Why Games Matter, Why They Don't, and Why Not Matter Matters

Games as Playthings

There’s an instinctive reaction some have when we think about “games as art.” No, come on, they’re just toys…

…right?

Yes, but the thesis of this article – if there is one – is that many games aren’t just this, or even primarily this, even if most of the games we play are not aiming at anything higher-minded than some ephemeral fun.

Holland’s video takes a harsh look at calling board games “just toys.” [Author’s Note: for clarity, Holland has spoken on games-as-toys before as well; her objection, as she clarified to me in a forum discussion, is when they’re portrayed as “only” toys and incapable of more]. I’ve called board games “toys” in a bit of a cheeky manner on several occasions, but it’s generally juxtaposed with instances of people using their interest in complicated games to assume some sense of superiority. Or to take the wind out of someone who’s getting far too upset about a negative review of a game they love. They have lost perspective in one or more ways, and the invocation of “toy” is a reminder not to be a jerk and to try to have fun with our shared and joyous hobby.

We generally play games to have fun, right? Some people only play games for fun.

As I’ll cover below, this isn’t the end of the story, but first I want to do some due diligence in defending the fun of games as a valid end unto itself.

Fun Does Not Need Justification

It’s tempting to want to justify our frivolity. There’s so much we should be spending our time on, so why so much time, money and attention on games?

And so you’ll see a lot of people armor themselves with justifications about the educational benefits of games. Or they’ll point to the themes as ways to learn about different subjects. Or they’ll compare their spending on games vs. spending in other areas. Or it gets absorbed into work-life balance discussions as though it’s part of a balanced diet of activities in a human life.

This isn’t needed. Play needs no justification, for people of any age. Indeed, its very power is in its purposelessness. Laugh, furrow your brow, lose yourself in the social atmosphere or the clockwork mechanical puzzle of a game. You don’t need to come out of it a wiser or smarter person. No benefit needs to be conferred for it to have been something magical.

A cheeky assertion I could also make here is that this purposeless joy is an artform unto itself that play provides, and games help to facilitate that play. That might be engaging in the same needless justification that I chastise above, but it’s something to think about.

Games as Art

Honestly, I’d hoped we were past the point of having to question this. Of course they’re art.

Or rather, they can be.

There’s the literal artwork, if we’re being thorough, which at this point in many games is as impressive as what you’ll find in various museums dedicated to artistic expression. Box, board and card artwork can be stunning.

Then there are the themes covered in an explicit sense. There are games that depict historical figures, battles, settings, or those that deal with more nebulous concepts like relationships, love, deception, and all manner of elements that have received artistic treatment elsewhere and can within the context of the game.

Games can tell stories, and these stories can touch upon themes every bit as complex as other mediums, and can have moments of emotion and drama as high as them as well.

Video games (both triple-A but even more so indie stuff), roleplaying games and increasingly theme-conscious board games all provide myriad examples of creators making amazing games where I look at them and can’t imagine that they aren’t art. The burden of proof has shifted to anyone still claiming they can’t be meaningfully artistic.

Anyone still claiming this, to me, is either ignorant of the breadth of modern gaming or stubbornly clinging to outmoded platitudes based on how they engage with games.

Then there’s something slightly more nuanced, which is what Holland gets at in her video above: mechanisms as metaphor.

Mechanisms as Metaphor

The literal setting of a game might have something to say to the player, but it’s the mechanisms of the game and how they enable the players to engage directly with the ideas presented, that is their art, so to speak.

It’s a reconceptualization of art as something we engage with and manifest through our actions, rather than simply as something we absorb. Yes, we “engage” with a great film’s ideas, for example, but the film is what it is. Our actions can’t affect how it unfolds. All art is interactive in a sense. It’s a dialogue between artist, subject matter and audience. But few take the interactivity so literally as games.

Holland’s video opens with Tigris & Euphrates, a poster child for “mechanisms as metaphor.” My own review for Tigris & Euphrates doesn’t use the exact mechanisms as metaphor phrase, but it might as well have.

She then dives into various examples to deepen her argument, including her own designs. Specifically, some games she cites are those that present a specific argument – a worldview or opinion – via the game’s mechanics. It’s not passively asking us to consider a topic, but proactively asking us to engage with a specific position on a topic.

This gets into games as opinion or statement, not merely an exploration of concepts and themes. And anyone who’s designed games will tell you that all games have implicit assumptions; a designer must make certain decisions when confronting ideas presented via mechanics. There’s (almost) no such thing as a “neutral” game when it comes to anything contentious, historical or narrative. Just like any other artform.

And of course, games are abstracted, so they must function as metaphor, not as literal depictions of their subject matter. This is a necessary concession of the medium, but one that doesn’t rob them of any inherent power to deliver their message.

So I’m in full agreement with Holland’s main ideas. What preceded this section (on defending fun without purpose) and what follows are me taking the topic into adjacent realms, in ways that I think flesh out this topic more fully. Holland’s position needs the loudest champions currently in many industry circles, and she covers it thoroughly and clearly, so it’s no criticism to say she doesn’t deviate from her mechanisms-as-metaphor assertion. But to me it’s not the only way to approach games as an artistic medium.

Agency as Metaphor as Art

Not long ago, I wrote a review of a book called Games: Agency as Art, written by C. Thi Nguyen. It’s worth reading the full review (and entire book, if you’re interested), but the book’s central thesis is one that I think is closely tied to Holland’s mechanics-as-metaphor idea.

Basically, the author argues that agencies – that is, the specific modes of interaction and engagement games ask us to take part in – are games’ truest artistic contribution, the one that separates them from other forms of entertainment and art.

This is why, for example, I’m so fascinated with negotiation games. How often are we actually asked to enter into complex, often real-time negotiations with other people? It’s a shifting environment that includes both mechanical considerations and interpersonal ones.

It’s not something we experience much in our day-to-day lives. For some, they’d never experience something like this if it weren’t for games. But through the medium, we can develop skills, learn about ourselves, learn about others, and observe the interplay of personalities and incentives as we try to navigate both. All within the Magic Circle of games that lack the real-world consequences that some actions would have if they were done for real.

This is the agency, to use Nguyen’s term, that the game asks us to adopt, and which is its artistic manifesto.

The complex agencies we adopt in roleplaying or adventure games are also as nuanced as anything you might get from other mediums, and oftentimes more so. It’s here that you can even start to make comparisons to performative theater, improvisational acting, and collaborative narrative creation that mirror or sometimes even surpass the complexity of other artistic endeavors.

And many such instances of “agency as art” could be called “mechanics as metaphor” as Holland uses in her video. Perhaps they’re not identical concepts, but they’re closely interrelated.

I’m increasingly convinced by this line of thinking, and more so because “agency as art” doesn’t preclude silly, stupid, or frivolous games. We still adopt a particular agency at the table, and this is a valid form of artistic expression, even if the end goal is ephemeral fun, not any deeper statement. There’s still creation of something in the process. That creation is a magical type of art that only games can deliver, and it could be in the silliest or shortest game in the world, or the longest, most complex, and dealing with forceful themes and ideas.

It’s a theory that lifts up the forms of gaming as a whole, not merely parts of it that we deem “important” or “serious.” Accepting it also allows us to approach games from a variety of perspectives: just to have fun, to engage with difficult ideas, and more.

Theories of Fun and Art in Game Design

Raph Koster’s book A Theory of Fun for Game Design also tackles this subject head-on. Yes, the argument exists that games are “just for fun.” He makes the point, though, that many movies are mere escapism, a lot of music is listened to just for fun, even some books are not meant to challenge us in any way. They’re there as entertainment.

We don’t question these fields in the same way, though. So why question all games when this is only true of some of them?

He also points to the synthesis of creators in many endeavors like film or music, and games are no different here either. Yes, most games have a single designer, but basically no published game is the product of a single person’s creative and artistic input.

Art, Koster claims, provides challenging information to absorb. It’s within the constraints of the medium, and games do have certain constraints. But other mediums don’t lack constraints. They’re just different limitations.

He also (he’s quite thorough in covering this topic) questions the juxtaposition of fun vs. art, offering up the idea that “fun” doesn’t look like a single thing to all people. Challenging works of art can be fun for one person to engage with and not to another. It may look different than our prototypical conception of fun, but this makes it no less valid.

Even within gaming genres and games that aren’t aiming at anything higher-minded, it doesn’t take long to realize that fun is different for different people, and what looks like blank concentration to one person is a stimulating – if internal – form of fun to another.

It should be noted that his experience is mostly in video games, but his thoughts extend to all forms of gaming, and he’s purposeful in citing roleplaying and board games in his examples.

Koster’s final musings on the subject reflect on how he believes games have fallen short of their potential in this regard. No, not every game needs to be striving for some higher artistic purpose, but if we accept that such purposes are possible, what are the limits on that possibility? He muses on the levels of immersion capable within the medium, in ways that could alter worldviews and deliver varied and powerful experiences based on collaborative input with the players.

It’s a lovely vision. And even if current games only approach these heights, it’s more than mere theory to him but an actionable set of goals to pursue.

It’s another good book that I’m happy to recommend, and I’m truncating its full arguments, but the point is that there isn’t one justification for games as art but many, and they are justifications that mirror those for other mediums.

Can Games Work as Both Argument and as Plaything?

Holland makes the case at one point that The Landlord’s Game works amazingly as a statement, but less so as a game. In reaction to her video, I’ve seen others with similar takes about the dissonance between these two ends. And I don’t think we have to stretch our imaginations much to understand how these two ends can often be at odds with one another.

I recently released a review on A Gest of Robin Hood, an interesting asymmetrical game that’s both a plaything about the Robin Hood legend, and a thoughtful look at historical depictions of the characters, some of which paint the character in shades of grey that we’re not always used to in our retellings of it.

My review was partially torn, because while I appreciated the introspection into the historical problems in portraying these characters and events, I wasn’t going into it to grapple with contradictory ideas surrounding a folk hero. I was looking to prance around forests and towns, leading the Sheriff of Nottingham’s men on a merry chase.

I don’t think this is the wrong approach, but Gest certainly is welcoming to more nuanced approaches to the narrative it weaves through gameplay.

And so perhaps it’s an example of something that can act as a model. My review of Gest wasn’t entirely glowing, but I do enjoy it, and I also think it’s working on a couple different levels, both as a plaything and with its mechanics as metaphor for nuanced ideas.

Now, might it be true that some sacrifices need to be made for the sake of the play experience, sacrifices that lose some of a game’s metaphoric heft? In many cases, undoubtedly so. A skilled enough designer might be able to avoid the largest of these sacrifices though, and Gest is one example among many I could cite that I think works both as a game and as a polemic or exploration of one or more historical or philosophical concepts.

Hell, the entire genre of historical wargaming is a treatise on this very point, and wargaming depictions have been grappling with the burdens of play-as-metaphor for decades.

I could also name some “statement games” that struggle a bit as games even if they nail the statement portion, of course. Good design is hard.

And so perhaps this approach is designers handicapping themselves in attempting to create something that will resonate with a large audience. But some – including me – would argue it’s more than worth the attempt.

Avoiding Elitism, Snobbery and Gatekeeping

Since this is the internet, we can’t truly have nice things all the time.

A standard bearer designer for the “games as metaphor” movement in modern board gaming is a designer named Cole Wehrle. I’ve never met him, but he seems like a lovely person from interviews and forum posts I’ve seen. His games – some of which I find fun, some of which I don’t – are also often taking serious looks at their subject matter – literal or metaphoric – in ways that I think are exciting for the development of game design as a legitimized artform.

A vocal subset of his fans are notoriously toxic, though, and I unfortunately have to talk about them briefly to make my point.

There’s a weird strain of excitement for some of his games that conflates interest in them with intelligence or sophistication, with the implication (directly stated at times, implied at others) that you lack these qualities if you don’t appreciate his games. Counter-culture memes have sprung up on unserious corners of the internet such as r/boardgamescirclejerk mocking this sort of pretentious behavior since it’s become depressingly common.

This sort of behavior is not the norm, mind you, neither in general nor among Wehrle’s fans, but it’s prevalent to the extent that I’m using it as an example of how not to take these ideas and use them to be a jerk.

If you like his games and this isn’t you (which is the case for most of Wehrle’s fans, let’s be clear), then good. This section isn’t about you, or even really about a specific group of people, but an overarching mentality that permeates various corners of the web, not just in gaming.

So let me unequivocally state that if you’re using a “games are art” position to look down upon anyone who is just having fun and doesn’t like the same stuff as you: get lost. You are helping no one; least of all yourself.

The same is true in reverse, though, if you’re refusing to admit games into the hobby’s circle of trust that are attempting to engage with deeper and more difficult topics. They might not work perfectly in their attempt, but they’re valid artistic expressions and we should acknowledge them as such.

“Board games as toys” and “board games as art” aren’t mutually exclusive. Nor are gamers any more or less cultured who are looking for only one, only the other, or both depending on their mood.

The Spectrum of Meaningful Experiences

Dan Thurot, one of the best writers working today if you want to understand why games are art and are capable of powerful statements, has talked about cataloguing many of his reviews under a “Why Games Matter” tag. This is what inspired this article’s title, in fact, alongside Holland’s excellent video.

Importantly, though, not every game or review he writes is in this category. And therein lies one of my larger points. I’ve similarly thought about a tag for my articles to distinguish between types. But it wouldn’t be applied when I’m talking about a game as a vehicle for fun. It might be my favorite game and tons of fun, but it’s not making a larger statement about anything. It’s just fun.

This is amazing, because it doesn’t limit what games are, and accepts the full breadth of what they are and can be. It also doesn’t limit how people can approach and enjoy them.

My goal – and while I can’t speak for Thurot I feel confident in saying it’s likely one of his as well – is to move past some of the more puerile debates about whether games are fun, art, or whatever, and to start analyzing them as they are. If it’s aiming at metaphor, what is the game saying? Through what mechanisms and themes? And how successful is it in doing this? If it’s not aiming for these things, what fun does it provide, and how?

This is meeting the medium where it’s at, so to speak, rather than trying to superimpose one worldview onto all of it. It recognizes games’ value in providing purposeless fun, recognizes their capacity for artistic expression and the means by which they accomplish this, and can shift between those perspectives as the situation warrants.

We’re already really good at assessing games on how they provide fun (or don’t). We should continue to do this, but there’s less need for the hobby to mature in this regard. The maturity needs to come elsewhere, as Holland’s video amply demonstrates. It needs to mature in embracing and celebrating those games outside this normal mold that can challenge and inspire us in ways we don’t normally associate with gaming, but which I believe we should.

Our appreciation and engagement with games will be richer for it, as well as the engagement with the creators and their ideas that they’re presenting through the medium.