It's all in the "GAME"

Finite or Infinite Games we play.

“It’s all in the game” as is said on the intro to EA sports when one logs into a videogame console (whether it be the SONY PlayStation or Microsoft Xbox).

This phrase has been in present in my subconscious upon hearing it and I have not deciphered it as to the relevance and the metagame it refers to. Maybe its about that time..

I am currently watching the brilliant HBO show, Succession and what comes to mind is a scene in Season 1 where Logan Roy refers to the games they all play in order to win. I am enthralled by this show maybe because of my affinity to their dysfunctional family, or the power games the characters exhibit. Like most people, I cannot stop humming the theme music once it comes on; a moving suite of classical compositions that encapsulates the chaos and turbulence of the Roy family by Nicholas Britell.

There is a non stop rollercoaster of finite and infinite games in the series. Here I am referring to the definition used by James Carse in his “Finite and Infinite Games Book”, whereby Finite games is defined as Competition, and Infinite games as Cooperation. He refers this to our modern society where we all either engage in one or the other at different times and spaces of our lives whether knowingly or unknowingly. (I am sorry if I have simplified his book as I admit it is much more complex than how I am currently portraying it however, this should do for the purpose of this entry).

I think why this show is important and popular within the current culture is because it speaks to the social media lifestyle we are currently immersed in, where we spend enormous amounts of time polluting our minds with ill-informed idiocy, bile, narcissism, and the most trivial of all trivia. Although, I have to say it also offers the occasional diamond in the rough as platforms for some genuinely captivating discussions.

Our Economies, Markets, Communities, and thus Social Media all encapsulate the finite and infinite games we all play. Maybe it is when the Twitter/Instagram mob is busy doxxing people or the cancel culture it has come to be known for calling people out or the idea of a globalized world where all humans come to interact and there are less borders.

These games are present everywhere we look, from local politics to geopolitics, and neoclassical economics involving trade and relations. These games can be highlighted everywhere.

The question is who gets to lose and who gets to win? There lies the conundrum, the battle for supremacy and dominance as it organizes societies into hierarchies.

Whether in families or societies, must we play zero sum games? is it profitable for the whole? or in the long term?

- Ope