The Privilege of Play
A History of Hobby Games, Race, and Geek Culture
Published on 18. April 2023
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-1-4798-1839-6 (ISBN)
Description
The story of white masculinity in geek culture through a history of hobby gaming
Geek culture has never been more mainstream than it is now, with the ever-increasing popularity of events like Comic Con, transmedia franchising of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, market dominance of video and computer games, and the resurgence of board games such as Settlers of Catan and role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. Yet even while the comic book and hobby shops where the above are consumed today are seeing an influx of BIPOC gamers, they remain overwhelmingly white, male, and heterosexual.
The Privilege of Play contends that in order to understand geek identity's exclusionary tendencies, we need to know the history of the overwhelmingly white communities of tabletop gaming hobbyists that preceded it. It begins by looking at how the privileged networks of model railroad hobbyists in the early twentieth century laid a cultural foundation for the scenes that would grow up around war games, role-playing games, and board games in the decades ahead. These early networks of hobbyists were able to thrive because of how their leisure interests and professional ambitions overlapped. Yet despite the personal and professional strides made by individuals in these networks, the networks themselves remained cloistered and homogeneous-the secret playgrounds of white men.
Aaron Trammell catalogs how gaming clubs composed of lonely white men living in segregated suburbia in the sixties, seventies and eighties developed strong networks through hobbyist publications and eventually broke into the mainstream. He shows us how early hobbyists considered themselves outsiders, and how the denial of white male privilege they established continues to define the socio-technical space of geek culture today. By considering the historical role of hobbyists in the development of computer technology, game design, and popular media, The Privilege of Play charts a path toward understanding the deeply rooted structural obstacles that have stymied a more inclusive community. The Privilege of Play concludes by considering how digital technology has created the conditions for a new and more diverse generation of geeks to take center stage.
Geek culture has never been more mainstream than it is now, with the ever-increasing popularity of events like Comic Con, transmedia franchising of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, market dominance of video and computer games, and the resurgence of board games such as Settlers of Catan and role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. Yet even while the comic book and hobby shops where the above are consumed today are seeing an influx of BIPOC gamers, they remain overwhelmingly white, male, and heterosexual.
The Privilege of Play contends that in order to understand geek identity's exclusionary tendencies, we need to know the history of the overwhelmingly white communities of tabletop gaming hobbyists that preceded it. It begins by looking at how the privileged networks of model railroad hobbyists in the early twentieth century laid a cultural foundation for the scenes that would grow up around war games, role-playing games, and board games in the decades ahead. These early networks of hobbyists were able to thrive because of how their leisure interests and professional ambitions overlapped. Yet despite the personal and professional strides made by individuals in these networks, the networks themselves remained cloistered and homogeneous-the secret playgrounds of white men.
Aaron Trammell catalogs how gaming clubs composed of lonely white men living in segregated suburbia in the sixties, seventies and eighties developed strong networks through hobbyist publications and eventually broke into the mainstream. He shows us how early hobbyists considered themselves outsiders, and how the denial of white male privilege they established continues to define the socio-technical space of geek culture today. By considering the historical role of hobbyists in the development of computer technology, game design, and popular media, The Privilege of Play charts a path toward understanding the deeply rooted structural obstacles that have stymied a more inclusive community. The Privilege of Play concludes by considering how digital technology has created the conditions for a new and more diverse generation of geeks to take center stage.
Reviews / Votes
"In this timely and important book, Aaron Trammell explores not just today's growing board game community, but its longer, more complex, and problematic genealogies and historiographies. The hobbyists from which the modern board game community developed-the train enthusiasts, the sci-fi authors, the war gamers, the role players-have strong ties through to today. And while the communities have offered safe spaces for some marginalized groups, they also participated in racist and class-based segregation. With his practiced analytical skills and detailed eye for nuance, Trammell never lets one narrative dominate, telling a refined, three- dimensional story about the development of hobby board games. Play is serious business, but Trammell's engaging tone makes it fun again too. Highly recommended." (Paul Booth, author of Board Games as Media) "I have been waiting for years for a book like The Privilege of Play. Using contemporary and historical examples, Aaron Trammell weaves together insightful theoretical analysis, archival deep dives, and sharp, poignant anecdotes to construct a compelling picture of game culture hobbyists, and the history out of which they emerged." (Shira Chess, author of Play Like a Feminist) "I read The Privilege of Play straight through. It hit pretty close to home, reading a bit like my own travelogue through the hobby, beginning with the model train sets I had as a kid, my obsession with war games as a teenager, and taking us right through my RPG days and current career in games. The Privilege of Play is a must read for anyone seriously committed to a socially just and open hobby industry. Trammel argues, and I would agree, that any hobby gaming professional looking to break down the patterns of exclusion that pervade our industry would do well to study how we arrived here." - Christopher O'Neal, CEO of Brotherwise Games and President of Game Pathways "For nearly a decade, Aaron Trammell has been a leading voice calling for the field of game studies to attend to analog games' (board games, card games, and tabletop roleplaying games) deep history and thriving present... Overall, The Privilege of Play expands a nascent but growing movement to study race within game cultures and provides a powerful demonstration of what archival work about play communities can reveal." - Peter McDonald (Critical Inquiry) "The Privilege of Play beautifully provides an accessible chronology of analog gaming, inclusive of board games and eventually shifting to digital elements of the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries." (American Journal of Play) "This book offers an incisive examination of racial issues rooted in concrete examples and the author's deep familiarity with hobby game culture." (CHOICE Connect)More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Trade binding
Illustrations
24 b/w illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-4798-1839-6 (9781479818396)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Aaron Trammell is Assistant Professor of Informatics and Core Faculty in Visual Studies at UC Irvine and author of Repairing Play: A Black Phenomenology. He is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Analog Games Studies and was an honoree of the hobby game industry's prestigious Diana Jones Award.