It is an unavoidable consequence of thinking of games as models, that players must be seen as passive observers to their own experience playing the game. Because if games are models, playing them is akin to testing the functionality of that model. Our experience playing the game becomes a data point on which we base our understanding of the designer’s intent, since these models are a way for designers to communicate their values, arguments and positions to players. Our experience is no longer something we influence directly or even consciously, but instead only an echo of the design’s effect on us and part of the model’s communicative function.

This invites comparing games to TED talks. They are a presentation by a speaker, that we as players are are allowed to observe but not participate in. The model is a means for the designer to express themselves, it is not something that players have any influence over. The designer is the one who communicates and it is the players whose responsibility it is to absorb and interpret what they are told.

The designer in this paradigm must then be understood as a person of great importance, whose beliefs and world-view merit careful exploration and reflection. Their opinions must be seen as being of such great distinction that they qualify careful analysis and evaluation.

It makes sense, then, that the designer’s identity plays a vital role. This is how their opinions and their model gains legitimacy. If their identity or expertise match the game’s theme, the model is seen as a legitimate exploration of it. This also goes a long way towards explaining why cultural consultants inhabit a dual role with some games. On the one hand they are a way of strengthening inclusivity by taking more viewpoints into consideration than the ones held by the creators. But they also function – and are occasionally understood as – granting legitimacy to the game’s model. Their inclusion in the game’s production functions as a sign of approval by the culture modelled in the game. The model and the views expressed therein are given legitimacy in lieu of the designer’s identity matching the theme. With some games cultural consultancy becomes an indispensable part of the production process, wherein other games can get by with providing an extensive reading list on the subject.

All this of course centers the designer and puts them at the core of both the game’s meaning and value. Players, their ideas about play or even their goals for play become at most a secondary concern to the experience. Their deeper engagement with the game instead consists of a semiotic challenge. It becomes one of discerning intended meaning out of the model and its effect on players. How we experience the game serves only to help us properly understand the designer’s intent. We have no agency of our own as far as the game is concerned. We are only granted narrow and selected ways to approach a scripted form of play. Our role is to witness the designer’s craft, or to run around the maze of symbols, mechanical interconnections and effects that the designer has crafted for our benefit.

While my disdain for this approach is likely apparent, that does not mean that it isn’t legitimate. Or that there isn’t some value to be found here. It has worked in many forms of traditional media. Most notably: writing. (I am aware of the irony.) There are ample designers and players who are drawn to this paradigm. Designers who want to be heard and witnessed in their craft and world-view, as well as players who are keen to be taught about the world this way.

But I feel deeply unsatisfied with this approach. I find it reeks of conservative thinking, with its distinct hierarchies between designer and players and its forcing a new medium to fit in the forms and structures of old media engagement and criticism. I am less interested in showing that games can be just as “important” as literature or film by following the same paradigm. Not when games can offer things that other media simply can not.

In many ways player agency lies at the heart of what makes games relevant, exciting and meaningful. Games are appealing because they center player experience. Our choices will influence the course of the next hour or two. We get to determine what is meaningful to us and we get to chart our own course towards that goal. What people refer to as escapism in games, is in fact self-determination and the sense of freedom that comes with it. And all of that is squandered by clinging to the idea that a game’s depth and meaning is found in its ability to model things.