Cardboard Poachers: Fan Cultures and Paratext in Board Games
Cardboard Poachers: Fan Cultures and Paratext in Board Games
Cardboard Poachers: Fan Cultures and Paratext in Board Games
May 22, 2022
By Chad Wilkinson
Summary
As Paul Booth notes, "Using board games to analyze media illustrates the performative aspects of media interpretation and reveals the multiple ways all viewers play with their media."7 Such notions of play can be analyzed and ultimately positioned within fan cultures and the industry as a whole, demonstrating how certain ways of interacting with media can have larger impacts on social, cultural, and economic contexts.
Whilst this displays a deviation from the immediate social locality Fiske attributes to the generation of enunciative productivity, Suzanne Scott, assistant professor of media studies at the University of Texas, argues that when observing the increasingly digital performances of contemporary fan culture "We must amend Fiske's description of the 'restricted' circulation of analog fan talk to incorporate the online forum/message board."11 The fan mediated online resource boardgamegeek.com holds a wealth of information regarding board games and gaming culture.
These convergent models of distribution "Have allowed board games the leeway to tackle critical themes that the major publishing industries preclude,"22 securing designers, often through the input of fans or as fans themselves, the space to "Address social issues more honestly and openly."23 Such facets of the board game industry help to position this form of media as possessive of strong bonds between producers and consumers, facilitating the emergence of a participatory role for fans, which can aid in the production of culturally transgressive games and enhanced fan immersion within particular franchises.
Booth defines a paratext as "a text that is separated from a related text but informs our understanding of that text,"24 noting that in the context of board games, meaning is created through "The tension between authorial presence and audience play: this meaning is created between player, designer and original text."25 Thus a board game such as Star Wars: Imperial Assault can be deemed a paratext reliant upon "Play" existing "Within an already-extant space as well as within an imaginative space of the player's own creation."26.
Adding to Jenkins's understanding of convergence previously addressed in regard to notions of crowdfunding, Booth notes that "Board games deepen and extend our understanding of cross-media convergence by relying on the complex interaction between the original text's top-down 'authority' and the game's bottom-up 'play.'"27 Booth's identification of "Play" as a "Specific mechanism by which players inhabit and make media their own"28 also serves as a useful starting point in the application of board games to the theories on "Play" discussed by senior lecturer in transmedia and digital cultures Colin Harvey.
Fitting into Harvey's analysis of Star Wars toys and video games, board games also "Rely on the operation of memory,"34 and in particular, notions of "Nostalgia play." It can be summated that the tactility of board games and toys tap into a nostalgic relationship occurring between childhood experiences with certain franchises, and the paratextual transmedia storytelling associated with tactile play.
Or as Greg Loring-Albright writes, these games return "Agency to the players, casting them as fan re-writers in the tradition of fan studies. By mixing and matching game elements from different diegetic time periodsor levels of canonicitythese empowered players use the game's system to create narratives that the hegemonic owner of the franchise has deemed inappropriate."46 The creativity exemplified by fans' productions of unlicensed expansions, has, in this short analysis, demonstrated the potential for the board game industry and its community to progressively engage with personal, social, and cultural issues.
Reference
Wilkinson, C. (2022, May 22). Cardboard poachers: Fan cultures and paratext in board games. Retrieved July 20, 2022, from https://analoggamestudies.org/2022/05/cardboard-poachers-assessing-the-academic-value-of-participatory-fan-cultures-and-paratexts-within-the-board-game-industry/