Games are a unique art form. They do not just tell stories, nor are they simply conceptual art. They are the art form that works in the medium of agency. C. Thi Nguyen’s Games: Agency as Art dives deep into these ideas and expands on them.

A man after my own heart. C. Thi Nguyen wants us to understand why games are interesting under the lens of “agency”.

Games as in sports, video games, board games, etc.

I love all of these things (sport a bit less these days) and they’re a big part of my life and so there’s value in me exploring why they might be more interesting than they might appear to be on a surface level.

Reading this book might make me a better game critic and better at sharing my love of games with other people.

EDIT 2022-09-14: I put this book down right before the end. I think that the text is in need of some more editing, there seems to be a lot of repetition of the same ideas over and over again. Maybe I wasn’t in the right mindset to read this and I’ll need to come back to it later

Although reading this got me thinking about climbing/bouldering and I might not have ever discovered my new favorite passion if not for reading most of this book. I’ll be forever grateful for that and I hope that I can continue being positively influenced by the media I come into contact with.