I was assuming (wrongly) that it would be a book about children and play (which is a field I work in) but realized it was more about adults..

This is an interesting read because it examines the culture of gaming and "hobbies" rooted in toxic white masculinity. There is a culture of outsiders or "geeks" yet mostly white and white spaces. The book does a good job surveying the roots of this culture through magazines, hobby stores (in the suburbs) and the Tech Model Railroad at MIT. There was even a game described that was called Afrika Korps that was a simulation of Rommel's North Africa Campaign. Scary history of the valorization of militaristic, fascist origins. I had no idea either that woman (Lee Gold) created a popular fanzine on Dungeons and Dragons. Most images are of white males so I was glad to see that other diverse voices are in the mix of gaming culture. Some women game designers are having their moment too (and hopefully this continues) such as the designers of WingSpan. Through crowdfunding and Board Game Geek (user reviews), access to the creation and to community has expanded. I like that the author also mentioned his own personal passion and experience with games. This is a pretty dense academic read so I appreciated the moments of personal story.

Thank you to Netgalley and NYU Press for an ARC and I left this review voluntarily.

it was ok. that's kind of of really it. I'm not sure why more people haven't reviewed it however. it wasn't a must read-but an interesting one.

I received an eARC of this book for review from NYU Press via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

• The Brief: This study dives into the history of hobby games in North America to examine its evolution via select subsections of the hobby to understand the relationships between geek culture, race, and gender.
• I recommend this to anyone interested in an academic, intersectional examination of the general development of hobby gaming ca. 1950-2022.

This is an interesting and researched historical study. The writing style is academic with frequent citations. Although the author uses first person when discussion research they gathered, the language is generally formal and complex. The book is organized chronologically. However, it was occasionally repetitive and often I found myself wanting to learn more about a particular subculture, person, game, or development than is on offer. 3.5 stars.

Just read this (ARC), and found it quite entertaining and informative, particularly with regards to the connections Trammell makes between model railroading and early wargaming. The criticism of "Avalon Hill's Race Problem" alone is worth the read. I also enjoyed Trammell's insights on the 'zine Alarums & Excursions (which could really stand a book-length exploration). That said, I do feel there are some key areas left unexplored, as Trammell largely skips over much of the history of Dungeons & Dragons and completely ignores the development of Warhammer (which has its own issues with race and class). Definitely recommended.

True story: I don't know much about geek culture although I read a lot of comic books and I love rpg and tabletop games. I simply just don't participate in many group activities and more on the nerdy side of things. This is a great book that talks about geek culture and highlight how people who ignores their white male privilege lets the genre and the culture impacts the world in a toxic way. Well, it' a great book. Give it a try.
Thanks to Netgalley for this advanced reading copy.

The writing style of this book is quite cyclical, dizzyingly circling back on itself. The prose, instead of being personal, is rather dry. And the information overload is a bit exhausting.

I agree that the topic is timely, and much of what the author shares is important information. But the writing is not nearly as welcoming or enjoyable as the games for which the author (and this reader) has such enthusiasm.

I think much of the author's true passion is lost in the attempt at serious discourse. And it's a shame, really. The thoughts behind the book's message are worthy of being shared, but the actual text is less lively than a gamer would expect.

However, the ultimate message is clear: "The survival of the hobby games scene in a post-COVID world and the new generation of geeks relies on changing the hearts and minds of a massive consumer base to embrace hobby games" (179).

A deftly woven cultural history, The Privilege of Play by Aaron Trammell skillfully situates the existing prejudices in the hobby gaming community into a lengthy context of exclusion and bias in white niche culture. I have a game convention coming up and I'd love to clutch this book wave it around like a missionary, starting every conversation with "Have you heard the good word? Someone finally put a voice to the quiet hum of discomfort that has been playing beneath this community for the longest time!"
The author presents a thorough and well cited deconstruction of the development of hobby gaming culture as an evolution of model railroading and war gaming. He capably analyzes how the privilege these communities benefited from migrated down to the game communities that evolved from them. The text thoroughly and successfully argues the thesis that prejudice in the gaming community is systematic and insidious, despite often getting swept under the rug as being the product of individual bad seeds.
My only complaint is that this is an academic text, reading like a doctoral thesis awaiting defense. I'd like to read an expanded treatment of the material, with more of an authorial voice, and that is more accessible to a broader nonfiction audience.

As an avid gamer, I was greatly looking forward to reading this book. The topic is very interesting, not to mention relevant, and I have come across very little academic writing on the subject. Trammell does a decent job of outlining the history of hobby games, but I do have several issues with the book. Firstly, it is in need of copy editing. (I realise that since I have read a galley edition, this is probably in the works as I write this.) Concepts are introduced without providing definitions, whole sentences are repeated in different parts of the book, and there are a couple of grammatical errors. At one point, the author interviews two subjects, and the style changes completely to a much more informal tone, and this section seems out of place. Secondly, the book covers a large variety of hobby games, and therefore doesn’t get properly in-depth into any of them. Thirdly, Trammell often makes grand general statements he seems to accept as truth, without providing any sources or references for these statements. That being said, however, the author has clearly done a lot of research, and I read the book with great interest. There is no doubt that Trammell harbours a great passion for the topic, and it was a very informative read. I believe this subject would be of interest to many people interested in hobby games, and I would have loved to see the author rework the material into a popular science book written for a larger audience.

There is a phrase used in role-playing gaming circles to describe when the game's guide and leader (the "game master," or "GM") attempts to force scenarios regardless of how it fits the organic narrative that has developed from his player's actions: railroading. No matter the detriment to the story or the game, the GM has decided that events will proceed in a particular way and will barge through all forces to the contrary in order to ensure that it occurs.

Ironically, given the subject matter, never before have I felt so railroaded as a nonfiction reader. I went into this expecting a significantly different piece: as an academic-cum-hobbyist, I had in mind a work that would marry the history of some gaming phenomena and modern (more and less positive) communities. “The Privilege of Play” instead offers a poorly-argued, bleak view on the cultural and interpersonal dynamics of gaming, relying on readers’ blind trust and seeming to use the novelty of his field as a crutch to avoid engaging with contradictory, interdisciplinary evidence.

I rarely comment upon author bias or suggest how authors' experiences might negatively inform publications, but given that Trammell starts the book with a preface detailing how he perceived himself as being ostracized from some of his early gaming communities due to perceptions of racism, I find it appropriate to do so here. The entire book reads as though it is a work of self-reification intended to reassure the author that his personal decisions to depart from certain "nerd circles" were justified. One expects better and more from someone who has established himself at the supposed vanguard of gaming studies. For someone who has elsewhere shown almost a philologist’s ability to parse and analyze both vocabulary and historical trends elsewhere in his oeuvre, Trammell does not live up to his own standards. It is especially disheartening to see the lack of quality control in a field as new as gaming studies – the earliest founders of the field, so to say, should know that they set a precedent and that a disproportionate number of eyes will be on the development of the field.

The scholarship presented in this volume is not at a high level and its references are unfortunately spotty (particularly in certain sections discussed below). As a result, the book relies heavily on readers simply believing the author's interpretations of modern gaming. This is very unfortunate given that the author does painfully little to elicit trust from his audiences – the book exhibits clear misunderstandings of the communities regarding which Trammell is masquerading as an expert, features assertions so nonsensical that it seems he is writing in such a fashion deliberately, and, to put it bluntly, ignores notable incidents in analog gaming in favor of promulgating a false narrative. No wonder -- infamous incidents of blatant racism and sexism in tabletop gaming over the past decade prompted swift and appropriately brutal statements from the community condemning the bad actors. This does not concord with the perspective Trammell seeks to claim, and therefore is left aside in favor of vague assertions repeated ad nauseum with little veracity.

Beyond higher-level issues of content, the tone of the book is deliberately over-casual and does not suit the content (nor does it do anything to “sell” the credibility of the author’s arguments). The lack of adherence to an academic “voice” is increasingly common in some scholarly circles, particularly cultural and gender studies, but is jarring and at odds with the serious content of the book. It is also applied patchily, coming off as affect rather than humble and approachable (the usual excuse given for the adoption of this tone in academic writing). While not a lethal diagnosis for the tract, it is another unfortunate aspect of the book that reduces the argument’s efficacy.

Immediately after personally-revealing preface, the reader is subjected to an exercise in frustration that reveals much more about critics of gaming – especially those seeking to be offended – than gaming itself – a pointed yet ultimately pointless anecdote regarding a historically-inspired board game involving slavery (as a spoiler for later in the introduction, historical accuracy in the game is equated to casual racism). The author does little to contextualize this other than to use it as an introduction to his definitions of "The Hobby" -- the author's term for board games and related gaming communities. This sets a tone for the book as a whole, which seems intentionally obscuring in terms of connections between ideas.

Soon after arises another of the most significant issues that pervades the entirety of the text: he asserts that "tabletop gamers refer to themselves as hobbyists and gaming as 'the hobby'" (2). This is a broad (and uncited) overgeneralization -- "the hobby" villainized here is a term applied almost exclusively in wargaming. Wargaming in itself is a nexus of activities. It is a "hobby," if you will, not merely "a game," because it inherently contains many different activities. A wargamer may, on any day, spend hours hand-painting miniatures, reading novels or writing lore for the game's universe, creating "terrain" (scale-model buildings), learning to sculpt with clay, or -- if other out-of-game demands are not more pressing -- actually play a game. Trammell aggrandizes "the hobby" and attributes to it a sense of gatekeeping entirely unlike any other pastime inherently linked to "white masculine expectations." This is according to no one but Trammell, who unironically rebuts his own statement at the end of the paragraph, claiming that "the hobby" merely signals that "one is speaking to another like-minded geek." A far cry from racism and sexism. Nevertheless, now that this misunderstanding has been applied, it will similarly misinform much of the writing; rigor is not well-exercised either, it seems, by Trammell himself or by his editors.

The author presses on, expanding its already-flawed claims to suggest that it is a "mainstay in all hobby communities that focus on male interests." He has, it ought to be noted, already excluded video games and hiking from things with which tabletop gaming is similar. Nonetheless, the usage of "the hobby" is apparently endemic to such male-driven hobbies (specifically backpacking!). The railroad spike is further hammered by rephrasing several times and in several not-at-all dissimilar ways that the gaming is inherently white, minorities are excluded, and therefore gaming and "the hobby" must also be white. A final bit must be included here, in which Trammell essentially equates the popularity of the aforementioned historical board game to a reinforcement of racial tension—even though, by his own admission, the game adheres to historical accuracy. Leaving aside the informative and educational value of historical board games reads as deliberate misinterpretation of the motives of publishers and players alike. Last but certainly not least, Trammell drops a couple of throwaway bombshells that source the roots of both digital media and the “tech world” (perhaps even the Internet!) in white and male dominated gaming. The bit reads as if it were part of a very halfhearted grant application where niche scholarship must be shown to have far-reaching or “real world” applications in order to merit funding.

As with the rest of the introductory material, the author has cited very little scholarship or evidence for the bold claims of the piece beyond his own opinions. Groundbreaking research into the many arenas of gaming has been long overdue, but given how intensely Trammell wishes to link inherent racial and psychological factors to gaming, one expects that he would have found even tangentially-linked evidence to bolster those connections.

Similarly, the next section regarding his understanding of “geek culture” suffers from a lack of strong theoretical basing: although “white privilege” and “hegemonic masculinity” are blandly employed across most social science fields, the lack of any precise foundations for the framework Trammell uses is disappointing. The terms require exacting definitions to convey appropriately to the reader the ways in which the author employs them. All the reader receives is a limp effort at saying that white privilege and masculinity are linked and that both exist – not due diligence given that the two terms inform the entirety of Trammell’s argument (nor at the level of rigor Trammell has previously demonstrated in his analyses of historical “play,” for instance, which provided a far more thorough and rich discussion of the theoretical framework applied to the writing of the paper). He only revisits his (lack of) definitions to gesture indistinctly at the markedness and unmarkedness of whiteness and directs the reader to other publications if they should seek a real discussion of the implications. This would be standard practice if “white privilege” did not form a support beam for his entire book; as such, it is insufficiently treated. The concept is fraught and not monolithic, and to proceed as though there were a commonly accepted understanding in nuanced contexts is disingenuous.

The author unoriginally attempts to claim that “genealogical” descent links modern tech-culture insidership with the inherent outsider-ness common in “geek” identity. His innovation is that geek culture is “insidiously post-racial.” To paraphrase the relationship succinctly, Trammell posits that geek culture is inherently self-Othering. This is seen as a method of identity construction; as part of this, geeks view themselves as race-blind and therefore overlook racial dynamics in their communities. Leaving aside questions of its validity, “colorblind” thinking as a solution to racism has largely passed out of vogue in progressive theory and practice, and in progressive gaming communities the trend runs towards embracing mosaics of diversity in many combinations rather than an ignoring of cultural difference. Even at its worst, however, a “colorblind” atmosphere is a far cry from a white-dominated, minority-deprecating culture.

Perhaps most disappointing is the attempt at equating “geekness” with “white privilege” in the introduction. Trammell’s writing does nothing to assist in the comprehension of what seems a pivotal point in his presentation of the book. The confusing set of principles seems to claim that “geeks” must inherently be white because they require (or desire) some materialist environment that is itself defined by whiteness (perplexingly posed as similar to “white flight” phenomena). This is compounded by an argument that overemphasizes the “outsider” status of geeks, creating a one-to-one correlation between anti-progressive mid-century politics (aka racists posing as “free thinkers”) and “outsider geeks.” This equation is unbased and rings hollow in everything but demography – unsurprisingly, the major aspect that Trammell draws upon in order to prove his point. Such demographic analysis amounts to minorities generally having less disposable to spend on luxuries such as gaming, though he ignores the fact that this signals the racial disparities in gaming as being practical rather than ideological. The differences in socio-economic groups’ ability to partake of “leisure” also has seen much ink shed already. His attempts to claim that invaluable social networks (“of privilege”) were created by shared hobbies or gaming are paltry at best – instead, his evidence indicates that members of similar social and cultural groups also shared activities. This is a very unsurprising and uninteresting take but seems the more accurate one.

A particular aspect of the whole “defining geekery” situation that Trammell has avoided is a sticky one – genre. He tries and fails to throw away the indelible fact that gaming is a subset of geek-fandom, then quickly sweeps this attempt under the rug by citing his own writings about non-white/non-male gamers. Many of the games implicated in this study are set in fictionalized universes of science-fiction and fantasy; many of these critical of foibles and injustices of modern life, such as racism or sexism. Moreover, the pioneering “fandom” was arguable that of the original Star Trek television series in the late 1960s, which presented a utopian conception of humanity that had advanced beyond racial and sexual tensions exemplified through the (alien) concept of “IDIC” – infinite diversity in infinite combinations. Ignoring this foundational aspect of geek culture in favor of purely white, male communities is irresponsibly misrepresentational.

This could potentially be overlooked since tabletop gaming is a subset of geek communities, perhaps somewhat insulated from the progressive effects of science-fiction – except for the fact that Trammell has claimed that the tenets of white privilege and male hegemony apply to (and define) the very identity of “geek.” The female script-writers and petition organizers who powered the first iteration of Star Trek (not to mention the array of minorities involved in the earliest “Trekker” communities) might have something to say about that. This position is not surprising given that, in Trammell’s view, “geek femininity” (aka “geek girls”) cannot exist if “hegemonic masculinity” exists in the same community. Even if masculine-toxic “microaggressions” are rampant in a gaming group, the statement entirely discounts female agency and the potential and power of non-white non-males to engage in such supposedly white and male spaces. This exemplifies the book’s lack of regard for the agency of both minority and female gamers, and is reinforced when he claims that games simply do nothing than further the status quo of white masculinity.

This sort of dismissal is related to another logical fallacy that is woven throughout the book – that if a group (e.g. “women”) see advertising and “portrayals” of hobbyists that neglect to include representatives of the group, it eliminates their participation or interest in the activity. Whether in historical advertising that played to gender norms (such as the wifely attention to laundry juxtaposed with the male train operator) or in “portrayals in media” today, absence is not necessarily prohibitive, and a significant proportion of any “invisible” populus is actually motivated by their own exclusion towards being transgressive and claiming a space. This seems to be a novel concept for third wave gaming studies more generally, but Trammell in particular.

Other facets of the work that are perplexing and troubling are plenty. For instance, the author presents a characterization of mid-century model train operators as primarily concerned with an Old West romance, celebrating outlaws and rebels – on no grounds whatsoever, at least none expressed. The traditional appeal of model railroading is in the construction, operation, and elevation (occasionally literally) of the track, not as a setting for cowboy-and-Indian skirmish wargames. He cites no magazine articles that illustrate this tendency and he does not include any information about games set in the world of a model railroad track. In another point, Trammell inexplicably draws upon the bunk concept of “speleology” – not actually the study of caves, but rather an obscure, post-processual (and, frankly, post-fact), anti-archaeological product of Foucault that justifies poor historical practice as an inevitable result of some individuals being less prominent historically than others.

A final point in all of this that is amusing and troubling at the same time is how incredibly oblivious the author seems to the fact that “the hobby” (as he defined it) has precise parallels in both non-white and female-dominated communities that make (and made) use of the same hobby stores, magazines, and communities that are supposedly comfortable domains only to men. To add an anecdote to Trammell’s pile of uncontextualized scenes: online marketplaces tag the same components of railroad modeling, wargames, and hand-painted miniatures with not just the keywords for those communities, but also “dollhouses,” “scale rooms,” and “presepio.” The first two of these additional keywords refer to two scale-modeling communities associated strongly with women; the latter is a southern European (in early 20th century terms that should be familiar to Trammell given his apparent fluency with the topic, strongly “not-quite-white”) tradition of making scale model scenes more and less loosely associated with Latin Nativity or “creche” scenes.

Racism and sexism exists in nearly all communities to varying extents, an unfortunate side effect of history, cultural conflict, and the tribal mentality of unevolved human beings. Trammell provides no convincing evidence either for modern gaming in general – or tabletop gaming in particular – being outstanding examples of racist or sexist “institutions.” Rather, he provides a number of examples where correlation is discerned instead of causation – for instance, the fact that MIT accepted fewer female students and students of color than white males during the heyday of its model train club is not taken as the cause of more males being involved in the club. Trammell altogether ignores the broader scope of second-wave gaming research that has highlighted the preferences of many female gamers towards cooperative rather than competitive gaming (mentioned here as one of the likely causes for the higher proportion of male wargamers, for instance). He does, however, exhibit an expert-level ability to touch on pieces of information that contradict his arguments ever-so-gently, only to set them aside immediately in favor of some other “hot” idea that will distract the reader from what he just ignored.

This book paints an unnecessarily grim and dark picture, the product of which will likely be continued academic misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the groups of gamers involved in the hobbies described. This is unfortunate. It is unsound scholarship, and it does a disservice to the many minority gamers – nonwhite and female alike – involved in the communities panned here. Theirs are the voices silenced in order to create the narrative Trammell has in this text. As a final note with which to leave the readers of this review, it is worth noting that the numerical racial and gender disparities present in gaming might be better fixed by not incorrectly telling minorities and women that the communities are foundationally opposed to their presence and only with “permission” will they even be able to exist at all.

This is quite an academic and intellectual book that does a deep dive into the history of white men and their ownership of geek culture. Highly recommended for those who feel like outsiders in a culture that has created its identity on being privileged (whether they acknowledge it or not) outsiders themselves.

A searing reflection on and deconstruction of how privilege has operated within the histories of hobbyist culture and tabletop play.

"The third wave is political ... third-wave game studies scholars now wear their politics on their sleeves."

We are entering a new era in game studies, and perhaps technology and culture studies more broadly. Politics is centred, identities and positionalities are entering academic discussions and being formalized in papers, and social constructivism is no longer marginalized. Even those of us without humanistic, philosophical, and/or activist backgrounds are embracing this oncoming "third wave," norming it in our practice.

"Geeks see themselves as outsiders because they have been empowered by white privilege yet feel excluded from the domain of hegemonic masculinity to which they feel entitled."

Trammell traces out a history of modern non-digital play arenas, focusing on technical hobbies, tabletop role-playing games, and board games. The novel point is a concerted and critical focus on how privilege set the stage and continues to shape these spaces. Trammell helps the reader understand how power, discrimination, and intersectional factors drove and continue to influence these trailblazing and contemporary geek communities. Specifically, Trammell casts this history as one premised in white supremacy and hegemonic masculinity.

"Hobbyists have been reluctant to embrace racially subversive and racially progressive narratives simply because they view the stories they are already telling as transformative."

Trammell writes with the ease of a humanist, and a non-academic reader can easily follow most of the discourse. Most academese (I'm side-eyeing "discursivity" and "speleology") and special terms are defined and used sparingly ... and there's some geekspeak thrown in, too, like "grok." The edition I read still needs copy-editing. A lot of terms and concepts are introduced and then re-introduced as if they had never been introduced in the first place, e.g., geek masculinity, BoardGameGeek's financial model, etc. Trammell has a habit of repeating words in the same sentence while referring to different things, e.g., "today ... today" and "conversation ... conversation." Also, Trammell, like many academics trained or attempting to be objective, attributes agency to the text rather than the author, e.g., "the chapter examines" (no, YOU examine), which is a long-standing annoyance of mine, especially when it crops up in otherwise subjective texts written in the first person.

"Hegemonic masculinity is the structure that uplifts the patriarchy, whereas toxic masculinity is antisocial behaviour, including misogyny, threats, abuse, and violent action."

I'm also not on board with some term definitions, e.g., simulation as prediction, and suggested terms, e.g., simulationism as revisionism. Simulation can mean creation, experimentation, imitation, etc. If the goal of the new term is to highlight how games and other simulations allow for revisionist play of past events, especially in the service of non-neutral and ethically despicable historical corrections, why not a term like "contra-simulation"? I feel like these ideas could be uplifted by further peer review before they are cemented in a popular text.

"A history of hobby gaming connects game studies' concern with lived gamer identities to concepts of whiteness and masculinity. The history of the hobby, then, explains why games came to be seen as 'apolitical' in the eyes of white male players who have historically constituted the scene. ... This privilege ... is to abstain from political discussion."

One highlight is the writing-in of histories that have been sidelined or ignored. Trammell rightly calls out the factors that coalesced around white boys and men leading the way and maintaining these arenas while keeping everyone else out. Trammell persuasively links access to electricity and higher education to white flight and segregation of cities, and it is both striking and damning. Trammell also makes the case for the presence of diversity, such as early Black participants in the hobby, and centres early women players, especially Lee Gold, who are treated as nonentities by so-called progressive media journalists and historians even today (here's looking at you, WIRED).

Yet, Trammell does overstate claims, leaves big ideas unpacked, and leans too hard on too little evidence. For example, I'm not sure how nudging white hobbyists to feel superior to the masses by using a silly white mob going after fake bills "encouraged them to flirt with white supremacy." This is puzzling to me, because at around 180 pages, there is room to go into depth and detail and bring in more examples. This leaves the reader uneasy, at best. In another example, Trammell argues that the Damsel and Courtesan character classes are sufficient "circumstantial" evidence for the decrease in women contributors to the Alarums and Excursions 'zine. I’m sympathetic to the close reading here but I think this claim goes beyond its bounds.

Trammell is also at times inconsistent in the "who" of the thesis. In one breath, we have race, people of color (PoC), BIPOC ... and in the other, only Black people. About the same topic. Including Nazis, e.g., a topic where there is a centred racial category, i.e., Jewish people. Why the inconsistency? I think this is a failure of reflexivity, where Trammell has accidentally fallen back on the defaults of his own positionality without realizing it. I hope an editor or peer reviewer will help the author correct this throughout. The subtitle is also telling (and misleading), since this is not just about race but also gender (and other things).

Relatedly, I'm not sure that the framing is well-summarized as "white male privilege." This is correct but insufficient, even based on the material in this text. Class and economic status play a huge role, according to the author, who references neoliberalism and libertarianism ... well, liberally. I'm also a bit disappointed that Trammell didn't bring in more of a queer perspective on the case of the D&D "love not war" character classes, especially given source material references (including slurs) about homosexuality and lesbianism. For example, these views also erase the existence of trans* and intersex folk as well as restrict sexuality to the binary of hetero vs. homo (even if gendered). All of these are tied up in white male hegemonic masculinity, so I would have loved for this gap to be called out and deconstructed.

“People of color shoulder the burden of embodying diversity, doing the work that others should. An individualistic perspectives naïvely neglects the power of networks, ideas, and labor involved in producing hobby games.”

Despite my criticism, this text is a necessary and welcome first step towards reframing and critically reflecting on geek culture within gaming, in the past and the present, in arenas virtual and beyond the computer-mediated. I look forward to what the author writes about next. Perhaps how the new generation has entered and reclaimed these spaces?

Readers of the ebook, watch out: The map visualizations don't render properly in B&W. I assume important information presented in colour was lost in the grayscaling process.