Congratulations, dear reader! You've
decided to embark on this epic quest with me and you don't even know what I'm
going to talk about. Don't worry because neither do I. But that's ok because
that's the point. Do you ever play a game and find yourself asking why you
bother? Maybe you watch other people, rolling your eyes as they seemingly try
to accomplish impossible tasks, while at the same time they pretend to be an
elf or an orc. Deep down in the core of ourselves we understand the futility of
playing games. And I'm not just talking about video games. The loud and drunk
people in the corner of the pub, glued to the screen and cheering whenever
their team does something that they deem cheer-worthy. Even they know that
anything that happens in a game will have no impact on their real lives.
Nevertheless, those sport stars are paid millions to do what they do and video
game companies have no problem taking money from people who know what they
purchase is a meaningless distraction. The act of playing seems innate, as we
know children play all the time. But most gamers aren't kids. In fact, the
average age of a gamer is 31 years old. And even animals
can play games of their own. Every time we look for an answer, we'll find more
questions.
Maybe this is because we are dealing with
a paradox. This can be examined if we ask, "Why do we play?" We play
for fun of course. That answer opens up a can of worms, but we'll leave it for
now. Let's accept the preposition that we play for fun. Video games are
classified as entertainment products so that answer makes sense. Just like
movies and books before them, video games provide an outlet for enjoyment. But
are we really enjoying ourselves? Is it fun to die and restart from a
checkpoint thirty minutes ago? Is it fun for that to happen five more times in
a row? No! You're more than likely to throw your remote through the TV if
that's the case. So even the basic premise of "games for fun" doesn't
add up. We generally avoid failure, video games can make failures out of us yet
we continue to play even though we're exposing ourselves to something we'd
normally avoid. Maybe we're all masochists. But Jesper Juul in his book The Art of Failure sees
"a paradox that stems from the way we are torn between an immediate desire
to avoid failure and a longer-term desire for an experience that includes
failure." That's why he has multiple books and gaming credits and I only
have this blog. It seems as if we play for the experience, to say that we did
it.
Surely, though, there should be more
worthwhile pursuits than saving the goddamn princess another goddamn time. Do
video games actually offer us something in return? You may have heard the
argument about surgeons who improved their dexterity with Halo. Plus, video games can
offer a great chance for tangential learning - learning that happens beside the
main action. Whether it's via creating a game world based on a real place a la
the Assassin's Creed series
or by NPC dialogue that introduces a new way of thinking for the player. Games
such as Bioshock are great at explaining and dissecting
complex political schools of thought even if most of the game is just running
and gunning. Games clearly can offer as much as any other medium, but I'm
looking for something that is intrinsically about gaming.
Humans and animals both play games but
only humans have created such complex systems to achieve such a basic desire.
As technology increased its presence in our lives, our games migrated to
computers but an understanding of the not-so-old way of sports and board games
can help explain games themselves. Rules are important, in games and in real
life. However, real life is incredibly complex and the rules not always so
clear cut. They can vary from culture to culture, social situations or who
you're having dinner with. Rules in a game can be much simpler. In fact, they
had to be simple so that anyone could understand them. Football teams colour
code themselves, and a game of Dungeons
& Dragons has a Dungeon Master. These examples are humankinds
attempts to introduce order into a world that often seems to have none. Before
the rise of the console and single player game, people had to agree with each
other on the rules and who would be the one to take responsibility for their
enforcement. This highlights an important element that is so often overlooked
when talking about games - the social factor. Humans are social beings by
nature and play is one of the most harmless ways to achieve interaction. When
we play we know it's all pretend, as if entering some sort of magic circle
where the only rules are the ones of the game.
So today you've learnt that the act of
playing a game is the paradoxical act of avoiding failure by exposing yourself
to it. That existing in a game world can make you learn about Objectivism or
American Exceptionalism without realising it. And that games have rules, like
real life, and also like real life games can be very confusing. The trouble
with titling a blog post "Explaining the Unexplainable" is that by its
nature I can't explain it to you. All I can do is offer you words that may help
you understand the concepts we grasp for every time you lose a game.
So one last word then: Autotelic; Having a
purpose in and not apart from itself.
Two Youtube Videos for more on this subject:
Obligatory Social Networks:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/psykoticgamer
Twitter: @PsykoticGamer
Patreon: Coming Soon
