The other day I stumbled over a phrase that gave me pause. Somebody was talking about the argument a game makes, and I thought that was interesting. By which I mean that my first response was to scoff and say „no“. But as I thought about it more, I came around to the idea that I should have said „absolutely not.“

Before I go any further, let me first be clear that I am not saying that board games are „just games“, “not political” or that they „don’t mean anything“. This is the complete antithesis of what I think. What games mean is at the core of any serious engagement with them. I would vehemently argue that games criticism is not possible until we treat meaning as axiomatic to games. The same way we do in literature and film. This meaning doesn’t have to be deep or universal. But anyone with a modicum of media literacy understands that film, literature, theatre, music… they all have meaning. And the same is true for games.

That said, why do I bristle at the idea of games making arguments? There are two things I dislike about this phrase. One has to do with how we engage games when we play them, and the other has to do with how we talk and think about games.

In order for games to make arguments, we need to treat them as some kind of legible text. In other words, we need to play the game with the understanding that every part of it, from its rules, its thematic trappings, its components and even the language used in the rulebook and game itself, has been arranged for a specific communicative purpose. It has been consciously chosen and arranged to produce a specific effect in its players. Naturally, this kind of micro-management is unlikely to be true of the majority of games. And I don’t think most people interested in game criticism believe that games could be this minutely designed. What I do think the phrase “games make arguments” assumes, is that there is a unifying vision underlying the game as whole. That even without micromanaging every single detail – like some Kubrick-wannabe – all elements of the game have been chosen to be in line with that vision of the game. Following this assumption it falls to us players to identify this vision. It falls to us to understand what the artist wants to convey to us through their chosen medium. After all, this is how we’ve been taught to engage literary texts as well. As somebody with a degree in English and as somebody who’s teaching English, I can assure you that’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

There is no secret code in a text, that you need to put effort into figuring out. There is no cipher you need to have to unlock the true meaning of a text, and if you don’t get it, you’re just some dimwit with no media literacy. A text’s meaning is a process. By reading the text we create connections between different concepts and ideas. Our reflexive habit of wanting things to make sense often conjures up a story to keep all those connections together. This is true of literature and it’s true of games as well. Our brains are sense-making machines and they’re never working harder than when we’re playing games.

So in a purely literal sense, arguments are made by players not games. We are the ones who draw connections between the physical parts of the game, the social roles we inhabit while playing and the experiences we have, etc. to articulate ideas, arguments and stories.

There is of course another layer to this phrase. One that acknowledges and anticipates this process of player-driven sense-making. The claim goes that designers can “stack the deck” to allow only for specific ideas, arguments and stories to emerge through play. And that is true in a generalized sense. It is obvious that a game about labor-driven economies that doesn’t represent workers in any way will never lead players to criticisms of that economy. (Or will it?)

It is clear that ideas can in fact be excluded from a game. Much in the same way that I’m certain I will have excluded counter-arguments to my reasoning here. Albeit, not intentionally. But then again, players aren’t exactly blank slates or empty vessels. If we can accept that players create meaning, then it’s obvious that players will also draw connections that go beyond their immediate experiences at the table. They will draw connections to everything they know, that isn’t inherent to the game itself. If people didn’t do this, we would have neither allegories nor metaphors. Even if they only work, as long as there is a shared cultural language between writer and reader. (For a somewhat recent comparison: think of how the opening line to William Gibson’s Neuromancer reads differently in 2025 than it did in 1985.)

So while it is possible for designers to minimize certain parallels (or simply not be able to see them), it’s players who will ultimately draw connections and contextualize their experience through all the things they bring to the table themselves. Naturally, the stronger the overlap between the cultural spheres the designers and players move in, the less it will feel this way. The more designers and players are familiar with the same ideas, concepts and narratives, the more games will feel like an easily legible text that both holds only one meaning and by extension presents cogent arguments to players.

The inverse is also true. The more we embrace diversity and heterogeneity in gaming, the more players have to bring their own perspectives and experiences to the table. Our sense-making brains get an extra work-out when we play games that are made by people who don’t have the same background as we do. This also explains why some players develop a sudden interest in topics after playing an engaging game using that topic as a theme. We seek out ways for games to make sense to us. But most of all it shows the great potential of games to not just bring players together, but to also expose them to different viewpoints.

When we say that games make arguments, we presuppose that they’re using the same (cultural) language as we do. I don’t think this is true. Games provide us with a vocabulary and a grammar that we make use of through play. We articulate ideas and create stories that we get to experience together. Seen from this perspective it is both interesting and important to look at the kind of ideas and stories we are provided with. In some cases, even which ideas and stories are obviously absent.

This strikes me as a far more productive and useful way of looking at games, than reducing them to a single argument.