Recently, Time Magazine released its list of the top 10 games of 2024, with the top three being Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, Starfield, and Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth. The first Chinese 3A single-player game to explode in popularity this year, Black Myth: Wukong, came in seventh.
You may not be familiar with every game on the list, but broadly speaking, nearly all of them are 3A titles. “3A” refers to games that require a massive investment of time, money, and resources. In short, developing these kinds of games is very expensive.
That’s right, expensive. This has become a clear trend in the gaming industry. In fact, beyond claiming an increasing share of financial resources, games have become more prominent in other fields as well. Over the years, a term has gained popularity—gamification.
Gamification refers to transferring game design concepts to all non-game sectors. It includes things like gamified management, gamified education, gamified drama, gamified learning, gamified marketing, and so on. This list could go on for a long time.
Are these so-called gamified designs useful? The answer is, at least, controversial. For example, this summer, MIT Technology Review published an article discussing a phenomenon where we experienced two peaks of technological optimism in the first decade of the 21st century.
Technological optimism refers to the belief that technology can solve all of humanity’s problems. It was during this period that many seemingly effective methodologies emerged, such as the “10,000-Hour Rule,” the “4-Hour Work Week,” and the concept of “crowd wisdom.”
Yes, gamification also became popular during this period. According to the article, many people during this time used gamification as a guise for doing business. Some even say that game companies promoted gamification to shed the image of games being mere distractions and to reframe them as tools for productivity. However, these methods may not always work.
But putting aside these controversies, one thing is certain: the presence of games in the real world is growing stronger.
Today, let’s talk about games. Recently, a new book was published titled Playing with Reality—How Games Have Shaped Our World, which, when translated by Cai Tou, became 把玩现实：游戏如何塑造我们的世界. This book was also selected as one of The Economist’s best business, economics, and technology books of the year.
Although the book does not yet have a Chinese version, the insights within it are certainly worth your immediate attention. To be honest, this is one of the most insightful books about games I’ve read in recent years. Its author, Kelly Crandall, is a neuroscientist who has worked at MIT, UC Berkeley, University College London, and DeepMind. The games she refers to aren’t just narrow, traditional games, but all activities and interactions with game-like elements, including lotteries, gambling, and social media.
Next, let’s talk about Kelly Crandall’s new insights into games. We will focus on three key points.
First, it’s not that we play games, but rather that games play us.
What does this mean? Let’s start with a debate—are humans inherently selfish? According to game theory, human behavior is driven by the pursuit of self-interest, so humans are selfish. However, Kelly argues that this model is fundamentally flawed.
Whether humans are selfish or altruistic doesn’t depend on us, but rather on what kind of game we’re playing. If the game designer assumes humans are selfish, players will behave selfishly. Conversely, if the game assumes people are altruistic, players will act altruistically.
There’s a board game designer named Reiner Knizia, who puts it this way: the way a game rewards players determines their behavior.
For example, in Monopoly, players must think like capitalists to win—and the greedier, the better. Even if you’re a person who loves to share and is deeply altruistic in real life, rest assured, you’ll probably start thinking like a greedy capitalist while playing.
Similarly, to play Grand Theft Auto well, you have to think like a gangster, even if you’ve never broken a traffic law in real life. To be good at Assassin’s Creed, you must think like an assassin, even if you personally abhor violence.
As Kelly puts it, we can only play the games available to us, not the ones we wish to play. Your character traits depend on the design of the game. It’s not you who determines the rules of the game, but the rules of the game shape your behavior. This is what Kelly means when she says, it’s not us playing games, it’s games playing us.
Likewise, this insight can be applied to the real world. If a company designs its system assuming that employees don’t love their jobs and need to be constrained by rules, then employees may start to act less motivated over time. That’s why companies with strict work hours often see employees racing to punch out at the end of the day. In contrast, flexible work environments tend to see employees not in a rush to leave.
What’s more important is that this influence is subtle, and the people involved may not even realize it. People may unconsciously align themselves with a particular game’s rules. For example, in recent years, some have said the world resembles a shabby stage production, and that their companies feel like shabby stage productions. The underlying cause is not necessarily a lack of professionalism, but a problem with the company’s game rules and reward system. People may act like a shabby stage production because they subconsciously believe that aligns with the game rules.
That’s Kelly’s first insight.
Second, games foster innovation.
Why is that? It’s because of the nature of games. Kelly believes one of the key aspects of games is that they reduce the cost of many things.
For example, she argues that humans initially designed games to create enjoyment out of nothing. That is, even when someone hasn’t gained anything in the real world—no friends, no money, no career success—they can still experience similar joy through a game. Kelly points out that the Lydians 3,000 years ago, during a famine, alternated between eating and playing games as a way to survive. Many of the games we play today trace their origins back to the Lydians.
Games reduce the cost of both gaining pleasure and making mistakes. Many corporate coaches promote a philosophy that safely making mistakes helps people grow, and games provide the perfect environment for this.
In other words, games create a low-cost environment for both gaining and failing, which is highly conducive to innovation.
In the past, many people thought that from an evolutionary perspective, the harsher the environment, the more likely it is to produce stronger species. However, Kelly observes that harsh environments actually lead to homogeneity, while more relaxed environments foster diversity. The more diverse species are, the more exploratory they become—they don’t just wait for the environment to select them; they actively explore new, more suitable environments.
This logic is similar to the idea that children raised in wealthier families tend to have broader horizons and are more likely to seize new opportunities, whereas children from poorer families may develop a more narrow, practical focus.
Kelly says, One of the purposes of playing games is to develop intelligence, and games are a form of learning. Even if you stop playing games as an adult, the games you played as a child significantly shaped the way you think about the world.
From this perspective, Kelly suggests that if you want to understand the wisdom of a culture, one of the best ways is to play its traditional games. For example, to learn Chinese wisdom, start by learning Go. To understand the mindset of the investment world, try playing Guandan. To understand medieval noble thinking, try playing chess.
Simply put, games provide a safe environment to make mistakes and explore new ideas. Playing games from different cultural backgrounds can also provide cross-cultural insights. This is Kelly’s second insight.
Third, games have a stronger role in reality than you might think. The world is full of games.
For example, games have a longer history than many realize. Kelly argues that the history of games is even older than the brain itself. Whenever two living beings interact, even bacteria, they exhibit game-like behavior.
Furthermore, games have long been an important decision-making tool. For example, in biblical times, the Israelites used lotteries to determine how to distribute inheritance, which is a form of a game.
Games have also historically been a critical tool for gaining inspiration and discovering knowledge. During the Renaissance in Europe, gambling was extremely popular. It is said that as people rolled dice, they became more aware of uncertainty, which eventually led to the invention of probability theory.
There are many similar discoveries, but we won’t go into them here.
Finally, after learning all of this, what can we do? According to Kelly, we can change our perspective and think not as players, but as game designers. In other words, we need to have a broader perspective, step out of our limitations, and recognize the rules, patterns, and external factors that influence success and failure, so that we can make better decisions.
As Kelly says, games have one attribute that has never changed: they help us discover who we are.
That’s all for today’s discussion on this topic.
