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Blaseball's very active weekend and the increasing ways in which fan work seems to be interacting with the game's emergent narratives is stirring some very real questions for me about where/when you need to set boundaries re: fan labor.
So I'mm thread for a minute. First, I like Blaseball a lot but I think it's intensely more interesting as a collection of systems than as a shared creative universe.
Blaseball is also one of the few times I'll say a game is playing itself. Blaseball plays itself; observers ascribe meaning to functionally arbitrary events.
That's not new or novel but it can be very beautiful. And in a broad sense you can call that "play." BUT!
That's not new or novel but it can be very beautiful. And in a broad sense you can call that "play." BUT!
Because of Blaseball's reality as a Thing That Isn't Contingent On Us Playing Or Watching... the resulting degree of ownership that fans have developed has felt... off to me personally.
I'm not decrying anyone's passion but that "offness" has left me at continued unease.
I'm not decrying anyone's passion but that "offness" has left me at continued unease.
The "Cultural Event of Blaseball" is, on paper, the same as any fandom. Art, fiction, collaborative story-telling, speculation and arguments. But these things have increasingly intersected directly with the game itself.
And so my concern isn't "I think Blaseball lore discussion are dumb" though I do sometimes find myself balking at those discussions...
My concern is that a sizable portion/part of the game is being upheld but a considerable large about of fan labor.
My concern is that a sizable portion/part of the game is being upheld but a considerable large about of fan labor.
Not in the sense that "oh, people are using their imaginations to add context to systems" but as in "people are doing WORK in a very intense fashion" and it is getting harder and harder to draw a dividing line between that work and the circle that The Game exists in.
As someone who now works literally as an ambassador to fandoms I, uh.... do not think this is good? It feels Problematic Actually. passion is good, fan work is good but it is an issue when it becomes Labor
so, uh.... end thread I guess.
so, uh.... end thread I guess.
amazing feat of narrative system design tho!
