This book starts with the proposition that digital media invite play and indeed need to be
played by their everyday users. Play is probably one of the most visible and powerful ways to
appropriate the digital world. The diverse emerging practices of digital media appear to be
essentially playful: Users are involved and active produce form and content spread exchange
and consume it take risks are conscious of their own goals and the possibilities of achieving
them are skilled and know how to acquire more skills. They share a perspective of can-do a
curiosity of what happens next? Play can be observed in social economic political artistic
educational and criminal contexts and endeavours. It is employed as a (counter) strategy for
tacit or open resistance as a method and productive practice and something people do for fun.
The book aims to define a particular contemporary attitude a playful approach to media. It
identifies some common ground a nd key principles in this novel terrain. Instead of looking at
play and how it branches into different disciplines like business and education the phenomenon
of play in digital media is approached unconstrained by disciplinary boundaries. The
contributions in this book provide a glimpse of a playful technological revolution that is a
joyful celebration of possibilities that new media afford. This book is not a practical guide
on how to hack a system or to pirate music but provides critical insights into the unintended
artistic fun subversive and sometimes dodgy applications of digital media. Contributions
from Chris Crawford Mathias Fuchs Rilla Khaled Sybille Lammes Eva and Franco Mattes
Florian 'Floyd' Mueller Michael Nitsche Julian Oliver and others cover and address topics
such as reflective game design identity and people's engagement in online media conflicts and
challenging opportunities for play playing with cartographical interfaces pl ayer-emergent
production practices there-purposing of data game creation as an educational approach the
ludification of society the creation of meaning within and without play the internalisation
and subversion of roles through play and the boundaries of play.
