Playing to Play, not Playing to Win (or, One Must Imagine Mario Happy)
Every Monday night at eleven pm, I meet up with some friends to play a round of golf. Miniature golf, that is. I know that seems a little bit late — and sometimes it is. But every Monday, schedules permitting, we come together wherever we are — Texas, Michigan, Ontario, even England sometimes, or wherever else we might be if someone’s traveling for some reason. We started playing together at some point during the pandemic (which is still not over), and we’ve kept up the habit ever since. Not in person, of course — we play across the distances that separate us in VR, playing Mighty Coconut’s Walkabout Mini-Golf on the Quest headset.
(This is not an endorsement or recommendation of the Quest — Meta has always been a pretty shady company, and it’s gotten a lot worse recently, but we’re surviving in late-stage capitalism, and sometimes you just gotta find the joy where you can.)
Aside from Beat Saber or Pistol Whip, which I count as exercise, I probably spend more time in Walkabout Golf than any other VR app. It’s extremely straightforward — you get in, alone or with some friends, you choose a course from the ever-growing options available, and knock a ball around for a little while. The graphics are relatively low-poly and incredibly charming, the level design is fantastic, and aside from a few fun diversions like a driving range and scavenger hunts, Walkabout primarily does just the one thing — mini-golf — and it does it remarkably well.
The other thing it also does remarkably well is provide a space for people to just, like, be in. Even in the lobby area, that’s just the driving range, a sample golf course with no scoring, the shack where you pick your ball, putter, and fiddle with your avatar, and a raft floating lazily around the island, it’s just really pleasant to hang out there. Before jumping into the game, we’ll often just chill in the starting area for a while, catching up on the week and chatting — I’ve even used it as a place to have virtual “dates” with my partner while they’re out of town.
The game is more than just the game, it’s the whole experience, system, environment, that the game provides. We’ve played other VR games together — a star trek bridge simulator, a cooking robot thing, some virtual escape rooms, and they’re all fun, but we always come back to Walkabout — it’s just… good at what it does. I don’t know that it intentionally aims to be “cozy”, but it definitely does provide that coziness, even when you’re in a supervillain’s volcano lair or the candy-coated hellscape of Sweetopia.
I noticed something else a while ago, too, while playing our Monday night Walkabout. Golf, miniature golf included — especially mini-golf, in my experience — is a competitive game. You take turns hitting a tiny ball into a tiny hole while overcoming various obstacles, and you try to do it in the fewest strokes possible. If you get fewer strokes than anyone else, you win!
And we definitely try to win, because, you know, that’s the game. But there’s something else happening — when this group is hanging out playing golf, and I don’t know how intentional this is, we tend to support each a lot, in some interesting ways. We cheer when someone gets a hole in one, and we groan when someone narrowly misses a clean shot. There’s a feature that lets you replay your putt, and we’ll often replay our shots for each other so we can see how to approach a tricky hole, or avoid falling into the same trap that someone else did — or just to marvel at a magnificent or completely improbable hole in one or something. We’ll check for someone to see if they have a straight shot, search for lost balls for each other, or even mark the rail by holding our club at just the right spot to help someone make that rebound that’d be a best guess, otherwise.
So even though we’re still competing, all playing our best and trying to win, we’re not jerks about it, and we don’t try to get ahead by screwing the other players over. Nobody whines that they’re not winning by enough, or that they’re so far behind that they may as not play any more. We want to get our best score, break our records, and win the round, but we’re also invested in helping each other do that too. If we succeed, awesome! And when everyone is playing at the top of their game, winning just feels better, you know? I guess that’s just being a good sport, maybe?
But it’s not even about winning, really, is it?
We’re playing the game because, well, we like playing it, not because we have to win, for whatever reason. And that’s not just because we’re there to enjoy each other’s company — which we are — but because we’re there to play with each other. We could be doing anything, just hanging out on a zoom call, watching a movie online together, or whatever else people do, but playing mini-golf in Walkabout lets us hang out in a way that tickles something else, too.
And this isn’t just about mini-golf, either, right? The same thing happens when I’m playing board games like Arcs or Harmonies with my partner Nic, or with the folks that I hang out and play with at BGG.Con twice a year. And still, these games can be extremely competitive — this isn’t a garden party, it’s a GARDEN COMPETITION. The intense space opera feel of Arcs gets us really emotionally invested in the game play, and there’s often cries of victory or howls of defeat or vocal admiration of a particularly crafty play.
But even in these games, we still play well together — offering advice on possible good moves, pointing out mistakes or things someone might have overlooked, sharing strategies and tips, and so on. Everyone I enjoy playing games with shares this quality, right? Everyone is there to play and win, but nobody is a dick about it. We want to come out on top, but it’s more important to have a good time, even if coming out on top is what’s fueling the engine that lets us have that particular kind of good time.
For us, playing games is about enjoying the process, not just about getting the most points. (Even though points are good, you want points.) The structure of a game, most games, is really interesting to me, because we saddle ourselves with these rules and restrictions and very specific tasks to complete, assigning arbitrary value to certain actions and outcomes within that structure. If we do certain things a certain way, make certain moves, we perform “better”. However, we’ve chosen to engage in this activity to produce a certain feeling or a particular kind of enjoyment, and we play with each other in order to achieve that, together, win or lose.
And there’s no actual prize for winning in most cases, right? (I’m not talking about professional sports or gambling games for money here, of course.) The prize we win, whatever happens in the game itself, is the time we’ve spent together. It’s the play itself that matters. When we play roleplaying games, or story games, there usually isn’t a win condition at all — we play purely for the enjoyment of playing and doing things that we enjoy. So yeah, even in competitive games that you can win or lose — or cooperative ones, for that matter — the main reason we’re there is the act of playing, not victory at any cost.
Of course, not everyone shares this perspective — everyone’s got their own reasons for playing games, and that’s fine — but honestly… the people who don’t just aren’t as enjoyable for me to play with. (And I’ve played with more than a few of those people in my time, and I’m happy to give them a pass these days.) I appreciate playing a game within the framework of trying your best to achieve a good — or the best — score, because striving for that goal is part of what makes the act of play enjoyable.
But it’s not the main point, right? The main thing is to enjoy the process of trying to achieve that victory condition, with or against others, whether you actually do it or not. If you don’t wind up winning, that’s totally okay — hopefully, if it’s a good game and the vibes are there, you had a good time. And if you didn’t have a good time win or lose, it might not be the game for you, and you probably shouldn’t play it any more.
The goal is meaningless in itself, but it gives meaning to the things we do to try to achieve it.
And… that concept is reflected in life itself, right? Nobody ultimately “wins” life, in the end. We’re all going to the same place, rich or poor, loved or lonely, meek or powerful. We — or society — set up these artificial measures of what it means to be successful, like money, social status, appearances, even relationships or health, to signify achievement, to show that we’re “winning”. I mean, maybe health isn’t all that artificial, but most of the things we judge ourselves or each other are.
We work and struggle and strive for these things, but in the big picture, they don’t matter, even a little bit. In two hundred years, it’s likely that nobody will remember you or anything you’ve done at all. In a million years, or a few billion — which is nothing compared to the scale of the universe as a whole — everything we know about this planet and everyone who’s ever been on it will be completely and forever gone.
Grim? Maybe. But it goes to my main point here — when literally nothing matters, but we’ve set up these arbitrary and meaningless goalposts for ourselves, the short time we have to play is what truly matters. The aspiration to do something, anything, within the rules that we’ve created for ourselves is the actual important part. Personally, I feel a little bit sad for people who genuinely believe that winning is the important part.
Winning or losing isn’t really significant, because nobody is actually going to win in the end — what’s really important is the act of playing itself. The people who desperately need to die with the most money, or the biggest house, or the most successful business really do miss the essence of the journey we’re all on.
I mean, it’s classic absurdism, right, finding meaning in the meaninglessness. One must imagine Mario happy. Honestly, this is partly why games and play fascinate me so much. They reflect, in a small way, what we are all doing, whether we like it or not. It feels really great to sink that impossible hole in one, even if it all goes away when we flip the off switch.
I think I really want to take a closer look at the latter half of my life, and try to think about and identify which parts I’m trying to “win” at, and which parts I should just simply enjoy for what they are. I think I’ve done an okay job of this so far, but approaching things with a more purposeful mindset regarding this stuff sure won’t hurt.
Winning or doing well isn’t completely unimportant — it’s kind of what gives the game structure, after all. But the ending isn’t the most important part, it’s all the stuff that happens between powering up and shutting the system down.
So yeah, I guess the main point of all this is, I feel like my life is better when I align myself with the value of being present and enjoying the game for what it is, instead of how it ends. And consciously stepping back from playing with people who don’t understand that, or who understand but are unwilling to simply enjoy just doing the thing more than winning — even if that joy is shaped by the win conditions we give ourselves.
(As usual, the video version of this essay is on the Majcher Arcana youtube channel!)
