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Lowell Kempf
United States
Chicago
Illinois
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Why do we play games? There are a lot of different reasons. I’m sure that everyone has their own reasons and I’m also sure that we all have more than one reason. I’ve been having fun mulling over why I personally play games and so I’m going to keep on going.
I’ve already written about how I can be drawn into the story a game tells, particularly when I’m playing a role playing game like Dungeons and Dragons. I’ve written about how I enjoy the intellectual stimulation of the mechanics of a game, both learning how a game works and how to actually make the wheels spin.
Now, I am forced to admit to a bigger driving force in my love of gaming, one that was actually kind of hard for me to admit to myself. No, not my compulsion to buy games. I already came to terms with the fact that I can be a crazed consumer thanks to books. No, I am talking about competition.
I’ve never thought of myself as a competitive person. I like to help people and even go out of my way to do it. I try to be a team player, be conscious of other people’s feelings and needs and every job performance review I have ever had has had ‘a good team player’ on it.
However, when I taught Pandemic to my fiancé and her response was “Eh, it’s nice but it’s more fun to beat you,” I realized that she was right. Like a bolt of lightning out of the blue sent by Zeus (who was a competitive guy if ever there was one), I realized part of the very nature of board games is the fun of beating the other guy!
That was also when I realized that a real component to that fun was the other guy. I do enjoy the occasional video game or cooperative game or puzzle but those are not things I really pursue or feel driven to do. That’s because beating a game or a system is not nearly as fun as beating another player. Competition is only competition when you’ve got an opponent.
Sometimes, competition is treated like a dirty word. And, let’s face it, there is something to be said about the fact that we are all in it together. Society can’t work if everyone is for themselves and never supports the basic infrastructure that we all live in.
However, at the same time, competition is also one of the biggest driving forces we have. Let’s face it, you want to get ahead and you get rewarded for getting ahead. If you break the rules to get ahead, then you’re a criminal. On the other hand, if you work within the rules (or at least don’t get caught)and get ahead, then you are a success.
So, competition is an innate part of human nature. There’s no point in denying that, just as working together in a group is also a part of our nature. Games provide us with a safe outlet for that competitive drive we have going, one where hopefully no one gets hurt and everyone has fun. Not everyone can play professional basketball but most people can play a board game.
And when you sit down at a table to play a game, be it Settler of Catan or Poker, everyone is sitting down for the same reason. To win. So people know what they’re in for and hopefully, people won’t have hard feelings when you do your darnest to metaphorically kick their teeth in.
I’m not saying I’ve never had hurt feeling in a game. However, most of the time, if I’ve at least left bite marks on the ankle of the winner, I’m happy. Yeah, a hard fought win is the sweetest but it still feels good to know that you went down kicking and biting. If there’s no money riding on the game, it doesn’t matter if you won or lose but if you did your best to break the other guy’s kneecap.
Of course, there is a line. I used play with someone who would intentionally annoy and irritate other players to throw them off their game and make sure they couldn’t focus. After all, there was nothing in the rules that said that they couldn’t do that. And there is nothing that says I have to play with a jerk like that. When competition gets in the way of the common goal of having fun, then it has gone too far.
Competition had another great benefit. In addition to giving you a goal and making it more fun, it also encourages improving your game. I like to tell myself that the analytic skills that I am developing will have real-life applications. After all, studies have shown that the analytic and pattern recognition skills that Go develops have lifelong mental health benefits. Even if I’m fooling myself about that, getting better at a game makes me more competitive and gives me more satisfaction when I play.
That said, while competition is a big part of why I play games, I have at least one more good reason to go.
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