On the Theory of Fancies & Games, Essay the Third: Apology for saying ‘fancy’
A small thought experiment goes like this: imagine we took Dear Esther, The Path or Gone Home and we transported these works into the past. For instance, we might take them to 1850, or 1900. What are the odds, being free of a modern context, that the people we show these marvels to will term them ‘games’ — or more explicitly, term an entire medium game?
Of course this experiment somewhat ignores the whims and wits of etymology. To some extent, we came into this century producing these works without having an explicit word for it; and if we happen to have chosen to expand ‘game’ to fit, we might say that so-it-be and accept it for what it is. And, some say we should not. But it would be unimpressive to here recount the variable arguments around the word ‘game’. The very recounting has the risk of presenting ‘game’ as a polarised word, when instead the premise of this essay is that game is a rather agreed-upon word; or rather, it is two agreed-upon words.
These two words, both ‘game’, are not very relevant to one-another but in many debates are used interchangeably and confusingly. The first word concerns the questions of challenge, meaningful outcome, magic circles, &c. That is to say, it is a word which with a little sophism could have been convincingly used in 1850 or 1900 to discuss this field of study; the social mode; objects of the social mode, what-ever they may be. The second word (also, ‘game’), seems to mean many — but not necessarily all — artefacts engaged with in a virtual manner. This word refers to the usage of the medium that our advances in computers have made possible; things to be engaged with, or looked at in an engaging way. This word could also with some sophism have been used in 1850 or 1900, although it would perhaps require more sophism.
In both cases it is important to discuss the meaning of the word; but those discussions, in the view of this essay, can be had parallel to one-another without much cross-influence — under the condition, at least, that one understands which of the two words is being referred to by ‘game’. The first word ‘game’ can be used to debate the parameters of ‘game, like a game of cards’, the second word ‘game’ can be used to denote an artefact played virtually, ‘game, like Doom, or Proteus’. These concepts are not inherently related in this form, and if they were better distinguished would far less invoke one-another’s meaning. In a sense, the largest similarity between ‘game’ and ‘game’ seems to be that the words are identically written.
The idea of replacing one of the words ‘game’ with another word has already been proposed through some trick of etymology which supposes in some situations it was never ‘game’ to begin with, it was rather ‘video-games’, which then becomes the word which means the medium. That is to say, a situation arises in which it is ‘game, like a game of cards’, and ‘video-game, like Doom or Proteus’. Perhaps it might be said that hanging a meaning on the consequent prefixation of ‘video’ is not much better if one’s object is to be more clear; and one will need a steady supply of mental self-restraint to erase the connexion between game and video-game. Yet there is a more important matter, which is the implication of using ‘video’ to signify a medium.
One of the charms of ‘game, like a game of cards’ is that it as a word does not explicitly care whether it is used physically or virtually. That is to say, it concerns a mode of conduct which we may do on a field with a leather ball and physics, or we may do it through a CPU’s billions of calculations suggesting physics, or we may do it sitting at a table rolling dice to chance the outcome of physics. This is a useful word, as the salient part of it is in the behaviour, not in the implementation. Contrariwise, one of the drawbacks of ‘game, like video-game’ is that it can be a form of fixation on the medium, where something is qualified because it is on a computer. To show the contrast, football can be referred to as a game regardless of it being on a field or on a computer, but football would need the computer to qualify for being a ‘video-game’. (One at least might assume that most usage of the word ‘video-game’ at some point will involve a CPU.)
Outside of the strong qualifier of ‘CPU or not’, we may look at many activities and see them in both physical and virtual form. We may read a physical book, we may read a virtual book. We may play physical football, we may play virtual football. We may create physical model train set, we may create a virtual model train set. We may play a physical game, we may play a virtual game. It is slightly absurd to suggest that a virtual train set is somehow inherently different from a physical one; i.e., to suggest one is a train set and the other is a video game — yet this is exactly the implication of using the strong-termed ‘video game’, putting the qualifier more firmly on the medium than the content.
It is still tempting to frame the CPU as being central to a concept because many things one might play are impossible to imagine in physical form. Nevertheless, the prior understanding for engaging with said artefact may be understood in terms which have little to do with the CPU. Walking through gardens, reading poetry, and regarding landscape paintings all have some to do with Dear Esther. They do not cover Dear Esther, evidently, but they have more to say about it than merely utilising a CPU does. It is unlikely we may set up a house where we physically go to for the purpose of finding audio tapes, yet that does not make this hypothetical house too different from the fantasy of Gone Home. Indeed, perhaps we could have fantasized we were in the same situations as we see portrayed in many a ‘video-game’, except that it were rather hard to craft this illusion in a real world. Again, ‘video-game’ presses on the medium (video), and not the social mode (fantastical involvement), unlike ‘game, as in a game of cards’. This in turn obscures the continuation of existing human behaviour from the physical to the virtual forms.
We can retain ‘virtual’ as a qualifier which describes the non-physical form. The very question of ‘what to call it’, however, might be more wisely chosen to not explicitly give the form, and rather the behaviour. If we bar ‘video-games’ as a word, we have several behaviours which we have enriched and put together, for which there is no collective name, physical or virtual. To wit, what do we call fantasizing about walking around Hebridean isles while listening to reminiscences? What do we call pretending to be an assassin who in some way is friends with Charles Darwin?
To propose a word for these artefacts: a fancy.
As-in, ‘playing a fancy’, ‘downloading a fancy’, ‘debating a fancy’, ‘rating a fancy 8/10’, ‘being enthralled by a fancy’.
Fancy, here, comes from the mid-15th century contraction of ‘fantasy’. It emphasises inclinations, whims, and desires; going so far as to mean a fanciful image or conception. What are these things we play, if not the very essence of a flight of fancy? We fancy we are the Dragon-born, we fancy we walk over dark Hebredian isles, we fancy the Templar did us wrong. As we partake in these works what we let go of is reality. We for a moment have capricious illusions of being somewhere else, of something else mattering, of something to engage with. At the same time, like a small fantasy, we clearly know it is but that, our own fancying, and we may withdraw out of it at our leisure.
Let us stress three features of the word fancy.
Firstly, it must be stressed the word ‘fancy’ does not pose itself antagonistically towards ‘game, as in a game of cards’. The purpose of coining ‘fancy’ is not to somehow explicitly draw a division line. Rather, fancy denotes the gradient on which an artefact (which we engage with) goes into the realm of facilitating fantasy, which does not exclude it also being ‘a game’. In a sense it was always of great importance to Assassin’s Creed to mark what Dear Esther is. What Assassin’s Creed’s is or is not could never truly merely be dependant on the existence of a few elements which were ‘game, as in a game of cards’: and yet the double usage of ‘game’ made that desirable in many debates. We may now say; Assassin’s Creed is a game/fancy, or a fancy/game. Dear Esther is not a game and more explicitly a fancy. Whether this observation is correct, and what works may be termed what, is left to the reader.
Secondly, the emphasis of fancy lies on the behaviour, not the medium. That is, to fantasize, to form mental images, to picture and to see the unreal as real. The feature by which we recognise a fancy is not observation and to absorption; nor is it to be challenge and tests of endurance; rather it is to imagine and to play. This leaves room for framing physical behaviour as part of a ‘fancy’, much like physical ‘games’ exist next to virtual ‘games’. A physical fancy may seem an awkward proposition but the usages both facilitates the gradual invisibility of computers (a reduction in the difference between ‘virtual’ and ‘physical’) and accounts for fancies incorporating behaviour which is present already; as well as for some existing fanciful physical behaviour which never had an explicit term. (It would be wise to emphasise at this point that a thing can be both fancy and game; this is merely a description of when it is a fancy.)
Thirdly, although the word may seem overtly illusionary, the connotations of the word slightly stress the idea of a whim or caprice. One can play a fancy in a very meaningful way, or one can just engage with a small fancy capriciously. It may be a serious fancy, it may be a small play-thing. The further connotation as ‘fancy’ meaning superfine quality and amorous inclinations are of course pleasant, too. By some twist of fate ‘the fancy’ is an archaic term for a sport’s deeply involved fan-base, which is a nice, harmonic sort of thought to end on.
In summary, it has been proposed that we have two words, both ‘game’, one of which refers to ‘game, as in a game of cards’ and the other is more commonly used to denote part of a virtual medium. The word ‘video-game’ has been proposed to mean the virtual medium but ‘video-game’ is unlike ‘game’ or ‘book’ in that it stresses the virtual element, not the behaviour. ‘Fancy’ is proposed to mean an artefact relating to the usage of the involved imagination, both physically and virtually. A fancy can overlap or coexist with ‘game, as in a game of cards’, as well as other qualifiers, and furthermore stresses the imaginary parts of what presently are called ‘games’.
This series will henceforth be known as ‘On the Theory of Fancies and Games’.
The images used in this article are for illustrative purposes only and are, in order of usage, Hearts are Trumps (Millais), Proteus (Ed Key and David Kanaga), OpenTTD (Chris Sawyer / OpenTTD Team), Gone Home (Fullbright), Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate (Ubisoft Quebec), Dear Esther (The Chinese Room), Dinner Date (Stout Games), Mountain (David O’Reilly), In the Realms of Fancy (Godward).
Reply, response, reproduction, and discussion is welcome, as always.
