Games reflect an important part of human psychology. One broad way to think about “games” is that they are any situation that has:
(a) a set of rules (explicit or implicit) that are made up by humans,
(b) a scoring system (explicit or implicit) for determining how players are doing or for deciding who wins,
(c) participants who are trying to increase their “score,” and
(d) a game context (outside of which the game rules stop applying).
So, by this definition, games include chess, poker, football, and tennis, but also things like:
• money games (e.g., competing with friends and acquaintances to have a more expensive-looking car/watch/suit)
• altruism games (e.g., billionaires outbidding each other in charity auctions)
• coolness games (e.g., choosing clothing to demonstrate that your taste is trend-setting rather than trend-following)
• intelligence games (e.g., Oscar Wilde verbally jousting with his friends)
• sexual games (e.g., a man trying to seduce a woman while maintaining plausible deniability and her playing hard to get despite her intense attraction to him)
• strength games (e.g., boys wrestling after school)
• legal games (e.g., lawyers using every tool they know to beat each other in a case)
• academic games (e.g., young academics trying to outcompete each other in terms of who can get the most papers published in the top 10 journals)
• knowledge games (e.g., two people debating a factual topic in front of others at a party, each trying to show that the other person is wrong)
• political games (e.g., trying to form a strong coalition and to make the opposing coalition look corrupt or incompetent)
• career games (e.g., optimizing your behavior for getting promoted, rather than, say, for accomplishing the purpose of your work role)
Our brains have a tendency to temporarily treat games as reality (a suspension of disbelief).
This is not a bad thing – it’s part of what makes games fun and motivating, and it gets us to try hard at them. Those that can’t or won’t do this suspension of disbelief tend to be bad at games. There’s little joy or motivation in games if we’re just thinking, “I’m moving this wooden peg, so this number goes up.” We must (at least temporarily) believe that the number MATTERS.
Games can be fun, rewarding, and motivating. For some people, game playing is one of life’s great joys. And games make learning more fun (in fact, games are fundamental to how we humans learn). Children invent and play many kinds of games that help them figure out adult behaviors. And gamification can make difficult activities feel easier (e.g., you can turn a difficult task into a game to make it more pleasant).
But, on the flip side, games also can become a big problem when we forget for too long that we’re playing a game. Or if we permanently swap them for reality. Or if we come to think that winning the game is what fundamentally matters.
Consider the way that game playing distorts different activities:
• Science gets really screwed up when it is treated as a game where we compete to publish, rather than being treated as a way to figure out the truth about reality. This is part of why science has so many false positives.
• Altruism gets really screwed up when it is treated like a game to prove you’re a good person rather than as a way to help others. This is part of why so much altruism is not effective at improving the world.
• Governments get really screwed up when politics becomes a game (where most of what matters is beating the other side) rather than treating politics as a way to get helpful policies implemented.
• Medical schools get really screwed up if they become a game of who can memorize the most and function the best without sleep, rather than being a means to train effective doctors.
• The startup world gets really screwed up when it becomes a game of who can raise the most capital or do the coolest sounding thing, rather than having a focus on making products that solve actual problems.
• News gets really screwed up when it becomes a game about who can get the most clicks rather than as a means to spread true information.
• Law gets really screwed up when it becomes a game about what companies and people can technically get away with, rather than as a means of enforcing agreements and protecting people.
Games can be small or large, great or terrible. The key thing is to not get stuck inside a game without realizing it. Sadly, many people spend their whole life stuck in a game, confusing it for something more.
Sometimes we have no choice but to play a game that we don’t value. But recognizing games for what they are can help us leave them when they are poorly aligned with what we actually care about.
It’s great to play games sometimes and to suspend your disbelief to make them more fun and motivating. But don’t forget for too long that you are suspending it.
Games are not reality, though they might have real-world consequences. The in-game scoring system (whatever it is) does not reflect what you truly, intrinsically value. The rules of the game are made up by humans and are not the fundamental constraints on what behaviors you can and can’t take (though there might be consequences for breaking the game rules).
Play games cognizantly.
This essay was first written on November 23, 2020, and first appeared on this site on June 23, 2022.
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