
Games: Agency as Art

C. THI NGYUEN: What I ended up thinking is that what makes games special is not just that they create a world or an environment, but that the game designer tells you what abilities you have and what obstacles you’ll face, but most importantly, what goals you’ll have. What the game designer is doing is creating an alternate self for you,... See more
C. Thi Nguyen • Are We Measuring Our Lives in All the Wrong Ways?
Games, then, are a unique social technology. They are a method for inscribing forms of agency into artifactual vessels:
C. Thi Nguyen • Games: Agency As Art (Thinking Art)
Second, when our basic needs are met, we will need a sense of purpose. The beauty of games is that they lend importance to the objectively trivial. If we reach a level of abstraction in which we all become investors, sending money back and forth, wrapping it in a game will make it feel more meaningful.