Social Constructionism and Ludology

This article combines the paradigm of social constructionism with the developing field of ludology. As games are intersubjective meaning-making activities, their study requires understanding of the nature of social constructions, and how such constructions are produced and interpreted: The formalist nature of ludological core concepts such as game world and game rules is often taken for granted, even though such structures exist only as social constructions. The article also considers the implications of the constructionist approach on the research of games: Such a perspective is especially important for the study of nonrepeatable, irreversible, distributed, and emergent forms of play.