"How Many Headshots You've Done": Achievement as Discursive Practice in Videogame Play

Molesworth's paper argues that achievement in videogame play functions as a discursive practice through which adults reproduce a sense of individualised progress that is otherwise lacking in their work and consumer lives. Drawing on Bauman's account of an episodic, individualised society, the study is based on 24 phenomenological interviews with adult players in southern England, conducted between June and October 2006 and comprising roughly 50 hours of recordings. The central claim is that videogames, like other consumer goods, offer a pacifying form of progress that depends on the continual consumption of new technology.

The analysis identifies three recurring themes. Players anticipate new hardware and releases, experience progress through accumulating in-game achievements or through crafting something from nothing, and use play to offset the stress and boredom of work and domestic routine. Games are shown to provide episodic, easily accessible achievements that help players manage frustration and monotony, with the purchase of games, consoles and collectibles reinforcing an ideology of progress. These practices are framed as a form of "craft consumption" and compensatory leisure, though the author notes that such episodic achievement may offer only a temporary substitute for lasting progress.

The paper's conclusion is that videogames supply "individualised, instant market solutions" to the boredom and routine of modern life, with a pacifying social role. While some players resist frivolous adult play by pursuing personal narratives of progress, games tend to reinforce the broader idea of progress rather than challenge it. This conclusion rests on a limited evidential base, most notably a single interview with a 24-year-old player who reduced his gaming after turning to philosophy and Buddhist meditation. On the basis of such cases, the authors judge that games are unlikely to support the more ambitious reflective task of questioning progress itself.