Why Do We Play Games?

Hey, Vsauce. Michael here. Why do humans play games? Whether it's a video game or a board game or a physical game, like soccer or football. I don't have to put the ball in the net to survive. And even if I did, why would I invite a goalie and another team? Games are weird. This led Bernard Suits to say in the '70s that a game is a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles. So why do we play sports and games? How should we feel about intellectualism versus athleticism? But most importantly, why do Americans call this game soccer while the English and the rest of the world call it football? It turns out that the word soccer doesn't come from the United States of America. Instead, the blame for the word goes to the British themselves. Specifically Oxford, where since 1875 it has been popular to add the suffix -er to the end of words. For example, calling Radcliffe Camera the Radder or these fivers and tenners. We have been playing games with balls and our feet ever since ancient times. all over the world. In fact, as recently as 200 years ago, many of these games called themselves football. A lack of standardization meant that it was difficult to all come together and agree on what you could or couldn't do with the ball or your feet. But luckily, in 1863, the Football Association was founded in London, England. Association football is what we most commonly mean nowadays when talking about football. Football. Football. Or soccer. But what's the connection? If the Oxford -er was added to association football, shouldn't we be calling the game associationer? Well, let's take a closer look at the word association. You see what's hiding in there? There she is. Soccer. But we're getting ahead of ourselves, because soccer, football, is just one type of game. Ultimately, What is a game? Well, one of my favorite ways of defining game comes from computer game designer Chris Crawford. Let's begin with a book. This is a great book. It's really fun, it's entertaining, but it's not a game. TV shows and movies are also not games because fundamentally they aren't interactive. But as soon as something is both fun and interactive, well, now we've got ourselves a A plaything. There are 2 types of playthings, according to Crawford. If you can play with the object and it's fun, but there's no goal or objective associated with it, it's a toy. If, however, there is an objective, something you're supposed to accomplish, well, now you're talking about a challenge. But there are 2 different types of challenges. If the challenge involves no other people or other agents, it's just you, for instance, playing alone with a Rubik's Cube, You've got yourself a puzzle. If, however, there are other people involved, well, now we've got ourselves a conflict. In a conflict, like a footrace, you aren't allowed to interfere with the other participants. This is what Crawford calls a competition. If, however, you are allowed to interact with and interfere with the other players and they can do the same to you, well, in that case, we are talking about a full-fledged Game. So, a game is interactive, goal-oriented, and involves other agents. For instance, other people who can interfere with and influence each other. Which means, technically speaking, that life is a game. I mean, real life. My life, your life, easily fit many definitions of game. And in life, There are games that we tend to call sports. Now, competency at sports can divide humanity into 2 groups: jocks, who are good at sports, and nerds, who aren't. Jocks are literally named after the jockstrap, which keeps your genitals supported while being athletic. But jocks are cool, right? They're fit, attractive, they get invited to all the cool parties where, in high school, they can do dangerous cool things like get drunk? And who are you if you don't get drunk? Well, what's the word drunk backwards? You are a nerd. But that's not the origin of the word nerd. There's much debate about where the word comes from, but what we do know is that it emerged as a slang term for lame or square in Detroit in the early 1950s. The first known use of the word in print came from Dr. Seuss himself and fundamentally it may come from the word nut, which meant a crazy person and was later altered to nert and finally nerd. It exists today as a word for unathletic people largely because it was popularized through its frequent use on the US TV show Happy Days. Whether you spend your time on athletic pursuits or intellectual pursuits, or both, games in some form are a part of your life. So, why do we play games? Humans and many other animals play. Perhaps play originated as a way of physically preparing our bodies for life's real challenges later on. That idea makes sense, but the evidence isn't convincing because, in the wild, play can often lead to a wasting of precious resources, injuries, and hardly comes close to simulating real attacks and life-threatening situations. The New York Times wrote a great article about this conundrum, pointing out that physically preparing the body may be less of a priority for play. Instead, the point of play might be preparing the brain. Play is good for the brain. Especially during formative juvenile years, when most of us have an instinctive urge to goof around, play and pretend anyway. Young rats, confined to cages with adult rats, who refused to play with them, grew up with smaller, less developed brains. This has led to the hypothesis that games play a role in the development of certain brain structures, especially the cerebellum, when we are young. But to be clear, the evidence does not show that play is vital for the development of these regions. Other methods, like exercises or teaching, may have a similar effect. They might not be as fun, but this is known as equifinality. So, there's debate as to just how vital play and games really are. Well, let's take a look at the rewards that games give us. In the first half of the 20th century, Abraham Maslow constructed a hierarchy of human needs. The concept is popular in developmental psychology as a way of thinking about human growth and what motivates us to do things or to not do things. In general, until the needs of a lower tier are fulfilled, an individual can't move on to fulfilling higher ones. For instance, achieving confidence or satisfying the desire to learn and explore aren't important to a person in fear for their life And safety. Play might be motivated by higher needs. Animals play, but as we've seen in nature, not the ones who are stressed or starving. The thing is, lower needs tend to be pretty clear-cut. If I'm hungry and I eat what I need, I'm done. It's not that complicated. But as creatures and brains and cultures become more complicated, so do their needs and the behaviors required to fulfill them. This brings us back to the fact that life itself fits Chris Crawford's definition of a game. Arguably, life is the largest and most complicated game on Earth. But playing your life isn't usually as easy as simply remembering to eat and drink and breathe. In life, knowing what the correct next move is isn't always easy. Feedback is rarely immediate. I don't know if the choices I made were the best, most perfect choices for me until way after I've made them, if even then. Is this person or city or career right for me? In life, the rules are complicated, the goals are indeterminate, and the methods for achieving them are often unknown or different for every single person. Plus, The rewards themselves are often slow to come or nonexistent. So, in the face of all of that, it's no surprise that we invented games within the larger game of life itself that ensure fast, easy to achieve, and understandable rewards. Animals play too, but the complexity of rules humans follow in their games in many ways reflect the complexity of the needs we find ourselves able to pursue. In life, I don't always know the right choice. I don't know the right job to apply for, how to explain something to a child, how to best help my friends, or when to call my mom. But in Bomberman, I know exactly what every power-up does every time all the time. In poker, a royal flush beats 2 of a kind, No question about it. Couldn't be more clear. But in my life, is an acquaintance or colleague really on my side? Well, in team sports, there's no unknown. Everyone is color-coded. Games and sports are a phenomenal way to feel the rewards we need without all of the unknowns of life. Even watching games and sports, merely being a spectator, can fulfill some of Maslow's needs. I can feel a sense of belonging by supporting a team, and by supporting a team, their successes can kinda become my successes. What a great way to get respect without doing a lot of work. It's known as birging— basking in reflected glory. The opposite is corfing— cutting off reflected failure. If a team is disgraced, I could easily say I was Not really ever that big of a fan anyway. Birging and corfing extend beyond sports. We birg and corf workplace projects, school projects, celebrities, election candidates. The point is, life is a game, but winning and losing are nebulous. So, we invented simpler games to provide psychological rewards faster and more efficiently than life itself does, which is why, at their darkest, games can lead to procrastination or addiction. But don't fear. You have the potential to become a jock at the game of life. It's just not always that fun. And whenever you play man-made games, rest assured that it's simply because you, and all of us, are able to pursue the fulfillment of needs higher than any other creature on Earth. And as always, thanks for watching. Oh, and if you want some soccer science, why not check out my video with Copa90 where we investigate whether or not it's possible to kick a football with so much spin that it not only curves but boomerangs back to the kicker. Okay. Bye. Bye.