Notes: Chris Crawford 'Why We Play Games'

Some notes after reading of Chris Crawford’s 1982 ‘Art of Games Design’.

I’m just beginning to get a handle on this stuff. I am not a gamer, I have bought several games (plus a Playstation, or two, and a Nintendo something or other, and maybe something else…) as presents but never played them. In that regard I have contributed to their popularity but never been drawn in as a participant. I remain skeptical about ‘entering the zone’ but am becoming actively interested in the medium because I am finding interesting personalities within it. I will document both this enquiry and any gaming I undertake.

Firstly I wanted to know more about Chris Crawford, and there seems a lot to know. He was a physicist who liked to stretch out playing strategic, intelligent board games.

“In 1966, a friend showed me a paper wargame, "Blitzkrieg". We played it, I became an avid wargamer, and from there started thinking of my own designs. When computers became available, I built one and programmed it with a wargame. In 1979, I got a job at Atari”

So there he is at the epicenter, but sees the writing on the wall:

“I very much doubt that games will ever evolve into anything like books or movies. The games industry had the opportunity to do so in the mid to late 80s, and it consciously rejected that opportunity in favour of short-term success. It has now worked itself into a small but profitable hole from which it can never extricate itself.

Its audience is precisely defined, both in the positive sense AND the negative sense. We know exactly who our customers are: young males. We also know exactly who our customers AREN'T: everybody else. Worse, everybody else knows it, too.”

He then embarks on a two-decade crusade for Interactive Storytelling as the Next Thing. His reputation and his financial future are at stake. I won’t make any comments on this enterprise, but I see he has become somewhat embittered by the massive industry that have supplanted his hopes and wishes for a better, more inquisitive, open-ended and more dignified gaming culture.

“Everything is derivative” he laughs as he tours an enormous gaming convention in an interview between Chris and the contemporary games designer, Jason Rohrer.

What intrigued me further is how incomplete their picture is. The uncertainty expressed was really stimulating and left me wondering about the possibilities for the future.

I am linking the first (of 5) of this filmed interview from 2009, please watch them all! I even downloaded two of Jason’s games and find their ‘smallness’ an absolute joy. Kim and I played them last night and had fun. I aim to write and thank him…