Scan barcode
A review by mburnamfink
Games: Agency as Art by C. Thi Nguyen
5.0
Heavy gaming is my primary hobby. I love intricate strategy games, boardgames with lots of little pieces, and improvised joy of a good RPG session. And while I was never primarily a games studies scholar, much of what I read (click the 'games' tag on this post) didn't land, missing what I found worthwhile in gaming.
Games: Agency As Art is the book which represent maturity of philosophy of games. Nguyen is an avid gamer, and he links gaming to the tradition of philosophy on aesthetics. Games are first and foremost activities of fun, and he identifies the specific form of fun as striving. Winning and the psychology of flow states are an adjunct to the primary pleasure of trying one's best. And certainly, while I enjoy winning, a well-played loss is more fun than a trivial victory. As an aesthetic object, games are inscriptions of agency, specific rules that tell you how to act and what to think about. You don't have to follow the rules, but if you don't you're playing a different game.
Having precisely identified the pleasure of games, and what makes for proper gaming, Nguyen turns his attention to the use of games. Other scholars have gotten caught up in the moral power of games, their ability to make us attuned to injustice in the world, which is a use of games, but saying that is like saying that the point of Cubism is to make us attentive to the horror of aerial bombing. It misses the forest for a single tree. Rather, the limited and narrow universe of the game serves as training ground for a specific type of agency, a set of values and skills, which we practice by playing. In real life, being able to shuffle among agencies is a useful skill: to decide whether to approach a problem as one of logistic optimization, geometric organization, or personal diplomacy. Rather than reducing the world down to a single limited set of ends, games help us pick appropriate ends.
My only caveat is that this is a work of analytical philosophy. Nguyen is in fact quite clear and readable for a philosopher, but that is faint praise, and getting through this book requires a level of comfort with arcane distinctions.
Games: Agency As Art is the book which represent maturity of philosophy of games. Nguyen is an avid gamer, and he links gaming to the tradition of philosophy on aesthetics. Games are first and foremost activities of fun, and he identifies the specific form of fun as striving. Winning and the psychology of flow states are an adjunct to the primary pleasure of trying one's best. And certainly, while I enjoy winning, a well-played loss is more fun than a trivial victory. As an aesthetic object, games are inscriptions of agency, specific rules that tell you how to act and what to think about. You don't have to follow the rules, but if you don't you're playing a different game.
Having precisely identified the pleasure of games, and what makes for proper gaming, Nguyen turns his attention to the use of games. Other scholars have gotten caught up in the moral power of games, their ability to make us attuned to injustice in the world, which is a use of games, but saying that is like saying that the point of Cubism is to make us attentive to the horror of aerial bombing. It misses the forest for a single tree. Rather, the limited and narrow universe of the game serves as training ground for a specific type of agency, a set of values and skills, which we practice by playing. In real life, being able to shuffle among agencies is a useful skill: to decide whether to approach a problem as one of logistic optimization, geometric organization, or personal diplomacy. Rather than reducing the world down to a single limited set of ends, games help us pick appropriate ends.
My only caveat is that this is a work of analytical philosophy. Nguyen is in fact quite clear and readable for a philosopher, but that is faint praise, and getting through this book requires a level of comfort with arcane distinctions.