"In this timely and important book, Aaron Trammell explores not just today's growing board game community, but its longer, more complex, and problematic genealogies and historiographies. The hobbyists from which the modern board game community developedthe train enthusiasts, the sci-fi authors, the war gamers, the role playershave strong ties through to today. And while the communities have offered safe spaces for some marginalized groups, they also participated in racist and class-based segregation. With his practiced analytical skills and detailed eye for nuance, Trammell never lets one narrative dominate, telling a refined, three- dimensional story about the development of hobby board games. Play is serious business, but Trammell's engaging tone makes it fun again too. Highly recommended." (Paul Booth, author of Board Games as Media) "I have been waiting for years for a book like The Privilege of Play. Using contemporary and historical examples, Aaron Trammell weaves together insightful theoretical analysis, archival deep dives, and sharp, poignant anecdotes to construct a compelling picture of game culture hobbyists, and the history out of which they emerged." (Shira Chess, author of Play Like a Feminist) "I read The Privilege of Play straight through. It hit pretty close to home, reading a bit like my own travelogue through the hobby, beginning with the model train sets I had as a kid, my obsession with war games as a teenager, and taking us right through my RPG days and current career in games. The Privilege of Play is a must read for anyone seriously committed to a socially just and open hobby industry. Trammel argues, and I would agree, that any hobby gaming professional looking to break down the patterns of exclusion that pervade our industry would do well to study how we arrived here." - Christopher O'Neal, CEO of Brotherwise Games and President of Game Pathways "For nearly a decade, Aaron Trammell has been a leading voice calling for the field of game studies to attend to analog games' (board games, card games, and tabletop roleplaying games) deep history and thriving present... Overall, The Privilege of Play expands a nascent but growing movement to study race within game cultures and provides a powerful demonstration of what archival work about play communities can reveal." - Peter McDonald (Critical Inquiry) "The Privilege of Play beautifully provides an accessible chronology of analog gaming, inclusive of board games and eventually shifting to digital elements of the late-twentieth and earlytwenty-first centuries." (American Journal of Play) "This book offers an incisive examination of racial issues rooted in concrete examples and the author's deep familiarity with hobby game culture." (CHOICE Connect)
