But first, what is a game?<\/p>\n
The word grows more interesting as our world\u2014and language itself\u2014grow more \u201cgamified.\u201d<\/p>\n
The classic definition of a game\u2014a set of rules for play or competition<\/a>\u2014 emphasizes its structure. A football field and a Monopoly board both come with instructions. When you gamify an assignment at a school or office, you create a rewards system to make it more competitive.<\/p>\n Yet when I suggest language is gamified, I don\u2019t mean language has more instructions; I mean language is more flexible. Our dictionaries and words are more open to play by everyone from songwriters and poets to the Twitterati. That includes the word “game.”<\/p>\n One early example is Robert Sherman\u2019s \u201cA Spoonful of Sugar<\/a>\u201d lyrics from Walt Disney\u2019s 1964 Mary Poppins<\/em>: \u201cIn every job that must be done\/ There is an element of fun\/ You find the fun and snap\/ The job’s a game.\u201d<\/p>\n While Julie Andrews defines gamification here, years before the first appearance of the word, she gamifies not with rules, but with pleasures. The song of a bird or honey for the bee\u2014or her own subversive nanny magic\u2014make the rules of labor more tolerable.<\/p>\n But play, imagination, and fun are harder to define, so the standing definition of a game sticks with the rules.<\/p>\n Still, breaking the rules is what the rapper Ice-T had in mind when he wrote, \u201cDon\u2019t hate the player; hate the game<\/a>\u201d in 1999. \u00a0In 2008, William Safire, in his On Language<\/em> column<\/a>, traced the phrase \u201cgame-changer\u201d through business, politics, and baseball back to a 1930\u2019s reference to the card game bridge. He also noted The Wall Street Journal<\/em> called the Internet itself \u201ca real game-changer\u201d in 1995.<\/p>\n All of these references treat a game as the game\u2014of life\u2014and something to manipulate creatively.<\/p>\n Which brings me to HBO\u2019s television show Game of Thrones<\/em>. Towards the end of its first season, villain Cersei Lannister used the series title and gave it a tagline in one of her spiteful speeches: \u201cWhen you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n Game of Thrones<\/em> is based on George R.R. Martin\u2019s book series A Song of Ice and Fire<\/em>, which focuses on the violent politics of a fantasy world of knights, queens, and dragons. The warring factions are often reduced to chess pieces on war maps.<\/p>\n This is Ice-T\u2019s and also The Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u2019s and the Internet\u2019s human game, where rules pale in comparison to the importance of strategies.<\/p>\n I learned in film school that many of the entertainments of my childhood had far greater connection to the real world than I\u2019d ever imagined. A simple survey course on science fiction showed me the Vietnam War\u2019s influence on the original Star Wars<\/em>, the McCarthyism and Communism underneath 1956\u2019s Invasion of the Body Snatchers<\/em>, and the atomic fear rooted in Warner Brothers 1952 animated short Duck Dodgers in the 24\u00bdth<\/sup> Century<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n Today is no different. Having watched Walt Disney Studios\u2019 three-hour superhero sequel to a record 21 films, Avengers: Endgame<\/em>, 48 hours before one of Game of Thrones<\/em> central and final episodes, \u201cThe Long Night,\u201d this past weekend, it was clear the strategies of factions and beliefs and leaders in the face of existential disaster are on our collective mind.<\/p>\n It\u2019s Game of Thrones<\/em>, however, that best illustrates the gritty cunning and compromise that make a winning strategy in our world, for good or ill. I honestly believe the show\u2019s unprecedented audience is watching for the slightest insight into how we can survive our present politics and future.<\/p>\n