Bust A Cup: Reclaiming Risk in Play

Brian Schrank's "Bust A Cup: Reclaiming Risk in Play" argues that contemporary risk society has drained games and everyday life of meaningful danger, leaving players in a cycle of safe, low-stakes interaction while the perceived world grows more threatening. Schrank contends that games incorporating real, designed risk can help players confront self-imposed limits, reconfigure physical, spatial, legal, and personal boundaries, and build resilience against fear-based manipulation. His central example, Bust A Cup, is a two-player puppet brawl using coffee cups that softens the reality of street combat while preserving its capacity to unsettle and provoke. The work draws on theorists including Brown, Huizinga, Sutton-Smith, Hans, and Erikson to frame productive risk against what it calls the "aesthetics of human destruction."

The analysis is grounded in observed play in Chicago and Joliet, where a tournament champion who repeatedly smashed cups and drew blood illustrated how disruptive play can reshape players' perceptions of fear. Schrank also notes that Bust A Cup was rejected from an indie festival over litigation concerns, and he uses Doug Wilson's "broken games" concept to argue that games retain value even when their risk escalates or becomes unfair.

The text situates risky play alongside works such as Jackass, Yoko Ono's Cut Piece, BorderXing Guide, and Pac-Manhattan, presenting them as models that can foster resilience and social or political engagement. Its conclusion is directed at designers of serious games, urging them to embrace risk and to create more broken and risky games as a means of advancing the medium and achieving meaningful social change.