Knowledge creates perception, perception creates action, action creates new knowledge, and so the cycle continues. Simply put, Urban Codemakers offers a newfound way of seeing the environment: ludic affordances, previously hidden due to a knowledge deficit (“what are these plastic things?”), became not only visible but conspicuous once the social actor took it upon himself to learn the game. Graduating from Social Actor to Operative Player, this switch instantiated an entirely new sense of being in-the-world: the environment is filled with playful possibilities, ludic affordances in the form of tokens, points and leaderboards. This epistemological shift propels new perceptions, new actions, changes the game state, and generates new knowledge for the wider Urban Codemaker community’s assimilation and response. This essay considers the pervasive game Urban Codemakers as a theoretical exemplar of the complex ways that players, objects, and environment interact.
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