While the workplace literature has discussed playfulness as the nature of work as well as the designing of work, there is only limited research that focuses on how designers identify and disidentify with games over time. A Lacanian enquiry into the self-identification of serious game designers may prove particularly worthwhile, as designers first need to cope with their own fantasmatic attachment if they are to develop serious games that seduce others. A brief case study investigates this issue through the ethnographic observation of how lack, identification and fantasy are all dynamically intertwined in the context of the development of a serious medical game aimed at the elderly. The findings describe the process through which designers confront their gamified scenario, and how they overcome the resulting tension. The discussion reveals the traumatic origin of their playful fantasy, namely the affective underside of suffering and conflict. However, ethical designers resist, and eventually undo, gamification through ambivalent acting and ?crossing? the fantasy. Finally, the conclusion presents broader implications for serious game design and future avenues for empirical research in the Lacanian tradition.
