Games: Agency as Art, Book Review

Games: Agency as Art is an excellent, thorough look at what differentiates the medium of games from other art forms, and thus what their unique artistic contributions are.

It also approaches the subject from a rather intensely academic angle, and as a result can be a bit dry and overlong at times.

That’s my succinct review of the book. For those who want an interesting, solid academic foundation for game theory, it’s here, but it’s not something I’d qualify as a casual work or one that’s intended merely to be read for fun.

Everything below expounds on those points.

A Study in Interaction

Author C. Thi Nguyen tells a particular story of his game group that resonated with me. It was of a roleplaying game in which each person was assigned a role/persona with a message they had to impart to the other players.

But no verbal communication was allowed, so when play began, everyone had to invent methods of communicating that imparted their message/meaning without speaking.

This is already an interesting roleplaying experiment to me, but it gets better. Because they house ruled the game so that once it was over, no one was allowed to say what their message was. And so no one could be sure whether or not they’d succeeded. The only things the players would have to take with them were their attempts at succeeding and their sense of whether or not they were successful in either understanding others or being understood themselves.

When told about this house rule, my significant other said she didn’t think she would prefer the house rule. And neither would a lot of people! I’m not even sure I would.

This isn’t quite the point, though. The point is in the type of interaction it created, and how the house rule focused the game on the playing of it rather than its outcome.

What Is an Agency in Gaming?

The focus described above is an inversion of how we often think of games. Most modern games focus our attention on the win state (or loss state) of the game. Yet, it’s not this that is gaming’s differentiating factor compared to other forms of entertainment, media and art.

Rather, it’s the unique modes of engagement that we’re asked to adopt for the sake of the game’s premise. This is the unique quality of games, both distinguishing them from other forms of media (literature, movies, etc.) and also between each other, since one game’s mode of interaction will not be exactly the same as even others within the same genre category, even if there are some conceptual overlaps.

It’s this adoption of the premise that Nguyen defines as the titular “agency” in games. The ways games impart agencies onto players is their core artistic achievement.

To do this, he also talks about the more well-known Magic Circle, that ephemeral ludic space where we step into the game’s world and adopt its premise but only for the duration of the game. We agree to take its premise seriously, and our role in actualizing the premise, in order to experience the game at its fullest. It’s also how we can adopt modes of engagement with others that don’t carry real-world consequences, and why in-game actions don’t carry the same long-term weight that day-to-day actions might.

Nguyen has done his homework on academic research regarding games and these are some great insights. Though I’ll point out that he spends a lot of time describing in copious detail what most of us already understand as the Magic Circle of games. This is indicative of a larger trend, where you might suddenly wonder why it’s been several pages and you’re still reading about the same basic topic.

Regardless, the titular “agencies” are a useful framework for game analysis, and sections like the one that discusses the roleplaying game are fascinating. That example is a wholly unique agency unlike most we experience in games, and I’d guess unlike what some people have ever experienced in a gaming structure.

The Importance of Non-Importance

I’m wary of theories that puff up gaming to be more than it usually is for the vast majority playing any game across the globe, which is just some light social and/or strategic fun. But so long as we don’t lose that perspective, I enjoy deeper philosophical dives into the corners of hobby gaming that occasionally aim for something more profound.

Pleasantly, the core philosophy of “agencies as art” doesn’t preclude games that are silly, dumb or lacking formal structure.

Nguyen adeptly pushes back on any possible elitism, not explicitly, but implicitly through the veneration of such “dumb” gaming and how these types of games use agency in ways that are every bit as nuanced as what we traditionally think of as games.

Nguyen also cleverly points out the difference between the “goal” of a game and the “purpose” of playing it. The two are only occasionally the same, and even if the goal is nonsensical (or nonexistent!) the purpose can be vitally important to a sense of community, exploring a mode of engagement, or experiencing a particular kind of fun that would not be possible without the game’s unique agency.

We naturally tend to focus on goals in games, but how often do we consider the purpose in a more holistic sense? Why engage with this at all? The answers – which are myriad – will lead us to interesting places.

Exploring the Human Condition Through Play

One of my favorite ideas to consider has long been how many games model behaviors and modes of interaction that would otherwise not exist for us in “real life.” Perhaps this is why I’m so fascinated with different types of negotiation games; they promote interpersonal interactions that would be difficult to recreate in a real-world setting.

It’s self-exploration – and group exploration – through play. Nguyen argues that these unique agencies are themselves a point of gaming, teaching us different modalities for our motivations, focus, and interrelations with others. Adopting and discarding agencies in and out of the magic circle, respectively, also teaches us to adopt and discard agencies (goals, purposes) outside of games in ways that enhance our engagement with the world.

Again, this is as true of dumb party games as it is of “message” games that so often receive more high-minded critical reception and praise for their socio-cultural statements. Nguyen’s is a more holistic theory that doesn’t denigrate playful agencies but instead recognizes their importance to both our personal and societally shared understanding of games and the real-world systems of agency they inform. It also recognizes and celebrates that winning isn’t the purpose behind a lot of gaming (though it’s often the goal).

And the low-stakes nature of gaming means that anything we “mess up” is in an environment that is naturally going to be more forgiving of mistakes, and may even celebrate them through shared commiseration.

I think I’d enjoy playing games with Nguyen. I also recommend this book, albeit with some caveats about his occasionally academic-to-a-fault writing style. Despite the fact that it took some time for me to work through the entirety of the book, it presents a viewpoint on games that I haven’t seen anywhere else and that I think is important for the development of games as both a playful and serious medium.