that, in adopting Sennett (and others) to analyse gaming labour, we can
begin to challenge this reasoning, and present an example which shows that gameplay is not
qualitatively different from craft labour. Rather, it recognises that players have to establish
technical skill to negotiate the increasingly demanding, complex puzzles that contemporary
computer games offer. Assumptions about ‘distraction’ tend to overlook the role of the gam-
ing interface as a mediator of human agency, skill, and thought processes (Eichner, 2014, p.
170), as well as the embodied subjectivities (Farro et al, 2012) that follow from gameplay.
For instance, we can understand the complexity of games through what Clark calls “body-
and-world-involving cycles”, in which activities like putting pen to paper reveal a loop be-
tween embodied human experience, agency, and subjectivity, via our interactions with the
“physical machinery” of the world (2008, pp. xxv-xxvi). Rather than empty clicks or taps, the
engagement with the keyboard, which plugs into the gaming interface, can thus be under-
stood as “extending the machinery of mind out into the world” (Clarke, 2008, pp. xxv-xxvi).
This can be related to Calleja’s assertion that kinaesthetic encounters with games, and the
mastery of the controls, relate closely to the agency afforded by the game itself (2011, p. 11
and pp. 55-59). In other words, as we will discuss, the embodied encounter with a game is not
always a ‘distraction’ or ‘escape’ for the automaton, so much as the thoughtful and engaged
practice of a craftsperson.