what makes game, and what makes work?

I speak in lieu of Ian Bogost's recent article, Video Games Are Better Without Gameplay. I have studied Bogost in university before this. One of the things to be aware of is that his title are often moot, a series of jokes meant to garner attention and debate. I am reminded of two foreign policy papers I recently read: Cyber War Is Not War and Cyber War Is War, both written by colleagues at Cambridge taking fun jabs at each other while bringing to light the destruction cyber warfare can potentially inflict. (As an aside, Bogost also has written Video Games Are Better Without Characters and Video Games Are Better Without Stories.)

But how moot is the title, really? Can one imagine a game...without gameplay? A number of my friends play a game known as Girl's Frontline, a Chinese mobile title where you set up a squadrons of "T-dolls" - which seem to be rifles turned into female soldiers by some weird alien technology - and then they just kind of…watch the game play itself. The thinking and challenge comes in how best to arrange the girls so they can beat the level while not spending too many resources. But the rest of the game is all but a very repetitive TV show. Doesn't that sound like a snoozefest? Yet Girl's Frontline exceeded 17 million USD in revenue in FY 2018 (source). 

See, the underlying idea Bogost puts forward is this: what makes the human mind differentiate "work" and "play"? For example, what is the difference between spending one's evenings pressing buttons at a grocery store cash register versus spending evenings pressing the Start Mission button in Girl's Frontline? And there's no reason to stop at games. People run grueling marathons, research and write articles on Wikipedia, build things out of wood or metal, the list goes on. What makes these recreation and not work?

Clearly there exists some answer, some kind of subconscious mental divide - it's quite doubtful for instance that a manager can merely tell employees to "think of work like play" and suddenly expect increases in motivation (although I do expect there are managers who have tried). Academic theories surrounding the work/play paradigm delve into a blend of motivation psychology, behavioral economics, and philosophy. The research is very incomplete when trying to put all of these schools together: it's an area that currently lacks expertise (given its multidisciplinary nature and relative newness) and funding. But all game designers know this much at least: a large number of very popular games get away with having a lot of "grind", that is, repetitive in-game actions that are not intrinsically enjoyable to most but are done solely for in-game rewards. In fact, having a certain quantity of grind often improves games in terms of popularity (although too much grind is often detracting).

Bogost also takes another angle: the "goose game" he talks about - its official name being Untitled Goose Game - is a currently trending comedic title. Bogost maintains the Goose Game's popularity actually comes more from watching others play the game on streaming services and less from the enjoyment of playing the game itself, thus begging the question if it's the game themselves that is really fun, or if it's something else; perhaps the sense of wonder or humor we inject into the experience and that designers have learned to facilitate. But it seems many people actually did enjoy playing the Goose Game, so the point of the article (along with the misleading title) was missed by most. I merely think Bogost would have been clearer had he cited League of Legends instead.

Video Games Are Better Without Gameplay doesn't really seek answers, but to simulate discussion. To myself, the discussion around games forever seeks to deteriorate to uninformed arguments, as people always think they know something about games just because they play. (A familiar sentiment to me: as a music student prior, I find the world is grotesquely misinformed on what makes themselves enjoy certain music.) My goal is to research so I don't succumb to the same pitfall. And if I can share a bit of that with the people around me, why not?

Debunking the Tencent conspiracy theory

Gaming communities have begun discussing political issues around China after the barring of top Hearthstone player Blitzchung for expressing his support for Hong Kong, which has resulted in employee walkouts at Blizzard and boycotts.

But I'm not here to talk about the Blitzchung drama itself; rather, I seek to talk about a common argument I've been reading on social media regarding the Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent Holdings Ltd. Despite what the online world thinks, I conclude that the Tencent issue is ultimately flawed, an argument that straddles paranoia and conspiracy theory; however, some of the effects attributed to Tencent might still appear to occur for unrelated reasons. Hopefully this reading should shed some background light into an increasingly important topic for anyone who plays video games, even mildly.

The internet's logic surrounding Tencent generally works as follows:

1. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has at least partial control over major Chinese companies (or at least the investment conglomerate Tencent Holdings Ltd) that they can influence the operations and resource flow of said companies.
2. Tencent invests into many major Western video game companies, giving them executive and operational control.
3. Therefore, one should not buy games from companies with Tencent investment because:
1. money spent on related games will go to the Chinese government; 
2. installing related games puts one at risk of embedded software that enables Chinese government surveillance;
3. companies that Tencent has major equity share in may engage in censorship of Chinese issues.

the first and most standout feature to note is that online communities greatly overestimate Tencent's influence over their most complained-about investments - namely, Epic Games, Riot Games, and Activision-Blizzard. Regarding Epic and ActiBlizz, Tencent is actually a minority shareholder, meaning all they have no real power over either company. This isn't just speculation; it is law (in just about everywhere) that a shareholder requires ownership of at least 50% of shares to force decisions. For all its investing, Tencent only meets the 50% rule in two major English-speaking gaming companies - Riot Games and Grinding Gear Games - which are not quite as often complained about. Even regarding Riot and GGG, these relationships are listed only as equity shareholding and are not necessarily managerial. (If this confuses you, think of it this way: Warren Buffett owns 100% of Apple share, but that doesn't quite mean he's exercising that power to decide on the features of the latest iPhone. In contrast, Elon Musk has 51% share control of SpaceX and is CEO, indicating he calls the shots.)

The next biggest reason is that the link between Tencent and the Chinese government is weaker than online communities suggest. Tencent was founded as a public company and has about as transparent of a history as one can expect from a typical corporation. The only concrete link I was able to find between Tencent and the CPC is that their CEO is a registered party member. While it is very possible Tencent may retain an underhanded friendship with the CPC, said links appear much weaker than actual companies to be afraid of: for example, Huawei has long-standing direct ties to CPC military technology, both historical and present, and even its basic equity structure is shady - a world of difference from Tencent's public, internationally-traded listings. Finally, Tencent's other subsidiaries have relatively drama-free histories, and has even had disagreements with the CPC on a few small fronts (such as censorship on their social media platforms).

This clearly puts (3a) and (3b) in the realm of general impossibility, as there is no evidence that Tencent ever had the power nor the interest in doing these things, and in fact it would harm their profit-seeking incentives. But (3c) is clearly happening as we speak. Undoubtedly, gaming companies have been censoring games for over two decades to bring them to China, and there is no doubt they will continue to do so; but one would be mistaken if they think Tencent is the main reason behind this. Rather, it is because there are over 1.3 billion mainland Chinese and gaming is a very common hobby amongst Chinese youth. It doesn't take a businessman to see the evident connection.

And even putting cold profit-seeking aside, a misconception amongst Western media is that the Chinese youth would change their opinions if they were exposed to uncensored knowledge of the CPC's history, leading them to conclude the only barrier is a legal one. The reality is that mainland Chinese youth trend towards nationalism. If you thought the recent Blitzchung actions were offensive, well, the opposite is equally offensive to the Chinese people. Given people tend not to enjoy things that are offensive to them, companies risk backlash from the general Chinese customer base in addition to the CPC's legal ramifications. From a purely utilitarian perspective, "kowtowing to China" could even be seen as positive, as game devs and other businesses stand make a larger population of people happier with their products or services.

To conclude, we have established the gaming community's imagination of Tencent as a malicious arm of the CPC has very little basis in object reality. The idea that installing Fortnite or Call of Duty onto your personal computer will somehow compromise your personal data and sell it off to the Chinese is absurd to the point of conspiracy theory* - there is no real sign that Tencent ever had the power nor the interest in doing so. However, this is hardly to say that China-related issues in gaming should be ignored. Censorship in particular has every mark of a phenomena that will continue to increase, requiring gaming companies to become ever more nimble in navigating delicate political landscapes.

*Tongue-in-cheek: If one wants an actually viable conspiracy theory, consider that these data-selling rumors might be proliferated on social media by Russian propaganda agents. (Russia is a historical foe of China after all.)