Players are at the heart of games: games are only fully realised when players play them.
Contemporary games research has acknowledged players’ importance when discussing
games. Player-based research in game studies has been largely oriented either towards
specific types of play, or towards analysing players as parts of games. While such
approaches have their merits, they background creative traditions shared across different
play. Games share players, and there is knowledge to be gleamed from analysing the
methods players adopt across different games, especially when these methods are
loaded with intent to make something new. In this thesis, I will argue that players
design, record, and share their own play methods with other players. Through further
research into the Oulipo’s potential contributions to games research, as well as a
thorough analysis of current game studies texts on play as method, I will argue that the
Oulipo’s concept of constraints can help us better discuss player-based design. I will
argue for constraints by analysing various different types of player created play
methods. I will outline a descriptive model that discusses these play methods through
shared language, and analysed as a single practice with shared commonalities. By the
end of this thesis, I will have shown that players’ play methods are often measured and
creative. Players create play methods not only to enrich their play, but also to enrich
other players’ play and to create new future ways to approach games, and playing them.
Furthermore, I will argue that players realise the productive potential in their play, and
they record their play both to preserve their adopted methods, but also to realise the
creative aspects latent inside their play.peer-reviewe
