ABSTRACT
While the previous chapter led to a functional definition of counterplay from within game studies and video-game culture, it is necessary to remember that acts of opposition, countering, aggression, and violation – transgressions – are universal and not particular to a video-game context. Wherever rule and order exist, by definition so too do their mirror images of misrule and counter-acts. We see cheats, bullies, and law-breakers throughout society, and these have been subject to extensive study and theorization. As a result there is a significant body of literature that attempts to rationalize, explain, and respond to counter-acts, but more widely within society there are a number of popular discourses of legitimization that serve the same purpose. These are culturally specific in terms of being based on a wide range of social, political, cultural, religious, and economic influences, and equally, these discourses are subject to change over time. For the researcher attempting to make sense of transgressive activity such as counterplay, discourses are problematically monolithic, presenting an often dominant context, meaning, and justification in either the absence of or simply drowning out the voice of the protagonist. Discourses often make up the entire scope of meaning applied to a counterplay act, dominating the available motivations, dynamics, and interpretations. Transgression and the discourses that surround it are therefore crucial to this study.
