According to the text, playing is a significant concept that extends beyond biological or psychological means. I’ve never tried to intensely analyze why we play games – we play because we want to escape the real world for a little while. We play games for the same reasons we watch movies and read books. I do agree that we need a solid story/narrative in order to make a game meaningful and worth playing. Sometimes when I think about a game I’m playing, I realize how it’s basically just rules and equations that I need to carefully follow to win. If there wasn’t an interesting story behind the game, what would be the point of playing it? I remember the first time I really thought about what I was doing – I was playing Super Mario World for the Super Nintendo, and I was on a level where I had to make Mario fly for an extended period of time to collect coins. If I let him drop too far, he would miss the coins and I would have to run backwards and start again. I was really determined to get the coins, but in the end what was I actually accomplishing? I was trying to make one object hit other objects by pressing a complex set of buttons. The only reason I was doing it was to gain coins (in other words, the story gave motivation to complete the task).
This is why games like snake, in their most basic form, cannot hold our attention for more than a brief amount of time. The motion of directing the snake gets repetitive, and we lose sight of the goal. Playing is meaningful, though I don’t believe it necessarily has to have a meaning to be playing. I can try to throw a crumpled piece of paper into a garbage pail just for the sake of doing it. I am still “playing” even if there isn’t real meaning by it. Or maybe it only counts as playing if I imagine I am shooting a basketball. Perhaps I will have to wait until further readings to fully determine whether or not playing is always meaningful.
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