Introduction

This book explores the concept of counterplay in contemporary video games, primarily from the context of action-orientated video games based on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 games console and surrounding player cultures. The term “counterplay” is repurposed here to encapsulate play that is understood as oppositional, anti-social, and even criminal by its players and observers. Counterplay can therefore be regarded as being counter to the general expectation of compliant conventional play and instead contains a dynamic that works against rules, against other players, seeks alternate ways of playing and potentially different pleasures. As we shall see, there are a number of other terms that capture some of this dynamic – cheating, trolling, grief-play, transgressive play, abject play, dark play etc. – but instead, counterplay is used here in an attempt to simultaneously differentiate between these terms and to present a less pejoratively loaded term to better emphasize what I believe to be the universality of counterplay. This is an attempt to recognize that while this is a form of play defined by its working against a rule, against consensus, against etiquette, or against law, it is both frequent and widely adopted. This book will trace a cross section of counterplay practices – incendiary user generated content, grief-play, collusion, the use of exploits, hardware hacking, and illicit software modification – in an attempt to offer primarily a descriptive snapshot of practices, motivations, and, as a corollary, meaning. In so doing this book approaches counterplay in an ethnographic manner, entering counterplay communities, engaging with counterplayers, and simultaneously recognizing the various competing discourses that are used by counterplayers, victims, observers, and the establishment alike to (il)legitimize these acts. Ultimately it is hoped this book offers the reader some insight into what forms counterplay takes, how it is conducted, and to better understand the reasons we counterplay.