Why I love games


I.


We talk about freedom and agency a lot when it comes to games, but what do we really mean by that?


Total freedom is boring. If you are the god of this imaginary world, if you can make anything and everything happen, nothing can surprise you.


So we impose limits. You exist in this sort of world, you have access these resources, you have these abilities.


So far, few would accuse you of impinging upon player freedom. So where is the line?


I would posit the line is here: You work for someone else. Or, another character (such as a villain) forces your hand; you have no choice but to respond to their actions.


I think when you cross that line, you're playing a different sort of game. Maybe you're more interested in narrative and drama. That's okay! But it's not what I love about games.


II.


Agency and freedom are misnomers, I think. I love games that put the players in charge, in control, in command of a specific character or organization in a specific situation.


How many people in the world today are allowed to be in charge of anything significant? Billions are not.


Games allow people to develop a significant side of their personality — their capacity to be in authority. And I think that's valuable and it always brings me joy to see it happen live.


III.


Of course, this comes with limitations. Good drama — that is, drama that reveals something valuable about life — is so often about characters who are not in charge. Characters whose hands are forced, who have limited choices or no choice at all.


Does this mean that the kinds of games I love cannot reveal anything valuable about life?


In a certain sense, maybe they can't. How can anyone possibly relate to or learn anything from a troupe of fantasy characters wandering aimlessly about the wilderness, killing impossible monsters and stealing treasure without qualms or consequence?


No, I don't think these games reveal anything about contemporary life in the positive. But I think maybe they reveal something in the negative... I think they reveal something about the possibility of a world where everyone gets to be in charge or have a say in something significant.


IV.


As a brief aside, I do think many games have shown it is possible to interweave absolute player authority with affecting drama. The players may have absolute authority over the setting's present, but they may also discover the aftermath of all sorts of dramatic events that took place in the setting's past.


V.


Beyond that, I love being surprised by games. I love when a game makes me laugh, and especially when someone else does something in a game that makes me laugh.


I think fun and laughter go hand-in-hand. Good fun and good comedy are both about being surprised by something that you thought you completely understood.


That's why the ball is such a good and enduring toy, isn't it? Because it's just a sphere, it's the simplest thing in the world to understand, and yet we have so much trouble predicting which way it's going to bounce and arc through the air.

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