Games Throughout the Life Cycle

Involvement with games has been a leitmotif of my life since early childhood. The fascination has its roots in my youthful discovery that the rules of games were not fixed, but malleable. A few changes here and there in the conventional or official rules could make a game more interesting. Even more important, one could make up the game from scratch. By the time I had graduated from high school, I had internalized the idea that statistics were about success indicators and that rules were about opportunities and constraints in achieving success. In my teaching at the University of Michigan and at Boston College, I sought some substitute for the lecture that would involve a less passive experience. Over the years, I developed three different teaching games for different courses: SIMSOC (Simulated Society), WHAT’S NEWS: A Game Simulation of TV News, and the GLOBAL JUSTICE GAME. In addition to these games with simulated environments, I developed various role-playing exercises for learning groups. As I reflect on the lessons that I have learned from my lifelong involvement with games, it strikes me that the personal appeal lies in blurring the distinction between work and play. Some of my professional work is “work†in the sense that I have to discipline myself to do it. “Work†on games is, for the most part, play—something that I am ready to do spontaneously in preference to most other activities.