How to Play

Suddenly I am back home. The soft rays of a golden morning sun pass through a large window. They illuminate the room, heating the hardwood floor of the apartment in which I spent my childhood. A long and eventful semester lies behind me and I am allowed to rest for a while. Things are again familiar and safe. Mom's cooking, clean dishes, friends, family and of course, my cat. She is an old lady at this point at 21 years. Despite this, she has successfully retained a substantial amount of sass and is still the unquestioned ruler of the household. She was introduced to the family when I was six and has stuck around since. She practically raised me. Her age does not seem to stop her when I ceremonially pull out her favourite toy from the cupboard. A simple piece of string. At the sight of this, her pupils dilate until her eyes become nothing but a pair of cute black holes, she goes down into a low stance and prepares to pounce. The game is on. As we have done a thousand times before, she chases the string all around the apartment and up on to various pieces of furniture. This time, however, it got me thinking. Does she understand that this is a game or does she think she is actually hunting?

As it turns out, the nature of play among domesticated felines can be surprisingly sophisticated. The behaviour emerges in kittens at quite a young age and is generally divided into two categories, social and non-social play. Out of these, social play is the one that is observed first. It is usually characterized by physical interaction between litter-mates such as pawing, holding on and rubbing against each other. It is also common that cats, especially at a young age, engage in playful aggression. Non-social play develops shortly after this stage. This kind of behaviour would be recognisable to anyone who has ever owned a cat. It is the classic chasing after a toy, a laser pointer or in my case a piece of string. It is here that our feline friends learn their distinct independence and get to hone their predatory hunting ability. Play also provides them with physical exercise and important social bonding. It seems that cats do understand that they are playing, despite that they are acting on their instincts. This is due to the fact that the aggression that they express is far from serious and they become easily bored or uninterested once they realize that the toy is too easily caught or is too hard to catch. Similar behaviour can be observed in most mammals and also in other species such as birds. As one might expect, for us humans, this behaviour has become incredibly complex. This raises a greater question. How do we define a game? What is it, actually?

Most of us are aware of when a game is taking place. When it happens, it seems as if some form of collective, unconscious, understanding or a separate reality is present among the players, provided that they understand the rules. Despite this, the concept is incredibly abstract and can be hard to grasp. Try explaining what a game is to someone who has never played and you will probably find it a near-impossible task. A person that has no understanding of the idea of a game is, of course, unheard of, which seems to suggest that it is such a fundamental part of human existence that it could be on par with things like sleeping or eating. It is not surprising then that the earliest signs of the existence of human games can be traced back to as late as 2600 B.C. The 20th-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was one of the first academics that attempted to tackle this issue. In his Philosophical Investigations from 1953, he concluded that features such as play, rules and competition fail to accurately capture the actual essence of what a game is. Instead, he suggested that the different activities we have come to call games can be connected only through what he calls ‘‘family resemblances’’. That is to say, these features are commonly found in games but no singular feature can be found in every game. This view has lately come to be challenged by many thinkers, ranging from sociologists and anthropologists to video game designers. Let's investigate this question further.

Perhaps the easiest way to begin understanding what exactly a game is would be to clarify what it is not. A game is not the same thing as work for example. First of all, a game seems to at least contain some element of fun or play. This is, of course, something that often seems to be missing in menial office jobs for example, wherein the activity is often repetitive and boring. And although many people, such as professional football players, do play games as a career choice, it does not change the fact that it is, in fact, a game that they are participating in. It also does not stop being a game simply because people are no longer having fun. Rather, the element of ‘play’ seems to be referring to the activity in itself not being 'serious' or productive. Like the kitten litter-mates, the ‘seriousness’ is only feigned. A sports player does not want to hurt or kill his opponents and although it might seem very important to the player and the fans, in the end, winning or losing does not heavily impact a person's ability to live. Furthermore, a game does not happen because it necessarily needs to, it happens because people want to play. Although it might be a fundamental part of human existence, it only seems to arise once relative safety has been established within a group. A game is also, at least in my opinion, not art. The reason for this is that the activity does not usually express aesthetic, ideological or emotional elements in. This leads to a much greater discussion of the exact definition of ‘art’ and is a topic for another day. Games often take place within a definite time and space, for example, the 90 minutes of a football match or on a chess table. A game without rules also seems to be completely impossible, at least I fail to think of any good examples. Even the simple game of my cat chasing the string has rules that both of us seem to understand. I hold the string and she tries to catch it. There also seems to be a certain degree of uncertainty involved. Although one might conclude that at least one of the players of a card game will win, it is not determined from the beginning which one of them will be the victor. So, what is a game? My humble opinion on the matter is this; it is a playful activity in which the participants follow a certain set of rules towards an uncertain future. Whether or not there need to be several players involved is up for debate. Is a puzzle that you attempt to solve on your own a game? I do not know.

This reminds me of another, quite modern, phenomenon. Namely that of ‘Alternate Reality Games’ (ARGs). These strange games often take the form of interactive, global, narratives, created by an organization or company and uses the real world as a platform. The players, which usually number up towards hundreds or even thousands of people, cooperatively attempt to solve the puzzle and riddles that are found either through online mediums such as websites, emails and phone calls or on different locations around the world in the forms of posters with a QR code attached for example. This usually results in huge online communities being formed focused on solving the problems presented by the game masters. The 7

game also tends to evolve according to decisions made by the players, this process is controlled by the game masters rather than by a fixed algorithm. ARG’s are often organized as a marketing tool for various upcoming forms of media such as movies, series or video games. However, in later years they have gained popularity and have adopted more independent forms. Other than often being slightly unnerving for the poor soul that unknowingly stumbles upon a clue or a riddle from an ARG, they are often extremely effective at organizing large numbers of people on a global scale. This raises an interesting question. Why is it that large, diverse groups of people are able to solve at times seemingly impossible puzzles in a game but we are unable to do so with actual issues? Surely, the advanced communication technology of the modern age ought to be adequate for such an organization. Can we do an ARG on a national level?

Why can't we see problem-solving on a societal scale as a form of game? There are certain clear set ‘rules’ to every problem. For example, we need to organize our hospitals to handle new Coronavirus cases while also taking into consideration the mental health of the healthcare workers and so on. Is it simply because it lacks the element of ‘play’? Does the seriousness of the situation itself make this form of organization impossible? Maybe the issues are so abstract and complex that they lack a clear time and space in which they take place. Unfortunately, I believe the problem is rooted somewhere a lot deeper than this. I think that the issue is that as a society we no longer want to play as a team. In the West, we are becoming increasingly polarized. Our political systems, our leaders and our media require it. Why would a young, urban leftist, in this day and age, want to even reason with an old, rural right winger for example? He has no reason to be loyal to her, nor do you have a reason to be loyal to the person next to you. This atomization will not end with ideology and we will continue to separate from each other based on increasingly abstract terms.

Humans are by nature political and we will always seek allies and enemies. However, once upon a time, there was something that could effectively unite a society. Something that transcended political affiliation and connected the individuals of a nation. A base set of values, a spiritual or metaphysical understanding of the world that strung its citizens together. It functioned similarly to the ‘rules’ of a game which all people were willing to follow and formed that collective, unconscious understanding that seems to be so fundamental. That world is long gone of course. It has been replaced by the hustle of modern, everyday life and the shallow, oftenmaterialistic, goals propped up by society, oftentimes based on purely individualistic desires. We seem to have forgotten that we were once on the same team. We faced our issues not as individuals but together. Perhaps we could once again find this spirit, maybe then we could find the element of ‘play’ in our serious issues. Maybe then, we could begin playing the great game.

Composed by,

Luke Litvinov, Undergraduate of Philosophy at West Virginia University