Emergent Play and Control

Emergent play occurs when players explore creative ways of playing the game, thereby adding new dimensions to the game experience. If considering the game rules and game design as a three dimensional box wherein the game is taking place. Players would be either choose games with loose structures that posses flexibility to individual and emergent play - or seek the corners of the games structure for holes /glitches allowing them to bend the rules into emergent play. An example of emergence of glitch based strategic play in computer games is seen when players perform "Rocket Jumping" in Quake; the rocket blast allow the player to jump higher and further than normally - this is by many appreciated as creative problem solving in a virtual environment. And wether playing the glitches are the borderline to cheating is truly in the eye of the beholder, but human nature often accept when playing "the machine" anything goes - ei shooting through walls at your opponent in Wolfenstein - Whereas in PvP games same gaming behavior may not be accepted as fair gameplay...

Steinkuehler, "The Mangle of Play"

Jakobsson, "Playing with the Rules"

Chen, "Communication, Coordination, and Camaraderie in World of Warcraft"

Montola, "The Invisible Rules of Role-Playing"