Watching different play styles: The pleasure oftransgressive play in Tears of the Kingdom

Exploring different play styles is where the distinct pleasure of videogames lies.However, it can be difficult for an individual player to experience the multitude of styles on their own.Spectating game streams provides a window into how different players engage with specific games.According to Boluk and LeMieux (2017), stream watching can be viewed as metagaming, the practice around games, which reveals how players creatively manipulate the original game system through their unique play styles.This paper explores a type of game stream showcasing play styles that are typically not anticipated by game designers.This particular style of play, termed transgressive play (Aarseth, 2007), subversive play (Flanagan, 2009), or transformative play (Salen and Zimmerman, 2004), springs out of "the players' normbreaking and convention-challenging actions" (Mortensen & Jrgensen, 2020, p. 8).According to Aarseth (2007), transgressive play challenges the idea that there are implied players who are inscribed into a game, and thus is crucial for understanding game culture.