why we game

Came across an interesting exposition on why we humanoids love to game. It comes from the novel “Blood Meridian” by Cormac McCarthy. My review for that work is forthcoming, but for the time being, the following passage may very well be the reason why we are so infatuated with Kratos and warcraftery and all the other derivations one can think of.

From Blood Meridian, page 249, Vintage International ed.:

The judge smiled. Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and the humiliation of defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stake because they inhere in the worth of the principals and define them. But trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all.

…

In such games as have for their sake the annihilation of the defeated the decisions are quite clear. This man holding this particular arrangement of cards in his hand is thereby removed from existence. This is the nature of war, whose stake is at once the game and the authority and the justification. Seen so, war is the truest from of divination. It is the testing of one’s will and the will of another within that larger will which because it binds them is therefore forced to select. War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is God.

Granted, this quote doesn’t apply to all genres of all games. But think about that the next time you play a first person shooter.