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This article introduces the juxtaposed notions of liberal and neo-liberal gameplay in order to show that, while forms of contemporary game culture are heavily influenced by neo-liberalism, they often appear under a liberal disguise. The argument is grounded in Claus Pias’ idea of games as always a product of their time in terms of economic, political and cultural history. The article shows that romantic play theories (e.g. Schiller, Huizinga and Caillois) are circling around the notion of play as ‘free’, which emerged in parallel with the philosophy of liberalism and respective socio-economic developments such as the industrialization and the rise of the nation state. It shows further that contemporary discourse in computer game studies addresses computer game/play as if it still was the romantic form of play rooted in the paradigm of liberalism. The article holds that an account that acknowledges the neo-liberalist underpinnings of computer games is more suited to addressing contemporary computer games, among which are phenomena such as free to play games, which repeat the structures of a neo-liberal society. In those games the players invest time and effort in developing their skills, although their future value is mainly speculative – just like this is the case for citizens of neo-liberal societies.

This article discusses the metaphor-simulation paradox in the study of computer games. It is derived from three observations. Firstly, often when authors use the concept of metaphor with regard to games they use it in conceptual and textual vicinity to the concept of simulation. Secondly, the concept of metaphor is often applied to signify seemingly abstract games in opposition to mimetic simulations. Both observations can be made within an artgame discourse of the study of computer games as well as within the more general discourse of the study of computer games. Thirdly, however, the definitions for simulation as well as for metaphor are strikingly similar which culminates in the metaphor-simulation paradox i.e. the notions of metaphor and simulation are not distinct enough in order to make the distinctions which are usually made with these notions with regard to computer games. In an attempt to reconcile both notions with regard to computer games this article will make three suggestions. Observing that simulations are often called metaphors with regard to their degree of reduction or abstraction the first suggestion argues that simulations are essentially synecdochic and hence metaphoric when following a broad notion of metaphor. Based on the assumption that simulation is not a matter of similarity the second suggestion proposes to distinguish between a first order simulation and a second order simulation which can then be considered metaphoric. As a third and final suggestion the author offers to consider simulation and metaphor as related via the notion of the model. Simulations are based on models and metaphors provide models such that one can speak of metaphor based simulations.

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