Thoughts On Games

There's this big, complicated web of ideas that I've been wanting to write about for a while now. I've lost count of how many unfinished posts are sitting in my drafts folder. I think if I'm ever going to exorcise this tangled mess from my brain, I'm going to have to stay focused on the part that really matters to me, on a personal and emotional level:

Lots of people in ostensibly game-oriented spaces don't actually like games. Furthermore, these people think that they do like games, because they don't know what a game is. And while this doesn't mean they don't belong in gaming spaces, it does mean that they can often be really shitty roommates to the people in those same spaces who do like games.

This needs explanation. It also intersects with a variety of related topics in ways that may also require explanation. I'll try not to let my scope get out of control. Fingers crossed.

What Is a Game?

Before we can talk about people in game spaces not liking games, we need to know what a game is. A "game" is a set of rules meant to structure an act of play in a particular way. Specifically, a game is a set of rules that give play three characteristics:

• Objective — There's something you're trying to do. You want to reach your goal.
• Obstacles — You can't simply decide to do the thing, there's going to be stuff getting in your way somehow. Reaching your goal will require dealing with resistance.
• Parameters — Certain methods of achieving your goal are allowed, and anything else is considered cheating, or at least is penalized in some way.

In short, a "game" is a set of rules for restricting how you overcome obstacles to achieve an objective (for recreational purposes, of course).

Note that there's a difference between "game" and "play." Anything done playfully can be "play," whether it's a game or not. Play doesn't become gameplay until you let the play be structured by the game. To put it another way, the game is the set of rules, the enactment of those rules is gameplay, and play in the absence of those rules is not gameplay (but is some other kind of play that's outside our scope here today).

If this definition of games seems wrong to you, it's probably because you're conflating the root concept of games—something as old as humanity itself—with the gaming products that have become so ubiquitous in modern culture. The thing we call a "video game" or "board game" or "tabletop roleplaying game" is a product which purports to include a game you can play, but also includes lots of other, non-game elements (and, occasionally, doesn't even include an actual game).

Example: Mario Paint

I had a SNES as a kid, which of course is a video game console, for which you purchase gray bricks called video games. One of the video games I got was Mario Paint, which came with its own mouse and mousepad and let you draw pictures, create crude animations, and compose music. That's all it was. It gave you no objectives, and it put zero obstacles in your path. Mario Paint was not a game. It was a tool, arguably a toy (arguably both), but it was not a game. The video game was not a game.

Interestingly, the same cartridge that contained the Mario Paint software also contained another piece of software called Gnat Attack. Gnat Attack was an actual game, if perhaps a simplistic and forgettable one. You had an objective (swat bugs), and you had obstacles (the bugs fight back). It's a game. But it had no connection whatsoever to Mario Paint, other than being stored (and therefore sold) on the same cartridge.

So we've got a situation where a "video game" (cartridge) called Mario Paint contained two unrelated pieces of software: a game and a not-game. This creates a situation where two people who like completely different things—one likes playing games and the other likes drawing pictures—could end up owning and being fans of the same product, despite not actually having the same interests.

Now, Mario Paint is an extreme example. You don't usually have game and non-game elements quite so compartmentalized within the product—it was effectively two products that had to be purchased together. Usually, a product's assortment of game and non-game elements are more intermingled, creating a sort of hybrid experience when you engage with that product. The ratio of game to non-game, as well as the degree of integration between them, can vary from product to product, but some degree of hybridization is almost always there.

Sharing Space

Obviously, there's nothing wrong with purchasing, using, or loving a game-product for some reason other than liking games. Maybe you play a video game for the story, maybe you play a board game for the socialization, maybe you play a TTRPG as an excuse to do little theatrical vignettes of your OCs. That's all totally fine. But you have a responsibility to exercise empathy, and recognize that you're sharing those spaces and experiences with people who are there because they love the actual games.

Let me use an analogy. Watching a movie with friends is a multi-faceted activity. There's the movie itself, but there's also the fact that you're hanging out with friends. For some people, the appeal is the latter. The movie itself is immaterial to you, because you're just there to socialize. And that's fine! But you have a responsibility to verify everyone else feels the same way before you start talking over the movie. If you start jabbering without asking, you're being kind of a jerk. Worse, if someone speaks up about actually wanting to watch the movie, and you respond by telling them they're missing the point of movies by wanting to watch them, then you're a giant fucking asshole.

You know this. This respectfulness of others has been normalized for movies. Unfortunately, games don't get the same respect yet. People in game-centered spaces act just like our hypothetical movie asshole, but usually suffer no social consequences for it.

I've seen lots of the Pokémon fans who are just there for the selfies point at people frustrated by lackluster gameplay, and call them "haters" who like to "nitpick." Nobody calls them out for it.

I've seen a surprising number of board games grind to a halt because one of the participants gets into lengthy conversations with non-participants or just straight-up leaves the table to do something else, then gets indignant at anyone who criticizes them.

You can't walk two steps in the TTRPG community without running into a discussion, podcast, or convention panel explaining that it's not supposed to be a game at all, and framing game mechanics as primitive prototypes of storytelling tools. Such takes get you venerated, not rebuked.

Asshole Movie Talker Guy—in his worst form, the form that tells everyone who Actually Likes The Thing that they're missing the point—is everywhere in gaming spaces.

Games Matter

Games are deeply human, as fundamental as art or language, and are worthy of respect. And just like with art or language, we are diminished and reduced as a society when games are minimized or dismissed. We must learn to recognize when someone is framing games as distractions from more worthy activities. We must learn to recognize when someone is framing interest in gameplay as a hangup, obsession, or moral failing. We must normalize pushing back against those behaviors, making them socially unacceptable, until dismissing someone's interest in gameplay is rebuked with the same distaste as trampling anything else humans love.

Thanks for reading.