So while on the one hand they are actively bound to prescribed goals by the social contract of the game, on the other, they tend to avoid overly strong attachment to outcomes in ways that might disrupt the social fabric of the encounter. Il is only when this balance is achieved that gamers can immerse themselves in the genuine source of their enjoyment—a convivial environment within which to explore the intellectual engagement that arises from the pursuit of arbitrary goals.
Quotes about playing
But, look, friends, quitting has nothing at all to do with character unless we make a rule that it does. And who would want to make that kind of rule? It would ruin our chances to play freely. We’d never be sure that this was the game that everybody wanted to play if everybody had to stay in the game, if no one could quit.
The play-mood is labile in its very nature. At any moment “ordinary life” may reassert its rights either by an impact from without, which interrupts the game, or by an offence against the rules, or else from within, by a collapse of the play spirit, a sobering, a disenchantment.
The truly great advances of this generation will be made by those who can make outrageous connections, and only a mind which knows how to play can do that.
How do you interrogate a game? By playing it, and playing with it, critically and reflectively.
