Gaming and Life

This may all read like heresy. Please don’t burn me at the stake.

Our on-campus class got me thinking a lot about how much I don’t like games. What I mean is that I don’t like traditional games. I don’t like sports games, I don’t like board games, I don’t like card games, and I don’t really like computer/video games. I don’t like competition, I don’t like keeping score, and I don’t like following arbitrary rules. None of these things are fun. I completely appreciate games and understand what they contribute to people’s social, strategic, analytical, and team-building skills. But there is this underlying assumption that because something is a game it must be fun.

With Dubin’s axes of complexity and thematic integration I found myself in complete awe. And not in a good way. The more complex or the more thematically integrated a game was, I realized, the less fun I found it to be. Perhaps because all the themes cause these pieces of plastic and paper to masquerade as something fun, when in reality they are simply set in place to achieve a unnecessary/imaginary goal. I tend to think of highly thematic games as trying too hard. Complex rules function in much the same way, simply distracting you from the ridiculousness of the task at hand. Why do I have to bounce the orange ball as I walk towards that hoop? Why put the orange ball through the hoop at all? Why do I move these little figures across a patchwork table? Why must I move the tall pointy figure diagonally? Why do they want to get to the other side of the table? Why should I “kill” the other “king”? I don’t want to kill anybody. And I don’t really want to move little pieces of wood around on a table either. Even if it does mean I’m exercising my brain. I’m sorry, but you can’t “trick” me into exercising my brain or having fun. I know a spade when I see one.

If I enjoy a game it is because of the social connections that it inspires. Games are simply a vehicle for other fun things. I like Cranium because you get to sing and act and draw and sculpt and spell things backwards. I like Apples to Apples because you get to know how your fellow players think about certain ideas, people, places, and things. I like Mastermind because you get to solve riddles. All of these fun things can be done without the “game” aspect of these games. And that is generally how my family played/plays them: sans board, dice, points, or winners. That’s real freedom to fail, experiment, fashion identities, freedom of effort and freedom of interpretation. It is truly “free play” as described by Eric Klopfer, Scot Osterweil, and Katie Salen (Moving Learning Games Forward, 2009). But it’s not a real game, at least not according to the way we defined game literacy in class. Our definition of game literacy involved the learning of and successful operation in a system of rules. Therefore a game requires a system of rules. So what do I and my family play, if they aren’t games? Is it just free play? A free-for-all of jesting and jocularity with some exhibit of our various skills thrown in for good measure? Or are there subtler rules governing this type of adult free play—allowing us to amicably share the spotlight, reveal our thoughts and talents, and get to know one another? We play within the larger framework of the rules of social organization, friendship, family, and the world at large, with an unspecified amount of give-and-take to which all conform. What do you think: does this count as a game?

At first, upon leaving class, I questioned whether or not I was game literate. But I realized I can successfully play, and even win, games with complex rules. It’s simply that I don’t like to do it. I can play Killer Bunnies (even though it kills me). I hated playing games at school as a kid. I knew what all that game business was about. It was review/drilling/exercising my brain and/or body disguised as fun. It wasn’t fun. It was boring. I dreaded those games. C’mon teacher, why can’t you just let me do a review worksheet or jumping jacks or something? It’s practically the same thing.

I sound like such a party-pooper, don’t I? I don’t really know what’s wrong with me. I love to read and watch films and can be really absorbed analyzing the many complex rules and themes of literature and cinema. I love contemporary art and can suspend all immediate reality examining its structure and content. But ask me to take an active role in a game, and I can ‘t help but see it within the greater context of life, culture, the world, everything, and it just seems so unnecessary.

Perhaps I am a perfect case of why games are important: I have yet to accept the importance of rules in games and have therefore not accepted the rules of life. Or is it the other way around?