Good morning, folks. Thank you for coming to the presentation of the reflection paper “We need to focus on rules”, which I submitted together with my dear friend and colleague dr. Adriano Holanda.
You may find it convenient to download a handout for this presentation. Just follow the QR code, or the address below it. (I have also typed it in the comments area).
The handout includes our e-mail addresses, and we will be delighted to exchange ideas with you.
Unfortunately, doctor Holanda will not be joining us today. But I will endeavor to fill his absence with the help of two guest experts.
Messers Calvin and Hobbes join us today because they are the world’s leading experts on Calvinball, a game so great that it has its own theme song.
We will table this for the time being, but we will return soon to our distinguished guests.
This is a reflection paper. As such, it does not present results or proposals; it invites reflection on an issue related to the conference.
Our chosen issue is rules agency — essentially, how players deal with the rules of a game, and what can they do about them.
We contend that rules agency is an important ethical aspect of games, and that it merits more attention.
we distinguish games with full rules agency and games with reduced rules agency. Full rules agency is usually found in non-digital games, and it includes
(1) learning rules and / or teaching them; this is important, because in any given non-digital game, at least one of the players must learn the rules in order to play;
(2) implementing rules, that is, making rules work as intended;
(3) enforcing rules, that is, preventing and correcting behavior which deviates from the rules; and
(4) changing the rules, and / or creating rules.
On the other hand, reduced rules agency is found in many digital games:
(1) players do not need to learn the rules in order to play — many games pride themselves on this;
(2) the digital device implements the rules, and
(3) it also enforces the rules; and
(4) players will rarely be able to change the rules — although some players may resort to cheats, loopholes, and so forth.
There is one aspect of rules agency, which is so fundamental, that it is always present in all games: the will to play.
In order to use this agency, I decide to play a game, and thus I subject myself to the rules which I am creating by that same act. I have both created a game and became a player in it.
And this is an aspect which goes quite beyond games, because this is the same agency which several philosophers have identified as the foundation of all power structures — such as the modern State.
Furthermore: since rules are essentially restraints, this act of creation / subjection is an act of self-restraint — and this has a very deep significance…
… because self-restraint is an essential element of all human societies, as Norbert Elias pointed out.
The seminal book by Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process, was published only a year after Huizinga published Homo ludens. A few years before, Jean Piaget had published The moral judgement of the child. What is interesting here is that the departing point for his study was the organization of a group of swiss children playing Marbles. Piaget was especially interested in understanding how the children learned to deal with both the rules of the game, and the rules of that player group — that is, he was investigating the process of acquisition of rules agency by the children.
We can now come back to our guest experts. Here we can see Messers Calvin and Hobbes exhibiting full rules agency. They have manifested the will to play, and by this very act became players in a game.
Calvinball has only two permanent rules: players wear a mask, and it may never be played the same way twice. As such, creating and changing rules is an integral part of the game; and here we see them implementing and enforcing the rules.
What is really important here is that, by rules agency, they are able to grasp some essential aspects of all rules: (1) they are arbitrary; and (2) no rule may self-implement.
People who are not familiar with these aspects of rules may fall into what I call the hobbit’s delusion: the delusion that we have no agency on The Rules…
… but the ability to confront rules, to question them, is a valuable one indeed.
Well… what can we do about that? As game designers, as game researchers, as game practitioners — what can we do about that?
We have no answers to present. Indeed, we offer this discussion as a challenge, an invitation to the collective creativity of communities such as this gathering.
We contend that game designers should be aware of the ethical aspects of their craft, and we are deeply interested in witnessing what may become of this issue in the years to come.
So, I thank you very much for your interest, and I hope to hear from you.