[Release Date: January 18, 2022] One way to think about games is as experiences tailored to give us agency – to provide us with clear values and motivations and then force us to overcome obstacles in pursuit of those values and motivations. Engaging our agency in a variety of ways, games can make us more free, but in a way that also poses interesting new dangers for us.
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
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Shlomo Sher: we’re here with CT new and he used to be a food writer, and now is a philosophy professor at the University of utah writes about trust our games and communities.
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Shlomo Sher: he’s interested in the ways our social structures and technology shaped how we think what we value and today we’re going to talk about his book 2020 games agencies are essentially his ideas about gaming and freedom.
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Shlomo Sher: T welcome to the show.
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Thi Nguyen: hi thanks for having me.
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Shlomo Sher: Yes, all right.
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Shlomo Sher: alrighty so in your new game a game as agencies aren’t right you argued that games can make us more free and what do you mean by that right, how can gave us me how can games make us more free specifically what kind of freedom are you talking about.
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Thi Nguyen: This is.
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Thi Nguyen: Your web the deep end it takes me four chapters to get there man.
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Shlomo Sher: Take if you if you want to take us on the road.
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Shlomo Sher: To to freedom yeah road.
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Thi Nguyen: The road you can interrupt me at any point but it takes a while to get there, because the theory is we’re okay.
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Shlomo Sher: What does the journey.
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Thi Nguyen: So.
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Thi Nguyen: The book project starts a while back when I was trying to teach philosophy of art and wanted to do a case study and weather like games or art whether video games or art they read all the stuff I remember reading all these books that were like.
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Thi Nguyen: Video games aren’t because they’re kind of movie or because they’re kind of fiction, or because they advance kind of argument.
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Thi Nguyen: And they were all trying to talk about how video games were important because they were comparable to some traditional art form.
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Thi Nguyen: There is there a lot of these books and what they talked about representation and meaning and the things they didn’t talk about or choice difficulty skill, like a lot of the things that seemed really distinctive two games.
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Thi Nguyen: Right and and a lot of the way that the academic talk happened came, apart from the way that game designers game reviewers game critics game fans talked, and so I was trying to capture a lot of that.
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Thi Nguyen: And one of the really distinctive things that people keep talking about is there are two things one is the way that games are.
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Thi Nguyen: The Games make interesting choices or interesting decisions that they make action seem interesting like I think about this a lot, because I play a lot of computer games and board games, but also.
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Thi Nguyen: I am a rock climber, which I also think is a game and the thing that’s interesting about rock climbing is it’s not like the claim itself is.
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Thi Nguyen: because sometimes the rock the claim is is beautiful but sometimes it’s just an ugly piece of shit like the thing that’s interesting when climbers get excited about a climb the climb makes themselves feel beautiful right like that you’re graceful your elegant like.
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Thi Nguyen: You get to move with precision, or like when I play chess what’s interesting is like when my mind does something cool right right um So this was trying to capture so.
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Thi Nguyen: One basic idea.
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Thi Nguyen: Is green, what does a game designer doing when they make a game right, what do they manipulate right one question that I often want to ask is what.
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Thi Nguyen: what’s the medium of the art and, if you look at the other stuff they Oh, they want to say something like Oh, the medium is stories or the like their digital stories the medium is visuals and graphics and sound.
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Thi Nguyen: And so, one thing that really helped me, was murdered suitors book for grasshopper you know this book.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah yeah.
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This is.
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Thi Nguyen: me, you should read this book, this is like the most fun book it’s also probably the best book on the philosophy of game just kind of a cult classic it came out in the 70s, so he kind of got lost hmm it’s.
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Thi Nguyen: And here’s his theory that the simple version he gives the definition of games in a simple version and a complicated version.
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Thi Nguyen: The simple version is that to play a game is to voluntarily take on unnecessary obstacles to make possible the activity of struggling to overcome them.
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Thi Nguyen: Right voluntarily taking on unnecessary obstacles, I think this is amazing, and he made in the more complicated version what he makes clear is the goal that you’re aiming at in a game.
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Thi Nguyen: So i’ll give you the technical language is partially constituted by the constraints, so, in other words what you’re trying to do it doesn’t count is doing it.
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Thi Nguyen: Unless you did it inside specify constraints, so, for example, if you’re running a marathon you’re not just trying to get to the finish line right you.
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Thi Nguyen: You know you’re trying to get to that point in space because, because there are a lot of ways to get there really efficiently, you could get there.
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Thi Nguyen: With an uber.
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Thi Nguyen: Word steal someone’s bike CRATE.
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Thi Nguyen: But it doesn’t.
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Thi Nguyen: Count right, you have to follow a particular route and do it on your feet similarly like the.
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Thi Nguyen: best ones and all.
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A Ashcraft: I can, I can run 26 miles, you have to give me 26 days.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah.
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Thi Nguyen: i’m like basketball the basketball is not just to get the ball through the hoop because you could do that with a step ladder.
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Thi Nguyen: For yourself right it’s do it from the ground facing obstacles so here’s one way to put it like what it is to make a basket is not just to get the ball to the hoop, but to do it, obeying various rules right, what is the cross the finish line.
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Thi Nguyen: So off.
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Thi Nguyen: Sorry guys.
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Shlomo Sher: So, so this makes really so all these.
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Shlomo Sher: Others focus on games as being about representation right things like that kind of misses the point that games, then, are really about the choice to take on these obstacles.
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Thi Nguyen: yeah I mean so here’s the first first one way to put it, what your if you look at see what’s one way to put it is.
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Thi Nguyen: That games are designed obstacles and, in some ways that’s such a more natural way to talk about games, for me, than talking like the fiction stuff I mean games are definitely often fictions but often they’re not.
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Thi Nguyen: In one of the interesting things you see in the game scholarship research is that the degree to which game players engage with the functionality is actually really variable.
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Thi Nguyen: So um yes visual you’re really great game scholar talks about like I found he makes a great point that there’s.
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Thi Nguyen: A lot of research that shows that, like, if you look at like professional level starcraft two players they’re doing something totally different mentally like there there’s actually like.
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Thi Nguyen: psych studies so players who play starcraft two for the first time are really engaged with the fiction they’re imagining things they’re like i’m actually rather measuring the characters.
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Thi Nguyen: profession professional players aren’t doing this at all like they’re ignoring the victims they’re just like playing with the mechanics like trying to figure out optimum pathways.
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Thi Nguyen: And if you buy a lot of the fictional theories, then games or their peak like the professional players are missing the whole point and that seems really weird to me.
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Thi Nguyen: So, so the first pass of this is that I mean, where do I put suits puts it is when we’re.
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Thi Nguyen: When we’re playing games we’re not taking the most efficient pathway, which means that the place the goal we’re trying to get to in the game is actually the point on its own right to particular sculpted pathway where that pathway has been sculpted partially through constraints.
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Thi Nguyen: So that’s the first step, like that’s that’s part of what they’re working with constraints and then I read so Reiner committee is one of the great game designers and my boss he’s like he’s.
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Thi Nguyen: The Mozart of German board games he’s amazing and he has this lecture where he says something like.
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Shlomo Sher: Andy improves and I do.
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A Ashcraft: I do have.
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Thi Nguyen: Any proof and he’s dialing, for you know what I mean like if you played.
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A Ashcraft: Video games video.
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Thi Nguyen: games they’re like they’re so elegant there so well design they get so much interesting emergent stuff out of a few rules and.
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A Ashcraft: Not a big wrestle yeah absolutely.
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Thi Nguyen: um so he said, the most important.
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Thi Nguyen: The most important tool in my game designer toolkit is the point structure, because the point structure tells the players what to care about mm hmm, and this is like this hit me like as like a bolt right because hey it’s obviously true right you.
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Thi Nguyen: The rulebook tells you what like.
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Thi Nguyen: Or the gate like they tell you whether you’re trying to kill each other or help each other they’re telling you whether you’re cooperating or competing or cooperating with these people against those people they tell you whether you’re collecting like.
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Thi Nguyen: Animals are trying to kill orcs are like everything you need to know about what you’re doing is set by the system, and if you’re a philosopher who works like me in like.
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Thi Nguyen: What our rationality is and what our motivation is and what our agency is right, then you’re like holy crap that’s right and really interesting a game designer just tell you what to care about.
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Thi Nguyen: And then you when you play a game you just acquire it right, I mean literally i’ll sit down with my friends on.
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Thi Nguyen: A table will open up the game and then we’ll find out whether we’re trying to call I mean.
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Thi Nguyen: Right now, there are a lot of interesting cooperative games, we find out whether we’re cooperating or whether we’re trying to kill each other, and then we just want that, for a period of time, and then we step away from it right that.
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A Ashcraft: That that goes back to the magic circle you step into the magic circle you accept these things is true, and then you step out when you’re done right.
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Thi Nguyen: i’ve complicated view about the magic circle which we talked about it a little bit I, this is, this is a specific.
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Thi Nguyen: I think like when people talk about oh there’s this magic circle and then everything on the inside, like doesn’t matter if it’s like.
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Thi Nguyen: That on the outside that can’t be right, but here’s something specific that happens that I think is what a lot of the stuff is getting at you temporarily take on.
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Thi Nguyen: a goal that you don’t actually care about, and this is this is, for me, like this is actually the the central idea of my book that for a lot of us, not all of us.
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Thi Nguyen: When we enter into a game, we take on a goal that we don’t actually collectively care about.
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Thi Nguyen: So let me give it a section, so I think that what suits makes available is that there are two kinds of motivation in play on a call them achieve at play and striving play.
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Thi Nguyen: So achievement play is playing because you care about winning and striving play is temporarily taking on an interest in winning for the sake of the struggle.
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Thi Nguyen: The thing about striving plays you want something else besides winning you want is fun or relaxation right, but you can’t get that without investing yourself in the win so during the game, you have to care about winning.
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Thi Nguyen: But outside of the game you don’t actually care about winning right and we can tell, I mean.
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Thi Nguyen: I think they’re both going to players, but there are a lot of situations where I think what we’re doing is trying to play like if I introduce the game of charades for fun at a party and i’m like this is gonna be fun and then I lose i’m not like God damn it.
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Thi Nguyen: Why is it evening right.
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Thi Nguyen: Well, I think if we all had fun.
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Thi Nguyen: Great only way to have fun and to try hard to win.
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A Ashcraft: So there, and you see, and you see in within gaming groups, if you have a mismatch of these things you have friction in the group and that group won’t won’t work very well.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah.
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Thi Nguyen: yeah this is, though, I think it actually depends on game design, so one of the really interesting things is, I think a lot of.
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Thi Nguyen: The kind of American hobbyist games I played often dependent on a similarity of outlook like if if everyone was trying really hard to win.
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Thi Nguyen: Then it work well, but if someone was kind of being like goofy or aimless it wouldn’t work and a lot of other game designs i’ve seen have managed to like figure this out and make it.
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Thi Nguyen: possible for some of the players to be differentially motivated and still have a good time together, which I think is super interesting yeah.
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Thi Nguyen: So here here’s and.
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A Ashcraft: really hard to do by the way.
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Thi Nguyen: really hard to do there’s we’re going to talk about this later, but there’s a lot of interesting discussion in the role playing world, especially in building systems that can get people with different gaming motivations to play well together, but that takes a lot of work.
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Thi Nguyen: So, so the so here here’s an argument that’s driving play is real so, by the way, I think it’s really obvious to the trio and.
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Thi Nguyen: A lot of people I talked to also do, but a lot of people I talked to her like this is nuts, this makes no sense you’re just like inventing some bizarre motivational state so here’s an argument.
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Thi Nguyen: One argument, let me give you two records one argument.
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Thi Nguyen: Sometimes I try to win during the game, but I don’t actually.
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Thi Nguyen: Do the kinds of things that would help me win in the long term, so they mean is so a lot of times my wife and I find a board game that we are both really into and that we’re balanced out there were about equal.
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Thi Nguyen: And then at night i’ll find a strategy guide ah, I know right, I read the show you gotta win, but also the Games will turn boring.
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Shlomo Sher: Right.
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Thi Nguyen: So, because I know my wife will never read the stretchy guide I avoid it too mm hmm.
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Thi Nguyen: right if right so for them achieve it, if a cheaper place the only rational mode of play, what i’ve done is totally irrational.
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Thi Nguyen: Right, the only reason to play for achievement player is to win, but if you think that winning is just the desire to win is just a temporary thing I take on.
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Thi Nguyen: To have the fun of the struggle that makes total sense for you to be like, no, no right don’t don’t increase your skill keep your skill at the right level to have these juicy tasty struggles, so I think in that state, I have to be Australia.
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Thi Nguyen: So here’s here’s another.
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A Ashcraft: And that takes place outside of this magic circle which is right, which is your point about the magic circle not it’s the magic circle is pretty porous right right yeah.
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Thi Nguyen: yeah so I mean so okay here’s one more argument for striving play i’m consider the category of Stupid games a stupid game is a game try this category I made up i’m really proud of this, this is my proudest baking.
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Thi Nguyen: A cake.
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Thi Nguyen: A stupid game is a game where the fun part is failing, but you have to try to win to have fun like.
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Twitter.
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Thi Nguyen: or games.
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Shlomo Sher: Right all right so.
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Thi Nguyen: You can’t actually twister you can’t intend to fall.
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Thi Nguyen: that’s not funny right it’s only funny if you’re trying not to fall so here’s the weird thing what twister you want the hilarity of falling, but only hilarious if you actually get yourself to genuinely want an aim at succeeding, to the failures real and it’s fine right right right.
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A Ashcraft: Right, so that that’s a difficulty challenge for the game designer to make the game more difficult.
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A Ashcraft: than it ought to be so that players will have more fun failing.
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Thi Nguyen: I mean it’s not even I think this little thing isn’t a difficulty for the game designer because I think we all can just do this, this is a capacity that almost all of us have we can just.
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Thi Nguyen: The game designer often can just rely on the fact that we can pick up a game and be like okay well The funny parts can be failing but i’m just gonna try like we can.
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Thi Nguyen: Week, most of us have just learned to do this right, so I think this really teaches us something about us but that’s not what you care about it yeah okay.
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A Ashcraft: No, no it’s fascinating I actually do care a lot about that so right.
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Shlomo Sher: As a as a game designer and he’s like yeah yeah that’s The challenge is still making it the situation, so they fail and so that the the task for failure is the right kind of difficulty.
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A Ashcraft: Right and.
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Shlomo Sher: it’s an interesting failure, etc, etc i’m.
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A Ashcraft: Creating a game that communicates that to the player, so they know that when they’re getting into it, they have to go into it with that mindset.
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Thi Nguyen: Right, yes, so I mean I think all that all of those things are challenges for the game designer getting the difficulty right to make it funny.
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Shlomo Sher: Right.
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Thi Nguyen: Make making it so people are so invested that they get angry at losing that’s all the challenge, but the fact that we can just take on.
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Thi Nguyen: interested in winning that’s what most people who’ve learned to play games can just do, and they can it’s like a background fact that game designers rely on mm hmm okay so so you put this all together so here’s here’s a general idea.
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Thi Nguyen: What is a game designer actually doing.
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Thi Nguyen: they’re not just designing a story or a world or graphics they’re telling us what our abilities are what our challenges are and what we want.
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Thi Nguyen: right there specifying so the way I want to put it is there, specifying the world we’re against but they’re also specifying the kind of agent, we are they’re telling us what our agency is.
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Thi Nguyen: at its core during the game right, and then we can just open the rules and just interact, like most of us have the ability to just take on that agency so.
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Thi Nguyen: To engage with the interesting question I think when the game designer the game designers tools, the background for the game designers the fact that most of us can just take on an agency.
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Thi Nguyen: Though that though some agencies are hard to take on what the game designers challenges is manipulating.
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Thi Nguyen: The design agency and the world it faces to make challenges that are interesting tasty font whatever right all that stuff so basic theories partner, the medium of a game designer is agency itself.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, so let’s let’s pause.
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Shlomo Sher: Yes, right obviously agency has a bunch of things built into it here right right so when you say right as a player you essentially step into an agency right what exactly you’re stepping into are you stepping into a complex of motivation desires goals.
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Shlomo Sher: Is that essentially is that it’s like essentially what you mean that you’re a singer is adopting that particular normally we talked about agents and we talked about your ability to do what you want yeah right, but to do what you want to do, you need to have things that you want to do.
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Shlomo Sher: Right.
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Thi Nguyen: Right so so in some sense so i’m using agency in.
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Thi Nguyen: An area realize maybe a slightly tactical way, so what an agent is, in my mind is.
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Thi Nguyen: Some set of abilities and goals are values that generate reasons for action, so this is like so this so this means like two people, this is why people would talk about.
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Thi Nguyen: i’m sending my lawyer, as my agent where they talk about corporate agents so.
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Thi Nguyen: If the irs is supposed to be an agent or search engine are supposed to be agents right, and what that means is they have a goal, and they have methods and they try to reach that goal of using.
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Thi Nguyen: Right using those methods so that’s what I mean by an agency to answering your question to really interesting question so it’s not like the games that are specifying a full self because a game.
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Thi Nguyen: A game player is going to bring in a lot of bringing their style the personality their interests, their abilities, but the game designers designing like what I want to call it like an a general skeleton they’re telling you your core basic motivation.
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Thi Nguyen: And they’re telling their specifying the abilities that you’re allowed to use the game.
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Shlomo Sher: let’s let’s before we move on, can we can we apply this let’s say the three very different genre video games right to see how this would work.
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Shlomo Sher: You know.
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Shlomo Sher: i’m thinking something like well, maybe i’m gonna let you pick the the examples that you think best fit with what you have in mind.
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Thi Nguyen: Okay, so here so here are some so Here are some examples, so the computer game civilization which i’m never allowed to touch again because it’s addictive.
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Thi Nguyen: Though yeah.
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Thi Nguyen: that’s a that’s.
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Shlomo Sher: You know, he I have, I have a whole history of civilization it’s my favorite game ever I have i’ve bought it and and throwing it away.
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Shlomo Sher: Many times throughout my life.
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Thi Nguyen: Well, I knew in my childhood was rummaging through the garbage dumpster in my back of my apartment to find the CD Rom.
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Thi Nguyen: That I took away in a fit of frustration that I had a problem.
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Thi Nguyen: Okay civilization civilization specifies a set of goals like there’s a number of goals like space victory right like I mean it changes, a little bit, but like you know.
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Thi Nguyen: Take like convert everyone to your culture, so there are a set of goals that you’re aiming at and then it’s like a really large set of abilities and the abilities here, are you know.
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Thi Nguyen: Basically colonize stuff crow stuff event tech trees, so you use those abilities and those goals they face the obstacles of the game which in this case, our bare survival and then the other civilizations Tracy there’s one ability.
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Thi Nguyen: here’s another one.
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A Ashcraft: So, so you also listed values so.
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A Ashcraft: So the goals, goals and values are they separate or.
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Thi Nguyen: So in this, so in this case, what counts is your values in the game are specified goals Okay, although I think you can bring in other ones, and this is something that’s really interesting like so when I.
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Thi Nguyen: Like.
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Thi Nguyen: I think it’s interesting that in many games, a lot of us want to play in a cool way.
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Thi Nguyen: Right and that’s that’s something that we often bring and there, there are.
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Thi Nguyen: I mean.
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Thi Nguyen: Let me give you some video game examples and then i’ll so so I mean actually look.
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Thi Nguyen: So in rock climbing the goal is to get to the top and the abilities you’re allowed to use or your hands and your feet on rock and that’s it you’re not allowed to use gear or anything else to advance up the rock the gear assess for safety.
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Thi Nguyen: So there’s a specified goal, which is.
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Thi Nguyen: getting off the rock especially abilities and then I think some of us also important other values so some people will just get up the rock by any means necessary other people are like no, I want to climb in a pretty way like it.
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Thi Nguyen: Or, I want to do into it, for me, it’s often like I would rather take the cool clever solution that makes it less powerful than to just do the raw power solution right so.
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Thi Nguyen: But that that’s a little bit of style I import into the basic general framework of the game that we all take on which is let’s get to the top of the Rock using our hands and feet and that sets most of the parameters and then I get to import a little sort of style.
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Thi Nguyen: see what other examples.
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Thi Nguyen: So it’s super Mario brothers, the goal me it kind of funky because there are you can you could give in some some there are a few different goals on offer.
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Thi Nguyen: One goal is just to get to the end of the game another goal is to get as many points as possible.
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Thi Nguyen: Right so some people, I think, just take on the goal get to the end of the game other people taken on the goal, so there, there are a few different.
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Thi Nguyen: games, you can play with the same thing, but there’s basically specify agency, most of us when we played it kind of took on the two goals, together, we tried to get through the game or getting as many points as possible.
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Thi Nguyen: And then the game, and I think this is super Mario is very example because the game gives you.
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Thi Nguyen: abilities running jumping and then it gives you a world full of things to run past and jump over and there it is, and I think it’s interesting, you can see right there the kind of.
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Thi Nguyen: So in the book I call it like practical harmony, the game is giving you this experience, where your ability to fit the world, and I think one of the nice things about games, one of the pleasures of them and and one of the seductive dangerous is that.
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Thi Nguyen: In games we fit like your normal life, a lot of the times the things we need to do, are either too so boring in beneath our abilities, but if you do them in every way like folding the laundry or grading or vast and overwhelming, but in games.
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Thi Nguyen: hey the ordinance is sorry, for instance, a technical term the abilities are given running and jumping are just enough to beat the challenges.
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Thi Nguyen: And depending on your skill level, you can scale, the difficulty by adjusting the difficult setting picking the game or picking the opponent until the challenge is just right so games give you are the sculpted experiences of.
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Thi Nguyen: pleasurable or wonderful or satisfying interesting action that have been sculpted by the game designer sculpting an agency in the sculpting a world.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay.
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Shlomo Sher: Great right and he did you you look like you wanted to say something to this.
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A Ashcraft: yeah just that it it it tie it connects very neatly and with with the idea of flow right where.
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A Ashcraft: flow is that you get in that flow state when you are in that space where your skill level and the difficulty level of the thing you’re doing is just right, and you can get in that flow state and our brains really love that flow state.
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A Ashcraft: Where our brains love to get in that flow state and stay there for as long as they can.
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Thi Nguyen: By the way, any did you say that you’re a game designer.
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A Ashcraft: I am yeah well I i’ve.
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A Ashcraft: Designed board games and card games and.
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A Ashcraft: Video games and most of my money in the last 20 years or so, has come from mobile games or 15 years, I guess, but before that I worked for Sony playstation and sega and right now and I teach game design at New York film academy where Shlomo teaches ethics and game design.
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Thi Nguyen: Also it’d, be it might be interesting to you i’m a university of utah i’m sure you know, has a big game design program and i’m teaching i’m co teaching in it with a game design Professor right now.
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Thi Nguyen: Oh there’s ago.
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Thi Nguyen: And I mean.
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Shlomo Sher: You know our episode with those days that right now.
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A Ashcraft: Right we’ve had.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah.
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Shlomo Sher: Is there a current episode yeah.
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Thi Nguyen: Our game design classes actually like so he just gave ethics class with our classes about aesthetics and play a lot of it is about giving like aesthetic theories and then like goofy indie games to.
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Thi Nguyen: To our students and like challenging them to like one of our first assignments was design a game that conveys the exhaustion of us being a student during cove it and.
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Thi Nguyen: So I think one of the things i’m hoping, this will find sound familiar to you because one of the places this theory came from.
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Thi Nguyen: was reading a lot of academic work that didn’t seem to match it all and finding in game designer Dev blogs.
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Thi Nguyen: game like forums like I spent a lot of time on board game key like a lot of discussion by people that really seemed to track what I cared about.
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Thi Nguyen: And so, this is this book is in some sense me trying to give a theory like an aesthetic theory as a philosophy of art that matches what how the game designers talk and how like the critics on board games each talk.
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A Ashcraft: Right, as opposed to the official critics that we that we read in the in the newspapers or magazines.
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Thi Nguyen: And they don’t necessarily talk the same way, I think, actually the official critics do often talk this way, and then, but the thing that in the background, one of the one of the things this comes from is.
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Thi Nguyen: I keep seeing a tendency, both among critics and game designers of.
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Thi Nguyen: I don’t know being anxious about whether games are art and then try to make them more like art by making them more like movies, which often involves fixed scripts.
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Thi Nguyen: spending a lot more time and and people who say like oh this game is really this is really an art game and they point to the graphics and the sound.
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Thi Nguyen: Where i’m like no if you want to be excited about this stuff you should look at like these, like incredible mechanical innovations coming out of people like lydia in the indie rpg world and, like.
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Thi Nguyen: The thing that I can now say, is what the innovations is is the innovations and agency design they’re like new interesting fascinating way as a game designers are playing with the medium of agency to get us new kinds of activity and that’s the stuff that i’m really excited by.
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A Ashcraft: we’re giving players agency over things that they weren’t you they didn’t use to have agency over like.
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A Ashcraft: You you’ve been paying attention that rpg world so so you know our role playing games tabletop role playing games like dungeons and dragons or whatever, but.
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A Ashcraft: ones that give players agency on over how the story goes there where they can take they can take they can take control of the narrative from the GM for a period, or maybe there’s no GM at all and everybody just just sharing that and they’re fascinating.
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Thi Nguyen: This is.
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Thi Nguyen: All the stuff on fire, right now, like this yeah the world of this stuff is the so, for example, the thing that apparently blew my students mind the most was a we had them play the quiet year.
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Thi Nguyen: Which is amazing tabletop role playing game where you and two or three other people are kind of like the gods overseeing a village.
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Thi Nguyen: For a year of the Apocalypse and it’s a collective mapmaking game where you create the challenges the face the villagers and help them move past it.
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Thi Nguyen: By drawing on a map together and like it’s like sad and weird and evocative, and this is exactly right, so my favorite example of this is.
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Thi Nguyen: You know the the rpg blade to the dark.
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A Ashcraft: i’ve heard of it, I haven’t I haven’t looked at it yet.
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Thi Nguyen: So here’s here’s this incredible mechanical innovation in agency design, so the game is it’s a fantasy world you’re all.
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Thi Nguyen: you’re all but it’s full of wizards and powerful army us in general you’re not then you’re the cons and thieves trying to steal from them.
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Thi Nguyen: And the way the game works is so you will decide oh i’m going to break into this wizards vault and steal his fucking potion or whatever right um and the game.
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Thi Nguyen: The players skip immediately from decided to do that to breaking in they skip over like a month of time, the characters.
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Thi Nguyen: have planned, but the players haven’t okay so, then the player start with stamina points, and as you face challenges you spend your stamina points to have ocean’s 11 style flashbacks where you play out what you did in the past to prepare for this very moment yeah.
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A Ashcraft: I feel like.
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Thi Nguyen: Someone can throw you off a building and and it like does this power differential so stuff like some.
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Thi Nguyen: wizard fireballs you have a building your week, but you can have a flashback to when you pay the street urchins to put down a net great.
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Thi Nguyen: Until like that’s a totally new way of interacting with the narrative right that’s a rule set to create a new relationship to time and stories that i’ve never seen before it’s amazing.
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Shlomo Sher: All right, i’m gonna.
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Shlomo Sher: i’m gonna move you back from the statics to.
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Shlomo Sher: Ethics Okay, because it’s hard, because I want to chat about this stuff.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah today to next to.
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Shlomo Sher: That yeah sure I mean you know some of the stuff.
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Shlomo Sher: stuff we could talk about you know simply about you know advancing the art form, etc.
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Shlomo Sher: And you know when you talk about bringing your aesthetic values right also to.
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Shlomo Sher: To again, you know that part is going to affect your agency and that’s really, really cool but let’s let’s talk about so we’re going back to.
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Shlomo Sher: back to the idea that games essentially are a place that place you in a position of agency right and place you in the context of agency and also if done well right make that agency, really, really fit well right.
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Thi Nguyen: I just want.
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Thi Nguyen: One little thing yeah i’m not saying that game is necessarily work by giving you more agency.
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Thi Nguyen: Often they’re interesting because they give you less agency, so I think here of games like hold them poker and a lot of committee are designed, which are delicious just because you get like there are a lot of poker like a city has where you just get like.
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Thi Nguyen: This one ability, there are only two things you can do, or I think about the game portal, which is amazing, because you only have like this one.
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Thi Nguyen: You can’t do all the other stuff you have other videos you have to do everything with this one ability and that narrowness of agency is often really wonderful anyway, but yeah ethics freedom.
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Shlomo Sher: i’m just trying to stay on brand here.
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Okay.
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Thi Nguyen: stay the course stay on mission.
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No matter.
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Shlomo Sher: Though it’s it’s interesting because.
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Shlomo Sher: we’ve got everything focused on understanding games as agency and i’m trying to figure out how that extends.
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Shlomo Sher: either to the way that either to the ethics of how games treat us right it’s so maybe we should start there can kind of start with the you know.
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Shlomo Sher: it’s not often in our lives that were put into a position where our agency is respected right.
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Shlomo Sher: Right, you know we’re thrown into this world we’re Very often we have so little control over the kind of things that we do.
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Shlomo Sher: Our games, giving us in some sense more agency than than the rest of the world in a way that is more respectful of US or.
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Shlomo Sher: You know not notice i’m throwing the question at you, that is, that is loaded and i’m hoping for you to pick it up as loaded.
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Thi Nguyen: I think it’s interesting this idea of being more respectful I really want to see what you mean because that’s not.
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Thi Nguyen: An idea i’ve had the way I put it is, I mean part of the deliciousness of games is you get.
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Thi Nguyen: A kind of usually delightful agency, where you have the ability to do what you want, of course, they’re really interesting like RD games that give you the experience of terror suffocation like as i’m sure, a lot of people know about papers, please games like this.
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Thi Nguyen: Lots of role playing games like a play where.
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Thi Nguyen: they’re trying to express and let you have an experience of what it’s like to be someone with no agency and then using game design tools to.
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Thi Nguyen: To give you this, too, but one thing one of the I think the reasons, a lot of us do play.
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Thi Nguyen: A lot of games is precisely because I don’t know in our life we have insufficient agency and here’s a world where we get to do exactly.
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Thi Nguyen: Worrying to actually act and succeed because the world has been designed and it’s not just that it’s that it, I mean I think one of the interesting things is that in normal life, our goals are so fuzzy and unclear um and.
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Thi Nguyen: plural in games, give us this like blessing value clarity we kind of take their existential bomb where you know exactly where you are you’re doing you know exactly how well you’ve done you get ranked right, you know.
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A Ashcraft: And this, I think that’s super important to you and we haven’t talked about that, which is the feedback that you get from games tells you how well you’re doing right.
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A Ashcraft: Even when you’re rock climbing.
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A Ashcraft: Your height is basically your your achievement meter right right you’re you’re headed you’re halfway up the hill you’re halfway up the rock so you get with games you get this a good game, I should say you get this feedback poor games don’t do it very well and and some.
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Shlomo Sher: read this this this idea, you know i’ve always thought about it, as you know, the you know they make your life feel like it’s meaningful right and.
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Shlomo Sher: And I thought this a lot about civilization, you know, in particular because it was a game that over and over when my life was confusing and when.
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Shlomo Sher: It just seems so hard, I can play a game like civilization, I had very clear cut goals and all my actions made sense and but but at an end, of course.
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Shlomo Sher: You know, essentially with a game like papers, please for so far audience papers, please super super interesting game where essentially you play a border control official and.
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Shlomo Sher: it’s interesting because your agency, there is actually very, very limited, you can there’s people that try and you’re like in Eastern Europe kind of country in the in the 80s let’s say early 80s.
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Shlomo Sher: And you need to let people in to your country or not let people to your country and it’s an architecture in authoritarian country and your family is desperate for.
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Shlomo Sher: You know, for the things that you can bring in your choices to stamp a passport is yes or no, for the most part, right and the people who are coming to you have even less agency than you do.
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Shlomo Sher: And yet, through putting you in this experience of having this very restricted agency and it’s interesting we’re in the cases of paper, please.
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Shlomo Sher: You know I don’t feel like I feel like my life has is tragic right to five play papers plays right not really meaningful it’s more like a real learning experience for me and that seems like a very different kind of.
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Shlomo Sher: In terms of what i’m getting right.
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Shlomo Sher: From the game, from then then for the game right.
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Thi Nguyen: yeah you’re.
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A Ashcraft: You feel like your life is meaningful in the game, but you feel like the game itself is very meaningful.
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Shlomo Sher: Well, I was like.
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A Ashcraft: A strange dichotomy to.
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Shlomo Sher: With with a game like papers, please, I definitely don’t feel like my life is meaningful in the game because it’s just it’s it’s so restricted.
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Shlomo Sher: And you know it really is the kind of experience, and I think everybody should play peppers please I i’m an immigrant you know I think of you know I think of immigration right.
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Shlomo Sher: very, very much so right, and I think it’s a it’s one of those situations where a lot of you’re forced learning I think about you know games that really restrict your your freedom like this war of mine, you know, is going to be another one that try to make.
437
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Shlomo Sher: You know, try to an even let’s say that the last scene of the last of us right.
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Shlomo Sher: For those of you played the last of us right they take away your agency in the last scene, so the way the game ends it ends with a cut scene.
439
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Shlomo Sher: Where you’re being asked the question and you can’t answer it the cut scene answers for you and it answers with a lie right.
440
00:53:10.800 –> 00:53:25.770
Shlomo Sher: And in all these kind of situations, it seems that they take away your agency and they use it to create a sort of experience for you, that is supposed to be a meaningful kind of experience, even though the meaning doesn’t come from your ability to actually you know.
441
00:53:26.850 –> 00:53:28.590
Shlomo Sher: Do the things that you wanted to do.
442
00:53:30.120 –> 00:53:33.900
Thi Nguyen: I mean, but before I do the Africa, I just want to say I.
443
00:53:35.580 –> 00:53:42.570
Thi Nguyen: I think there are a lot of accounts of this is one last bit of aesthetics think there are a lot of accounts of the art that trying to find for a given.
444
00:53:43.230 –> 00:53:52.350
Thi Nguyen: art form its value, and I think you can’t do that, that the art form can be used for all kinds of purposes, the thing i’m the thing i’m trying to say is not that.
445
00:53:53.100 –> 00:54:02.160
Thi Nguyen: The point of games, is to give you a feeling of more agency they’re trying to say is what the game designers doing is manipulating agency for all kinds of different effects.
446
00:54:02.250 –> 00:54:11.850
Thi Nguyen: yeah sometimes those effects come from giving you more entity, sometimes those come from removing it to give you a different kind of experience and that the medium has all kinds of potential, but that’s what the medium is.
447
00:54:12.510 –> 00:54:16.560
Thi Nguyen: Right, so the stuff up freedom is super interesting, so let me, let me.
448
00:54:18.540 –> 00:54:20.040
Thi Nguyen: Okay, so.
449
00:54:22.080 –> 00:54:24.480
Thi Nguyen: here’s a bunch of things to say first.
450
00:54:27.570 –> 00:54:29.790
Thi Nguyen: Let me start at the back of the move to the front so.
451
00:54:31.770 –> 00:54:43.830
Thi Nguyen: One of my worries about games, so a lot of people, we know are worried that video games and gender violence, and all this, I think there’s a lot of evidence that for the most part, for people with a healthy understanding what fantasy is they don’t.
452
00:54:44.850 –> 00:54:55.020
Thi Nguyen: The thing that i’m actually worried about is that exposure to games might get you used to this value clarity and get started make you expect.
453
00:54:57.090 –> 00:55:08.100
Thi Nguyen: Clear quantified simple values outside in life and be drawn institutions and practices that give you clear quantified externalize expressions of value.
454
00:55:08.700 –> 00:55:14.790
Thi Nguyen: So the slogan from the end of the book is i’m not worried that games are going to make serial killers i’m worried they’re going to make Wall Street bankers.
455
00:55:16.500 –> 00:55:27.300
Thi Nguyen: And this, by the way, is an empirical claims i’m trying to get people to test but it’s really funny that people haven’t tested this, so let me back up a bit one.
456
00:55:28.680 –> 00:55:39.120
Thi Nguyen: I think games have an incredible promise in a credible danger that both come from the way they use the digital media so here’s the promise, and I can now finally answer your opening question about can.
457
00:55:39.810 –> 00:55:40.260
Shlomo Sher: We get.
458
00:55:40.530 –> 00:55:46.800
Thi Nguyen: Here we are, I mean it takes one this is chapter for literally like 120 pages of the book to get to this point so i’m.
459
00:55:49.050 –> 00:55:49.590
Thi Nguyen: So.
460
00:55:51.120 –> 00:55:58.290
Thi Nguyen: games manipulate agency, this also means to me that Games are a storage vessel for different forms of agency.
461
00:55:58.860 –> 00:56:03.510
Thi Nguyen: Right a game designer can sculpt emotive agency, and then you can experience it and.
462
00:56:03.870 –> 00:56:11.310
Thi Nguyen: learn to occupy, so I literally think I learned to do analytic philosophy from chess like I was bad looking ahead to see what my opponent would.
463
00:56:11.520 –> 00:56:17.760
Thi Nguyen: like an opponent would say in philosophy and I learned that mental mode from chess so all kinds of games in code different.
464
00:56:18.060 –> 00:56:26.250
Thi Nguyen: Like kind of mental mode summer about deceit and manipulation summer about running and jumping summer about reflexes like philosophy.
465
00:56:26.730 –> 00:56:41.640
Thi Nguyen: rock climbing maybe i’m much more graceful person by making me concentrate on precise issues of balance by taking away all my other affords isn’t say all you have is your hands and your feet and tiny, tiny things to balance on right right so here’s a thought.
466
00:56:42.720 –> 00:56:53.430
Thi Nguyen: Every medium is a storage library for different kinds of information books can encode stories and argument and and data pictures to encode.
467
00:56:54.360 –> 00:57:03.660
Thi Nguyen: visual information games and code forms of agency so Games are a library of agency, and when you play lots of them and reflect on them, you can actually.
468
00:57:04.230 –> 00:57:12.030
Thi Nguyen: Learn different modes of agency and expand your repertoire, this is the way the game is make us more free I think i’m I mean.
469
00:57:12.390 –> 00:57:21.360
Thi Nguyen: literal example I play a lot of conniving manipulative social games and I literally use that mode that I learned from those Games.
470
00:57:21.840 –> 00:57:38.280
Thi Nguyen: In committee meetings when like the Business School illustrated defund the philosophy department and I need to be an aggressive manipulator I have learned how to like shift people’s incentives and represent incentives differently from games and I can just use that right.
471
00:57:38.580 –> 00:57:44.610
A Ashcraft: i’ve often felt that playing different characters and role playing games allows you to basically put on these different hats.
472
00:57:44.670 –> 00:57:44.910
Thi Nguyen: Right.
473
00:57:44.970 –> 00:57:47.940
A Ashcraft: These different value has like i’m going to play this kind of care.
474
00:57:47.940 –> 00:57:48.450
Thi Nguyen: Right now.
475
00:57:48.780 –> 00:57:50.400
A Ashcraft: and see how that feels but.
476
00:57:50.490 –> 00:57:51.660
Thi Nguyen: In some ways, I feel like.
477
00:57:52.590 –> 00:58:03.330
Thi Nguyen: How about this, I think that’s true, but I also think what’s doing that what’s going on role playing games there’s really interesting but it’s a little more familiar because that’s what happened it’s closer to the kind of characters we pick up in fiction.
478
00:58:03.720 –> 00:58:09.690
Thi Nguyen: But the fact that just plunged into a manipulative agency or plunged into a geometric agency, I mean.
479
00:58:10.830 –> 00:58:12.930
Shlomo Sher: Your service management, yes.
480
00:58:14.010 –> 00:58:16.140
Shlomo Sher: It is a huge one right.
481
00:58:16.170 –> 00:58:22.620
Shlomo Sher: Right you take on the you know the whole thinking of the world in terms of resource management.
482
00:58:24.000 –> 00:58:35.700
Thi Nguyen: Have you ever had the experience, by the way of trying to put too much um furniture in a moving van and your brains just doing it and you realize Oh, I was trained to do this by tetris that’s why I can just do this now.
483
00:58:37.380 –> 00:58:40.980
Shlomo Sher: I actually loaded moving vans for my dad before.
484
00:58:42.960 –> 00:58:57.090
Shlomo Sher: I was actually I actually worked during that when I was a teenager but but but yeah this idea of like learning how things fit and this is so it’s interesting and I think I think some of this really takes a little bit of.
485
00:58:58.350 –> 00:59:08.490
Shlomo Sher: of stepping back for a second to kind of get into both the the the positives and the dangers of really interesting so let’s get into the positives and then.
486
00:59:09.540 –> 00:59:18.630
Shlomo Sher: Though you know the positives right is I can experience lots and lots of different kinds of agencies right and.
487
00:59:19.110 –> 00:59:28.890
Shlomo Sher: Potentially even numb and I can learn from those agencies, I can take those agencies used them in in my real life, I can acquire skills of agency.
488
00:59:29.310 –> 00:59:39.780
Shlomo Sher: Which is, which is weird to kind of talk about skills of agency, because on the one hand, your agency should just be connected to here’s what I want right.
489
00:59:40.800 –> 00:59:46.740
Shlomo Sher: In in games you’re put into artificial conditions that say if you wanted something under certain conditions.
490
00:59:47.310 –> 00:59:47.700
Thi Nguyen: Is.
491
00:59:47.730 –> 00:59:49.860
Shlomo Sher: The ways that you can fulfill those conditions.
492
00:59:50.010 –> 00:59:51.990
Thi Nguyen: So I say to somebody really briefly so.
493
00:59:53.160 –> 01:00:01.710
Thi Nguyen: Here here’s The interesting thing for me about thinking about games or storehouses of agency, rather than skill, is the difference is is it skill is merely.
494
01:00:02.250 –> 01:00:09.780
Thi Nguyen: is just the ability to do something and agency for me is the skill, the forums is paired with a goal or a value so.
495
01:00:10.170 –> 01:00:21.030
Thi Nguyen: it’s not just when you play a game you don’t just learn the skill you learn the skill inside the experience of being super focused on manipulation or super focused on optimizing something.
496
01:00:21.540 –> 01:00:32.850
Thi Nguyen: Right and and I think that the quickest answer your question is this is freeing when you get kind of reflective control over it, and realize oh here’s what it’s like.
497
01:00:33.480 –> 01:00:40.740
Thi Nguyen: To be hyper optimize the about resources, and I can use that sometimes when is it relevant I can put that hat on.
498
01:00:41.310 –> 01:00:51.150
Thi Nguyen: it’s bad when you’re just stuck in that forever and you spend your entire life resource optimizing because that’s the agency that you’re stuck in so basically that’s This is like I mean.
499
01:00:52.230 –> 01:00:59.040
Thi Nguyen: The the promise and the perils of games are games are for you, these little shapes agencies, if you learn lots of them and expand your.
500
01:00:59.820 –> 01:01:13.410
Thi Nguyen: inventory and learn to like move between them and control them as when appropriate that’s freeing if you just get stuck in resource management mode and the world just becomes resources to optimize just because you’re stuck in that agency that’s.
501
01:01:14.760 –> 01:01:25.470
Thi Nguyen: Undermining and I think it’s it should be completely unsurprising, but if we understand how a medium works, we will see a paired promise an ethical danger right like.
502
01:01:26.610 –> 01:01:39.360
Thi Nguyen: fiction is valuable because it can teach us what it’s like to emotionally be another person and it’s terrifying if it can affect us with like a fascistic attitude and emotions and we get stuck like that same thing with games.
503
01:01:40.830 –> 01:01:41.220
Shlomo Sher: um.
504
01:01:41.250 –> 01:01:50.580
Shlomo Sher: that’s amazing that’s super super interesting I love this and you know and i’m thinking now of your stockbroker example yeah right because.
505
01:01:50.610 –> 01:01:52.350
A Ashcraft: they’re worse examples and start correct.
506
01:01:53.070 –> 01:01:56.250
A Ashcraft: Yes, banker right, I mean may way worse example.
507
01:01:56.490 –> 01:02:00.120
Thi Nguyen: You could use that I should I should say you might want to make.
508
01:02:01.140 –> 01:02:13.830
Thi Nguyen: it easier for people and maybe our world to like spit on like being stuck in the quality, the hyper quantitative world of being a stockbroker or I mean so also working on i’m working on a paper with all the feminine me right.
509
01:02:16.020 –> 01:02:30.300
Thi Nguyen: off of the table right now about how this attitude affects both wartime generals and pickup artists, which are also like these, like very dangerous, but also, I think, like I don’t know if people but it’s academics get it stuck on citation right.
510
01:02:31.050 –> 01:02:31.500
Thi Nguyen: And the.
511
01:02:31.620 –> 01:02:37.050
Thi Nguyen: rankings of their of the journals that publishing journalists get stuck on page views like that’s.
512
01:02:38.160 –> 01:02:45.870
Thi Nguyen: The mean this Is there something to talk about the end, which is, I think the game theory helps us understand the infectiousness of these kinds of metrics but also.
513
01:02:46.170 –> 01:02:56.820
Thi Nguyen: The specific thing the worry we’re playing games might prime you to go looking through the world to highly petrified environments, we can just be like okay here’s the value system you just pick it up right.
514
01:02:56.850 –> 01:02:57.630
Shlomo Sher: Right and like.
515
01:02:57.840 –> 01:03:03.570
A Ashcraft: I mean you could take it as far as going capitalism capitalism has a highly highly metro size value system right.
516
01:03:03.900 –> 01:03:14.820
Thi Nguyen: 100% the date, the biggest danger of games is getting stuck in the mode of i’m allowed instrumental is everything as long as it increases point score right and.
517
01:03:15.570 –> 01:03:33.150
Shlomo Sher: Right and that that just means whatever real life system you’re in as long as you can super impose value clarity on it and have identified your the you know the goals that you’re supposed to have in some sort of context and yeah, this is a.
518
01:03:33.570 –> 01:03:36.660
A Ashcraft: And that’s a critical problem right that’s the ethical danger.
519
01:03:37.650 –> 01:03:47.790
Shlomo Sher: A yes and again, you know yeah The danger is getting getting stuck in it right and treating others as being stuck in it, or you know.
520
01:03:48.120 –> 01:03:54.270
Thi Nguyen: I think people think i’m downplaying the danger of games i’m like i’m like they when.
521
01:03:55.590 –> 01:04:10.350
Thi Nguyen: They think that i’m like i’m not too worried about graphical violence, I feel like i’m applying the value the danger of games like what’s dangerous will make people that are hyper focused on maximizing some single quantity quantity and ignoring everything else in the world.
522
01:04:12.600 –> 01:04:13.140
Thi Nguyen: If you look at.
523
01:04:14.430 –> 01:04:17.070
Thi Nguyen: That is a far worse danger than.
524
01:04:18.210 –> 01:04:18.990
Thi Nguyen: The material.
525
01:04:20.160 –> 01:04:32.310
A Ashcraft: So it it’s made me think about Brenda Romero need breath weights train game she makes these she I mean she’s a game designer she’s been a game designer for very long time, video game designer.
526
01:04:32.790 –> 01:04:39.780
A Ashcraft: But she’s also over the last 10 years 15 years now made these art games and they’re one off tabletop games.
527
01:04:41.040 –> 01:04:50.670
A Ashcraft: and train is a game about loading little maple little game pieces on to on to train cars.
528
01:04:51.540 –> 01:05:05.520
A Ashcraft: In in an efficient way and it’s presented the board game itself, as this beautiful thing was presented on broken glass like a shattered window pane with these train with these train tracks going across it and.
529
01:05:06.690 –> 01:05:20.490
A Ashcraft: And and people see it and go oh oh it’s you know they they get it right they get the the symbolic at first, but if you play it it’s literally it’s it’s a lot.
530
01:05:20.970 –> 01:05:31.680
A Ashcraft: it’s not what you think it is because what she does is she she is she has played with this idea that you’re talking about with agency by making the rules, not clear.
531
01:05:33.180 –> 01:05:34.800
A Ashcraft: So you have to decide.
532
01:05:35.820 –> 01:05:41.400
A Ashcraft: Like your goal is to load these people as efficiently as possible onto these trains.
533
01:05:43.620 –> 01:05:50.220
A Ashcraft: But she doesn’t really give you super clear idea about how to do that, so you have to decide which makes you then implicit in the.
534
01:05:51.240 –> 01:06:03.720
A Ashcraft: In the act of doing this thing and it’s super interesting and she’s done a bunch of these other games on it, too, but, but the idea of like like giving making you play making you decide how to do the game.
535
01:06:04.170 –> 01:06:11.580
A Ashcraft: is the key to that game that key that makes it turns into like this art project, as opposed to like a publishable board game.
536
01:06:12.750 –> 01:06:24.720
Shlomo Sher: I want to kind of go two ways and this one is really interesting because, if this is a tendency that games can have on people and, especially, I think of leaderboards.
537
01:06:25.260 –> 01:06:37.050
Shlomo Sher: And the competitive nature of leaderboards and and and that comparison to capitalism right and winning the competition seems to be a really big one, but.
538
01:06:37.500 –> 01:06:47.250
Shlomo Sher: but also this idea of just getting stuck in in in a loop where you’re just you’re promoting one value, it seems to me that in it.
539
01:06:47.730 –> 01:06:59.280
Shlomo Sher: creates a special space for games to do with trained us right to kind of get you into a mode where you’re doing something and i’m thinking of something as old as like shadow of the colossus.
540
01:07:00.720 –> 01:07:06.600
Shlomo Sher: Right, where you’re where you’re doing something and then the game gets you to question really why am I doing this right right and.
541
01:07:06.990 –> 01:07:21.480
A Ashcraft: So just to give a little background for our listeners you play a kid in this in this big fantasy world that you’re pretty much alone, except for your horse, except for these giant beautiful monsters that that your goal is to kill.
542
01:07:23.040 –> 01:07:28.380
A Ashcraft: I had to stop playing I could go I killed like two monsters and i’m like no i’m not doing this anymore.
543
01:07:28.980 –> 01:07:36.840
Shlomo Sher: But you’re doing it to essentially revive the Princess whose life you’re saving by killing all these right, and this is it’s the kind of game or.
544
01:07:37.620 –> 01:07:44.010
Shlomo Sher: As you keep playing the game kind of you know drops hints that gets you to question whether you’re.
545
01:07:44.340 –> 01:07:52.680
Shlomo Sher: A laser narrow focus on just reviving the Princess right is is the right thing to do and and I think there’s a number of games right that kind of do this.
546
01:07:53.010 –> 01:08:03.960
Shlomo Sher: Which is itself speaking to the hopefully power of games to also you know, like every other art form question and you know the effects the arm for might have.
547
01:08:04.410 –> 01:08:06.270
Thi Nguyen: But one of the most.
548
01:08:07.410 –> 01:08:19.680
Thi Nguyen: One of the papers for much I took the most inspiration for the, especially for the final third of my book, which is about this stuff is a wonderful paper from the girl sick art called on the banality of virtual evil.
549
01:08:21.540 –> 01:08:22.350
Shlomo Sher: And the paint.
550
01:08:22.440 –> 01:08:24.810
Thi Nguyen: It basically argues, it was a criticism.
551
01:08:25.830 –> 01:08:32.550
Thi Nguyen: Particularly aimed at a kind of at the biosphere rpg is I grew up playing like knights of the old Republic and he was saying, like look.
552
01:08:33.120 –> 01:08:41.550
Thi Nguyen: So people had this response, where they’re like oh grand theft auto evil, we need to build morality systems into our games and the morality systems they built were.
553
01:08:41.910 –> 01:08:50.070
Thi Nguyen: Really simple ones, are you giving these options like kick the dog saved it up and you got either pop them moral point or evil points and people.
554
01:08:50.490 –> 01:08:54.720
Thi Nguyen: His critique is that he that companies like by our thought they were doing good by introducing morality.
555
01:08:54.960 –> 01:09:01.410
Thi Nguyen: into the system and he thought they were actually corroding morality, by giving a presentation and morality is simple, easy.
556
01:09:01.650 –> 01:09:13.260
Thi Nguyen: obvious and simply quantitative they thought it was much better he actually thought grand theft auto like that are much better because they asked you to do these difficult thing and then just leave it up to you to reflect on their meaning.
557
01:09:13.560 –> 01:09:14.160
Thi Nguyen: And this is.
558
01:09:14.250 –> 01:09:19.860
Thi Nguyen: me this is this is where, for me the aesthetics, of the ethics collide again because I think so.
559
01:09:21.060 –> 01:09:36.030
Thi Nguyen: The way that i’m really worried about people taking games is just being in a setting where you have a single point system and value and just export that unthinkingly that the way that i’m hoping people play games that the path towards this freedom thing is.
560
01:09:38.940 –> 01:09:56.550
Thi Nguyen: When you play a game you bury yourself in this narrow simple point system, and then you step back from it and you reflect was this worth it was this worthwhile and I think the static impulse is actually one of the best impulses here, because the aesthetic impulse is I mean by its nature.
561
01:09:57.600 –> 01:10:10.110
Thi Nguyen: Not rule driven not point driven right you step back you have this rule driven point different thing, and you step back and then you asked was it fun, was it rich was it interesting was it worthwhile, so my part of philosophy of art.
562
01:10:10.710 –> 01:10:13.470
Thi Nguyen: One of the basic views that I really find.
563
01:10:13.980 –> 01:10:22.500
Thi Nguyen: fascinating and really plausible is that aesthetic judgment or not rule driven they’re not principle driven they always proceed for some complex open ended taste.
564
01:10:22.800 –> 01:10:29.460
Thi Nguyen: and see if you play games aesthetically and love them you’re constantly moving into point systems and that out of them and reflecting of that.
565
01:10:29.790 –> 01:10:35.190
Thi Nguyen: reflecting on them under worthwhile illness from some non hyper explicit point driven system.
566
01:10:35.760 –> 01:10:48.480
Thi Nguyen: So this for me like that’s the hope for me that this kind of like the playful aesthetic attitude towards games, is one that encourages constant stepping back from in reflection on these narrowed.
567
01:10:49.140 –> 01:10:58.410
Thi Nguyen: systems and that that could be really valuable for us because all the times in our lives, we do have to plunge into these narrowed consciousnesses in these their goals, but then we have to pull ourselves back.
568
01:10:58.680 –> 01:11:17.640
Shlomo Sher: Right, you know to me it’s interesting because you know, on the one hand i’m super attracted to value clarity in games because life is so i’m an i’m an emphasis I find i’m I was, I was interested in ethics, because life is so fucking confusing life is still fucking confusing right.
569
01:11:18.240 –> 01:11:19.140
Shlomo Sher: games okay.
570
01:11:19.170 –> 01:11:20.250
A Ashcraft: given us confusing but.
571
01:11:20.310 –> 01:11:30.240
Shlomo Sher: But you know, had value clarity Hitler right, I mean right, I mean you know I mean its value clarity scares me when I teach contemporary moral issues.
572
01:11:30.840 –> 01:11:40.230
Shlomo Sher: You know it’s the people, the people who aren’t trying to change the people who are really dogmatic in their beliefs or really certain about their beliefs.
573
01:11:40.530 –> 01:11:41.190
Shlomo Sher: Saying.
574
01:11:41.580 –> 01:11:49.560
Shlomo Sher: You know, this is the kind of thing, where, in my in my class my ethics of video games class one of the things that we talked about is kind of like this.
575
01:11:49.980 –> 01:11:57.390
Shlomo Sher: I think games like, and this is why I think games like this war of mine or papers, please just kind of so important and so because they they.
576
01:11:57.720 –> 01:12:09.450
Shlomo Sher: In some sense challenge this value clarity, you can have, but a game like this war of mine, which is where it’s a very, very I think we’ve talked about in the show before it’s a very hard game it’s a very sad game.
577
01:12:09.930 –> 01:12:14.820
Shlomo Sher: And it’s the kind of game that really should ask you the question why am I playing this game.
578
01:12:15.570 –> 01:12:25.380
Shlomo Sher: And, and to me the question of why am I playing this game, why should I play this game is very similar to it’s an accent it’s an existential question right.
579
01:12:26.370 –> 01:12:34.110
Shlomo Sher: it’s a question of how I should live my life it’s a question of what what, what are the kinds of things that I should really you know deal with myself.
580
01:12:34.800 –> 01:12:49.680
Thi Nguyen: I mean one interesting thing for me is Bernard suits this this book that inspired all the stuff i’ve been doing the grasshopper I think it’s an existential work I think it’s an existential the argument of the end of the book is this quirky argument, where.
581
01:12:52.680 –> 01:13:03.840
Thi Nguyen: He says that in utopia if we’ve solved all practical problems, all we have to do with our life is play games so games must be the purpose of life, and I really do think for me struggling with.
582
01:13:04.830 –> 01:13:11.820
Thi Nguyen: Some people it’s a weird place for a philosopher who started and ethics at work on games, but I think, for me it is really a question.
583
01:13:12.090 –> 01:13:18.960
Thi Nguyen: Thinking what games and play an art is really a way to think about the meaning of life and the value of activities and why we do this weird stuff.
584
01:13:19.140 –> 01:13:27.390
Thi Nguyen: And I think I just want to emphasize we’re going to talk a lot about the instrumental uses of games, where they can train us to develop us, but I also think it’s just about like.
585
01:13:28.350 –> 01:13:41.760
Thi Nguyen: aesthetically rich games, or just valuable in and of themselves that’s just a worthwhile, but yeah i’m part of the part of the reason to argue that they’re an art form is just to say no, no it’s not a waste of time, even if you don’t get any other thing out of it it’s beautiful.
586
01:13:42.480 –> 01:13:42.900
By.
587
01:13:44.160 –> 01:13:45.480
Shlomo Sher: Beauty itself has value.
588
01:13:45.840 –> 01:13:49.710
Thi Nguyen: But I just want to say about I wish I was saying, I.
589
01:13:50.970 –> 01:13:57.000
Thi Nguyen: i’ve been working so i’ve two streams of research, one is the philosophy of art and the other is in social epistemology.
590
01:13:57.420 –> 01:14:04.170
Thi Nguyen: about the social nature of knowing and there i’ve been working on social media and conspiracy theories and ECHO chambers and those have collided.
591
01:14:04.500 –> 01:14:12.540
Thi Nguyen: And I might we might be interested, so this is the next book i’ve been working on, but I have a paper that just came out called the seduction of clarity.
592
01:14:12.810 –> 01:14:20.070
Thi Nguyen: about how you design fake clear systems that get people to stop thinking in the two examples or conspiracy theories.
593
01:14:20.370 –> 01:14:27.720
Thi Nguyen: And metro fide bureaucratic justification systems, and so I think there’s something about the Chris clarity of like a queue and on type like here’s.
594
01:14:28.350 –> 01:14:44.010
Thi Nguyen: The world all the one and the kind of metro five game, a fight environment we find in bureaucracies, where it all turns out to, we need to justify things and sort of clicks or profits or you know, in the case of some of the University has been involved in like student graduation rate.
595
01:14:45.180 –> 01:14:48.120
Thi Nguyen: That has the same like compelling.
596
01:14:49.560 –> 01:15:05.520
Thi Nguyen: compelling it, so I think these are these are often understood as giving you the value of a game, but not in the kind of secluded magic circle of play, but on like education in Twitter were having a simplified value is actually really corrosive.
597
01:15:06.570 –> 01:15:15.450
A Ashcraft: And it’s the metro and it’s the the sort of meat that that when people want to gamma Phi things right, this is what they’re what they’re really trying to do.
598
01:15:15.510 –> 01:15:26.520
Thi Nguyen: Yes, this is this is other paper that So this is the stuff so the Games book has mostly been is like mostly a love song about games and this last chapter about maybe we should worry about gamification.
599
01:15:26.760 –> 01:15:35.190
Thi Nguyen: And everything i’ve been doing since then, is trying to work out that last thing and there’s a paper you might be interested in the other thing of mine that just came out it’s called how came up.
600
01:15:35.910 –> 01:15:38.010
Thi Nguyen: tell her Twitter gamma Phi is communication.
601
01:15:38.520 –> 01:15:49.050
Thi Nguyen: Specifically, using the Games model say okay here’s what twitter’s doing Twitter is offering you the pleasure of point advancement and all you have to do to get that pleasure and get the gaming pleasure used to buy in.
602
01:15:49.410 –> 01:16:00.810
Thi Nguyen: To as a value system, the point system as Twitter measures it, but there are lots of rich values for communication that aren’t even that it’s just measuring short term popularity.
603
01:16:01.530 –> 01:16:08.520
Shlomo Sher: yeah, and this is, you know, and this is the short term popularity and the and the financial rewards with the which come with that.
604
01:16:09.330 –> 01:16:19.380
Shlomo Sher: And yeah, this is the you know, this is where gamification gets scary for me right, with the with the idea that you really have the same.
605
01:16:19.890 –> 01:16:30.090
Shlomo Sher: You know the same motivators for for agency right you’re being told that the rewards are to to get those likes to get those clicks to and the rewards are also the financial rewards.
606
01:16:30.450 –> 01:16:38.730
Shlomo Sher: That that come with that and i’m thinking of your super Mario brothers example where you need to you know get to the end and get the score.
607
01:16:39.300 –> 01:16:52.680
Shlomo Sher: And both of our both of the kind of rewards that we can get social and financial ones right are both seeming to be connected in in a place like this and the influencer.
608
01:16:53.250 –> 01:17:04.200
Shlomo Sher: As I don’t know the special new type of person of our time I don’t know if that’s if that’s true or not, you know i’m in some senses, always been influencer but influencers that are.
609
01:17:05.400 –> 01:17:25.410
Shlomo Sher: quantified influencers right that’s that’s what gives them their their you know special superpower right that they’ve managed in this game that’s got set up to essentially be on the leaderboard right, and you know that’s that does scare me what but.
610
01:17:25.470 –> 01:17:33.660
A Ashcraft: what’s nice about though this this argument is that is that the, the solution is also clear right play more games because.
611
01:17:34.530 –> 01:17:45.030
A Ashcraft: No, I mean I say that glibly but but but seriously, the more games you play, the more likely, you are to to have to think oh what’s different about this game than the last game.
612
01:17:45.600 –> 01:18:00.060
A Ashcraft: And then that and that is the, that is the way that you lead people to think about how to how to how our value system is different, how is this value system different, how is the school system different How is this actually applicable to to things outside of the game that.
613
01:18:00.150 –> 01:18:12.420
Shlomo Sher: or or I want to twist that Andy I mean I don’t you know if I fight play you know call of duty and then you, you know play play another shoe they’re playing another shooter place, and those are.
614
01:18:12.510 –> 01:18:13.860
A Ashcraft: So different kinds of games yeah.
615
01:18:13.920 –> 01:18:17.280
Shlomo Sher: yeah right so you’re putting yourself into different value systems.
616
01:18:17.580 –> 01:18:17.880
Right.
617
01:18:19.650 –> 01:18:21.090
Thi Nguyen: This is exactly.
618
01:18:24.900 –> 01:18:25.860
Thi Nguyen: Like I was like look.
619
01:18:27.000 –> 01:18:38.880
Thi Nguyen: it’s not just play games it’s play more games play with greater diversity of games and and be involved in the process of critical reflection and aesthetic reflection on the value the differential value be aware.
620
01:18:39.270 –> 01:18:47.100
Thi Nguyen: Of what the different value of being involved in different point systems is like don’t just take on point systems unthinkingly.
621
01:18:48.540 –> 01:18:58.140
Thi Nguyen: understand the form of life, they bring to you and well ask yourself whether it’s worth it or not, and that’s I think that’s the inoculate again it’s just being sucked into.
622
01:18:59.460 –> 01:19:00.000
Thi Nguyen: These.
623
01:19:00.450 –> 01:19:11.040
Shlomo Sher: That that’s great you know I I, I want to add to that that i’m thinking about what this means for game designers to right, and you know.
624
01:19:11.760 –> 01:19:23.280
Shlomo Sher: game designer obviously can make you play a lot of games, but at least game designers can ensure that some of these games can be tools for reflection that some of these Games are you know pieces of art that reflect on the art form.
625
01:19:23.640 –> 01:19:36.360
A Ashcraft: Sure, and and we can do that by in and some games already do this by giving you different roles to play within the within the game that have different wind conditions and have different different metrics for for winning.
626
01:19:36.780 –> 01:19:40.830
A Ashcraft: So you have these competing metrics systems within the same game which are really interesting.
627
01:19:41.220 –> 01:19:42.210
Thi Nguyen: yeah actually write.
628
01:19:42.390 –> 01:19:50.760
Thi Nguyen: The game, the game is held up because i’d sent the manuscript off to my publisher and then I played Cole whales game route.
629
01:19:51.210 –> 01:19:58.170
Thi Nguyen: Which is an extraordinary game that does exactly this where every different person playing it plays with different from my my language potential.
630
01:19:59.100 –> 01:20:05.460
Thi Nguyen: position they have different goals different mechanics and then you get to play the game for each of these different perspectives and I think like.
631
01:20:05.820 –> 01:20:19.800
Thi Nguyen: So I ended up rejiggering a chapter of the book around this and it’s exactly that, like you, can’t the game forces you as part of its basic play to change perspectives when you change roles and that builds in a kind of reflective miss, which I think is just.
632
01:20:21.720 –> 01:20:22.830
Thi Nguyen: genius yeah.
633
01:20:23.880 –> 01:20:26.100
Shlomo Sher: All right, I think that’s a good point to end it.
634
01:20:26.280 –> 01:20:27.840
A Ashcraft: was perfect ending point.
635
01:20:29.220 –> 01:20:31.260
A Ashcraft: i’ve gotten i’ve got so many notes.
636
01:20:32.280 –> 01:20:32.550
Shlomo Sher: Great.
637
01:20:33.390 –> 01:20:36.540
A Ashcraft: Things to read things to do this has been a really great episode.
638
01:20:36.960 –> 01:20:44.850
Shlomo Sher: You know Andy uh I kept wanting to reach for my notebook and it’s behind my screen man I can’t get it without affecting my camera.
639
01:20:45.150 –> 01:20:48.570
Shlomo Sher: So yeah if you could, if you could share some of that with me.
640
01:20:49.410 –> 01:20:52.230
A Ashcraft: you’ll get you’ll get to make notes, when you edit the episode.
641
01:20:55.020 –> 01:20:57.120
Shlomo Sher: Well yeah busy day.
642
01:20:57.150 –> 01:20:58.170
yeah cuz I know it’s.
643
01:21:00.480 –> 01:21:08.220
Shlomo Sher: A CT new and thank you very much for being a guest we’re hoping to have you again you’re really, really wonderful good.
644
01:21:08.640 –> 01:21:10.620
Thi Nguyen: Yes, Daddy back here.
645
01:21:11.610 –> 01:21:12.900
Shlomo Sher: Alright play nice everybody.
