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Two-thirds of American households play video games, or at least have someone in there playing video games for more than three hours per week. We spend over twice as much on video games these days as we do on movies. What is a game? What's the definition of it? And why are we so attracted to them? Why do they fascinate us so?

Games play an important, and arguably increasing, role in human life. We play games on our computers and our phones, watch other people compete in games, and occasionally break out the cards or the Monopoly set. What is the origin of this human impulse, and what makes for a great game? Frank Lantz is both a working game designer and an academic who thinks about the nature of games and gaming. We discuss what games are, contrast the challenges of Go and Poker and other games, and investigate both the “dark energy” that games can sometimes induce and the ways they can help us become better people. Support Mindscape on Patreon or Paypal. Frank Lantz is a game designer and Director of the Game Center at New York University. He co-founded Area/Code games, and is the designer or co-designer of numerous popular games, including Drop7 and Universal Paperclips. He is also responsible for a number of large-scale real-world games. He has taught at New York University, Parsons School of Design, and the School of Visual Arts. Web site NYU web page Wikipedia Talk on Go, Poker, and the Sublime Talk on Logic and Emotions in Games Twitter Universal Paperclips QWOP See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.