Blips: Difficult to Swallow

Sources: Toys for Tight Schedules, Whew, Monopoly Isn't Getting Rid of Jail After All
Authors: Ann Zimmerman, Alexander Abad-Santos
Sites: The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Wire

The string of reports circulating about the new version of the ever-popular board game Monopoly, designed to be played in 30 minutes, are depressing on just about every level. The big takeaway from the initial article in The Wall Street Journal was that "jail" had been removed from the game board. Later it was revealed though a multitude of other sources that the "Go To Jail" space and the jail itself had in fact been retained (see above picture). Removing the jail was an easy target to attack to game as a more realistic version of reality, one where those who control monopolies can break the law and never see jailtime, but one that doesn't make for much of a positive moral lesson for children. Note that currently in Monopoly you go to jail if you have bad luck and land on the wrong space, which implies that everyone is up to illegal business, but only those who get caught get in trouble.

Where else to go with this horrible plot? How about the Hasbro PR person's use of the phrase "frictionless gaming experience" or their coining of the term "snack toy?" How about the fact that Monopoly Empire may be the most unabashed corporate shill in game board format for the franchise yet? At the very least it casts the widest net, featuring "big-name brands" instead of land properties. How about that no one is talking about how the game actually plays differently to make it work in a half hour setting? How about that since it's a board game, it's really easy to make your own rules and change your old Monopoly board into a totally new game? You know, pushing kids (or adults, for that matter) to be creative.

A shorter version of Monopoly could potentially be interesting. However, a frictionless snack toy where you vie to control Xbox and Coca-Cola instead of thinking up new rules for an old game with your friends, kind of sounds like the worst thing ever.

:image credit The Telegraph:

Blips: Against the Rules

Source: Reign in Drool
Author: Michael Thomsen
Site: The New Inquiry

Is it accurate to say that we "play" games? The use of the word "play" to describe what game participants do when operating the mechanics of a game doesn't seem wholly accurate to the historical understanding of the term. To "play" is to engage in chaos, to let your imagination run wild, totally ignorant to the constraints of systemic rules. Games on the other hand, are logic puzzles defined by their rules. While the macro activity of participating in a game often aligns with the frivolity of free form play, the act of "playing" in games often feels like anything but.

This is one of many issues brought up in Michael Thomsen in his wonderful recent essay for The New Inquiry's Games issue. He goes on to rail against gamification as taking the complacency-generating aspects of games and applying them to just about anything. Instead of using game mechanics to subversively reflect the already game-like systems workplace and political hierarchy, gamification adds a new layer of abstraction that further distances "players" from the reality of the situation. In games where you play against the computer, where the goal is to win, there is always a power dynamic between the the rules of the game (the master) and the player. Upon beating the game, you've conquered all of the challenges, but you never overtake power from the game. The game allows the player to possess enough power to satisfy, but you can never become the master. Why would we want to invite this kind of system into non-game environments?

Where I'll be critical of Thomsen is in his scope of video games. The term "game" has been going through its own identity crisis as of late with several titles of note leaning away from the traditional goal oriented structures of win/lose scenarios. Ironically these games have been chastised by vocal connoisseurs as not being games at all, but something else. In general, games are in a taxonomical predicament right now, and the most sensible solution seems to be to expand the scope of the word "game" to include all comers. "Games" really are the new "art," it seems. In light of this Thomsen also dismisses the expressive possibilities of games too quickly, which seems shortsighted at a time when developers are making significant strides in that realm.

That said, it's all too easy to get caught up in a defensive position about something that you care deeply about, so I welcome Thomsen's critical look at games and what it actually means to play.