Games and the Art of Agency

Bibliographic Data

ID10692774
AuthorsC Thi Nguyen (0000-0001-8062-5446, Utah Valley University, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume128
Issue4
Pages423-462
Publication date2019-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Philosophical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8108 • E-ISSN: 1558-1470
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00318108-7697863
OpenAlexW2979350579
LanguageEN
Citations received32
References cited59

Games may seem like a waste of time, where we struggle under artificial rules for arbitrary goals. The author suggests that the rules and goals of games are not arbitrary at all. They are a way of specifying particular modes of agency. This is what make games a distinctive art form. Game designers designate goals and abilities for the player; they shape the agential skeleton which the player will inhabit during the game. Game designers work in the medium of agency. Game-playing, then, illuminates a distinctive human capacity. We can take on ends temporarily for the sake of the experience of pursuing them. Game play shows that our agency is significantly more modular and more fluid than we might have thought. It also demonstrates our capacity to take on an inverted motivational structure. Sometimes we can take on an end for the sake of the activity of pursuing that end

Aesthetics · Agency (philosophy) · Economics · Epistemology · Game design · Game mechanics · Game theory · Human–computer interaction · Mathematical economics · Metagaming · Modular design · Sequential game · Simultaneous game · Sociology · Work (physics) · Computer Science · Digital Games and Media · Doping in Sports · Engineering · Gambling Behavior and Treatments · Philosophy · Psychology