Playing Dress-Up : Costumes , roleplay and imagination Philosophy of Computer Games January 24-27 Department of Social , Quantitative and Cognitive Sciences University of Modena and Reggio Emilia Ludica

In their canonical texts of game studies, both Huizinga and Caillois, each in and of his respective time, relegate dress-up dismissively to the sphere of girls’ play. Little has been written to-date on the subject; in this paper, we survey the literature on analog and digital dress-up. We argue for a deeper examination and legitimization of dress-up play as a means to infuse greater gender balance into both game studies and game design. In the West, adults are typically discouraged from playing dress-up, except in relegated and sanctioned contexts, such as Mardi Gras or masquerade parties. Practices such as Japanese “cosplay,” renaissance fairs, Live-Action Role-Playing games (LARPs), and co-performative events such as the Star Trek Conventions, DragonCon and Burning Man suggest a growing pattern of cultural practices around adult costume play. In the digital sphere, while massively multiplayer games tend to focus on team-based combat, players pay equal attention to clothing and fashion (often masked by the more masculine terminology of “gear”). The design and acquisition of virtual fashion is among the most popular activities in metaverse-type social worlds, such as Second Life and There.com. Cultural precedents for dress-up have been studied by performance anthropologists such as Victor Turner and Richard Schechner, who examined how the costume in ritual and theater create an embodied alternate persona for the wearer. We also see precedents of today’s MMOG gender transgression dress-up play in historical movements, from 18 th Century court culture to notorious cross-dressing Dadaists Marcel Duchmap and Man Ray. In social and cultural contexts, dress-up not only provides an opportunity for expression, but also occupies a unique intersubjective domain as players, whether physically or virtually costumed, can together create alternative worlds simply by “putting them on.” Dress-up also provides the opportunity for transformative play, for in dressing up and taking on new roles, we learn more about ourselves.