Editors of Play: The Scripts and Practices of Co-creativity in Minecraft and LittleBigPlanet

Abstract

Computer games can be described as assemblages which, to use a term borrowed from Science and Technology Studies, provide different scripts, setting the scene for user practices. Scripts include the game world’s possibilities, restrictions, and the degree of freedom provided tothe player. Lately, a new genre of games challenges these specifics. Socalled editor games, like Minecraft or LittleBigPlanet, which entered the market with sweeping success, are not games in the traditional sense (in which players follow certain rules guided by narrative elements framing the gameplay). Instead, these sandbox games – often labeled as ‘digitalLEGO’ or ‘co-creative open worlds’ – afford constructing a game world rather than playing within one. Following a praxeological approach, this essay will try to make co-creative processes in editor games accessible as a research object, by performing a critical evaluation of established methods within Game Studies, complemented by an experimental focus group analysis.