Thanks for your comment! I do think there is a middle ground between loose, improvised play and games as described by formal game theory — the kinds of games where rules give structure to the play, making it possible to include more people, and where the constraints imposed are not barriers to creativity but, instead, because they create a universe that adheres to certain rules, make space and opportunity for *more* creativity. An example from my art-school training would be constraining the size of sketches to ensure they are not too formal, elaborate or overconsidered. My sense is that a game should have as many rules as necessary but no more. Definitely worth more discussion.

“It seems they are rejecting the very technologies they are in the process of inventing.” When I read that, I took a few deep breaths. Because it’s true.

When intelligent people are given the freedom to organize their own work, this is how they do it. With improvisation, play, rules that aren’t firm or rigidly applied, on a playing field that doesn’t have well defined edges, and where everything is always overflowing, or breaking down and being repaired.

It’s only when people are tasked to design other people’s work that they leave all that behind, and try to create strict, unambiguous rules, playing fields with well-defined edges, and structures that constrain first, enable second.

You talk about the old paradigm of the “industrial revolution” but I think your piece shows that the problem has carried forward into the post-industrial world, because it’s actually about the difference between organizing our own work vs organizing other people’s work.

I was struck how your piece slipped from games, the real-world spontaneous social activities, to “Games” as theorized by Game Theory , formal, quantitative, rule-governed predictable activities. The sociology of work shows us that “Games” have a lot to do with how people justify their actions (especially to their bosses) but they have little to do with how things get done. Twas ever thus.

The thing that makes a game great is the experience, and I think that audiences enjoy games to the degree that they can place themselves, in their imagination at least, “in the game.” Many games are also aesthetically pleasing, indeed some would call them an art form.

Knowledge games as a category, in my mind, are specifically aimed at exploring complex or ambiguous spaces — the experience of the game is at once a creative act, a skill-building, as well as an insight-generating, activity. Its primary value is for the participants.

When games get “serious” as you put it, is also a point when they have become formalized and ritualized. By this time the value for discovery and new insights is diminished. So maybe by the time a knowledge game becomes a serious game, then it’s no longer a knowledge game but has become simply a game.

As far as the league, the results of a knowledge game are in the insights, products or services that it generates, and the arena for this is the business and social environment.

Most knowledge games aren’t win-lose because they aren’t zero-sum games; they have a tendency to enlarge the pool of resources and opportunity for everyone. So I wouldn’t expect to see rankings and standings anytime soon.

1. Great games have audiences. Soccer’s audience is world wide, college football’s audience is passionate. There’s audiences for online games like quake and warcraft. There’s even audiences for curling. I would suggest that when a game get’s serious, it gets and audience. What does this mean for participation? Is there an audience for knowledge games?

2. Team profit, leagues administer. FIFA is a non-profit. They play in countries and look to benefit the economy. They sponsor young players, and try to give back. They have a steady revenue, and don’t need to grow. Manchester united on the otherhand, is a business. They sell shirts, swag, and tickets. They buy players, and sell happiness. Where is our league, so that we can build our teams?

I was about to ask you what the difference between play and gaming was, and then you answered it with that last comment.

Love the few sentences about index cards as game pieces and the whiteboard as a playing field. Wish I’d read that before the Vizwriters webinar yesterday.

- Austin

I agree that play is a powerful force for creativity. And I am not saying that play isn’t important in and of itself. But games are a specific subset of play.

When you engage in play, you are not necessarily playing a game.

Pretending is a form of play. So is making, let’s say making a sand castle. But in themselves these forms of play are not games. A game has rules and outcomes. Games are goal-oriented.

Yes, games are structured play, and in this structure I find something important that distinguishes it from other forms of play. At its heart, a game is a model of a system, and playing a game is the way that we engage with that model. Play in all its forms can be seen as “rehearsal for life.” But games are about interacting with systems.

My sense is that the more complex the system, the more helpful it can be to find a way to make a game that’s an interactive model of that system.

I am not arguing that play has no role in business. I certainly hope you didn’t read it that way!

I chose to focus on games rather than the larger domain of play, not because I don’t think play is important, but because it gives a scope and focus to the inquiry.

Play is a fundamental, innate activity of man – a natural state. Play is inherently self-generated, even when it is a group activity. Play allows us to tap into a more elemental part of ourselves – away from the constant and repetitive thinking that is generated by the ego. So the notion of “serious play” is enough without making an argument for complexity.