This
box
found
you
for a
reason

Intro

Video games features are making us more, not less, productive. Life and work are gamified through social media, dating apps, and fitness apps designed to increase motivation and productivity. Gamification blurs the lines between play, leisure and labour, to release our collective dopamine for profit.

Games in themselves often perform a reproductive role, presenting capitalism as a system of natural laws, exemplified by in-game predatory monetisation schemes. On the other hand, games provide necessary down time and relaxation, helping people function in a largely dysfunctional economy and society. Yet leisure remains a contested space which is still unequally distributed, between genders, ethnicities and abilities.

Index

• What is a loot box?
• Crossword imaginary grid game
• One-sentence game ideas
• Nim fanfic
• The murderous history of loot boxes
• Unfinished thoughts
• The leader
• Connect[less]
• Xquisite Branch
• Katamari Fanfic
• Life hacks
• Can gaming make a better world?

Digital Contents

• Unfinished thoughts
• Connect[less]
• Xquisite Branch
• Katamari Fanfic

Fage Not Pound

Fage not Pound was a temporary bar where visitors were invited to actively reflect upon the blurred boundary between leisure and labour. Fage Not Pound was itself hosted by Page not Found, an art book shop in Den Haag (The Netherlands).

Fage not Pound opened on the 25th of March 2022 from 18:00 to 21:00 but its existence lasted much longer in AccAcc (FNP's local time unit). Fage not Pound was imagined to host the official launch of This Box Found You For A Reason (Special Issue #17) a publication by XPUB.

Colophon

Makers:

Ål Nik (Alexandra Nikolova), Carmen Gray, Chaeyoung Kim, Emma Prato, Erica Gargaglione, Francesco Luzzana, Gersande Schellinx, Jian Haake, Kimberley Cosmilla, Miriam Schöb, Mitsa Chaida, Supisara Burapachaisri

Co-published by:

Page Not Found and the Master Experimental Publishing (XPUB) at the Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy, Hogeschool Rotterdam [logo PNF]

Typeface:

Special Issue 17 by Supisara Burapachaisri and Jian Haake

Thanks to:

Lídia Pereira (ed.), Michael Murtaugh, Manetta Berends, Steve Rushton, Aymeric Mansoux, Leslie Robbins, Sébastien Tien, Ola Vasiljeva, Dagmar Bosma, Paolo Pedercini, Shira Chess, Cory Arcangel, Sepp Eckenhaussen & Koen Bartijn (Platform BK) March 2022 Rotterdam (The Netherlands)

License:

This Box Found You For A Reason
2022 XPUB Special Issue 17
Copyleft attitude with a difference:
you are invited to share the publication or parts of it with others under the terms of the CC4r license