“Sometimes I Like Killing as a Treat”: Children’s Transgressive Play in Minecraft

Abstract

Children’s play in digital spaces is often discussed in popular discourse and in academia in terms of what kind of effect it may be having on children. One area of concern is the relationship between ‘violent videogames’ and real-world violence. However, little is known about how children actually play in digitally mediated play spaces including Minecraft which offers sandbox style free-play and does not necessarily involve any prescribed violence. We have collected recordings of 6-8-year-old children’s leisure time Minecraft play and used a taxonomic system of play types to describe the range of play observed. Some observed play did not fit neatly into any of the play types. In this paper we describe one such instance of play which involved unprovoked violence and draw on a range of literature in the process of conceptualizing this play as Transgressive. This paper provides much needed knowledge of children’s Minecraft play as it occurs in situ.