Some years ago I gave up playing games.
I occasionally backslide and start playing online chess again.
I think The Player of Games by Iain M Banks is a big part of why. It’s my favourite novel in The Culture series. I’ve read it many times and will hopefully read it many more.
The book is on one level a quite gentle and amusing fantasy, a bit like The Hobbit in space, or Wind In The Willows with a galactic empire.
But on a much darker level it is also a critique of games, and game players, and the kind of intelligence that excels at games.
It’s not a condemnation of playing games for fun. IIRC Banksy would write for half of the year, and in the other half do things like playing video games.
In my own experience I realised that game play and writing just couldn’t coexist. The mind that was good at games was very different from the mind that was good with words, and the imagination that could dream stories. So I chose writing.
Also after decades of chess playing I was still crap and would regularly get beaten by 9 year old Korean kids on Chess dot com.
Stick to your strengths.
This short clip from the Hippies With Guns video focuses on The Player of Games and its darker meaning.
Damien Walter 