Games: Agency As Art (Thinking Art)

Such a player would have to maintain a perpetually anxious secondary consciousness, worrying not only about losing, but also about winning.

Games can offer us a clarifying balm against the vast, complicated, ever-shifting social world of pluralistic values, and an existential balm against our internal sense that our values are slippery and unclear. In games, values are clear, well-delineated, and typically uniform among all agents. But this also creates a significant moral danger—not j

When we play games, we take on temporary agencies—temporary sets of abilities and constraints, along with temporary ends. We have a significant capacity for agential fluidity, and games make full use of that capacity.

When we play games, we take on temporary agencies—temporary sets of abilities and constraints, along with temporary ends. We have a significant capacity for agential fluidity, and games make full use of that capacity.

A game tells us to take up a particular goal. It designates abilities for us to use in pursuing that goal. It packages all that up with a set of obstacles, crafted to fit those goals and abilities. A game uses all these elements to sculpt a form of activity. And when we play games, we take on an alternate form of agency. We take on new goals and ac

we can use games to communicate forms of agency.

In games, we are given the right kinds of abilities, but just barely enough of them—which creates drama and interest.

Rather, game playing is marked by the lusory attitude: we adopt the pre-lusory goal and the constitutive rules for the sake of the activity they make possible. We adopt unnecessary obstacles in order to make possible the activity of trying to overcome them.

Games are temporary structures of practical reasoning.