On Gaming

I was discussing the motivation behind winning a game with a friend of mine who plays the incredibly intricate Warhammer 40,000 - a highly intricate game with pieces that move on the tabletop and attack one another in a raging war for victory. Unlike the typical response, he first mentioned the drive for an alpha male to succumb to the powers of a higher alpha - that is, people's desire to lose. If one's purpose is to strengthen oneself, he can only do this by challenging himself to be strengthened.

This strikes me as the purpose of winning games, more or less, though it is not a primal instinct.

The end of games are not easily defined, but much more so when compared to the end victory for life. In Warhammer 40,000, the victory comes with slaughtering the opponents in as quickly a time as possible - but that's just it: is it more of a win to beat them faster? More of a win to beat them with a challenging game? More of a win to subdue them instantaneously and make clear from the start that you were always better? No man can say. But what is defined is an objective: hold 3 points on the table from your opponent; hold the line against his soldiers and destroy as many units as possible; kill the enemy commander for an extra victory point, &c. There's a lot of sense to making this victory condition because it provides that challenge to some extent, provided one doesn't get too wrapped up in their superiority complex.

Life has no defined end. At least, not one that we can see. When progression goes on in the human body it takes place because of some event one would have never predicted; when growth goes on in the mind it takes place because of some incredible insight that one had never before realized. This is the theme of many recent blog posts - but I'll reiterate here due to its incredible significance. When one activates his drive to focus on a seeable end, as in a game, it gives him an easy opportunity to stretch himself and his thinking in the world of strategy (if it's a strategy game), or whatever other skill the game requires. It provides one with a drive they couldn't have otherwise had.

There's something unique about gaming in this respect. Unlike football, where heads clash together and the purpose of man is to show his strength - the man on the field being in control of himself only - strategy games - as it would be, perhaps, for the football coach - are incredibly intricate for the purpose of stretching one's mind. This is made possible by providing one with the satisfaction of a win, produced out of nothing, along with a provision of good sense in order to stand one's ground and accomplish it. The good sport is able to accept a loss and learn while still trying to obtain the victory. Competitive play provides that output of needing to win, and thereby stretch your mind, but many players play "for fun", which provides a different level of creativity - they do their best to imagine the realism of the situation, they create a plot and a story and develop their game into a mind game of a fantasy world they inhabit - something like a complex daydream. By so doing, they provide a new sort of advantage from gaming.