Games and the Art of Agency

Dados Bibliográficos

ID10692774
AutoresC Thi Nguyen (0000-0001-8062-5446, Utah Valley University, autor correspondente)
Ano2019
Volume128
Fascículo4
Páginas423-462
Data de publicação2019-10-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Philosophical Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0031-8108 • E-ISSN: 1558-1470
EditoraDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00318108-7697863
OpenAlexW2979350579
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas32
Referências citadas59

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