ABSTRACT
Up until this point, I have mostly referred to game design as a way of affording and limiting certain play practices. These built-in affordances and limitations, one could argue, try to shape play in a sense that they convey what the game designers think the player might want to (or simply should) play. In this chapter, I will discuss forms of control that make sure this shape is retained – they are the rules, codes and contracts that players and Blizzard put in place, both implicitly and explicitly, to make sure players do not stray too far from intended and accepted play practices. It deals with the social and legal agreements that exist amongst players themselves and between players and Blizzard. These agreements, for which I use the umbrella term game contract, show which play practices and other forms of participation and communication are considered acceptible in and around the game. In contrast to the coded, non-negotiable rules of game design, game contracts present players with meta-rules – rules that are not impossible but rather impermissible to break.
