"Gaming the System"


I may not be good at games.

Sure, I can fill out most crossword puzzles in the time it takes to have lunch. I used to own the 50-yard dash in Junior High (I developed early). I play Scrabble well against mental peers who don't play more than I do.

But the realization I've come to is that I generally do not immediately seek ways to bend the rules to increase my chances of winning. I play for playing's sake, and value others who respect the rules and want to engage in the same type of fair play.

Here's a concrete example...



It's taken me 40 years of life on this earth to realize the following flaw:

I may not be good at games.

Sure, I can fill out most crossword puzzles in the time it takes to have lunch. I used to own the 50-yard dash in Junior High (I developed early). I play Scrabble well against mental peers who don't play more than I do.

But the realization I've come to is that I generally do not immediately seek ways to bend the rules to increase my chances of winning. I play for playing's sake, and value others who respect the rules and want to engage in the same type of fair play.

Here's a concrete example. My mobile phone is a Sony Ericksson T616. The first week i got it, I downloaded Cybiko's Backgammon game. I can play against the program without using any minutes on my plan. For months, I played Backgammon against my phone whenever I had down time, or was waiting in line--you know, all those moments in modern life when playing a game "against" your phone seems like a nice way to spend otherwise wasted time.

I quickly realized that I should be playing in "Expert" mode, instead of Beginner or Advanced, because it offered a greater challenge. Then I noticed a scoring discrepancy. The programmers, in order to "even the odds" made this rule: when the program wins, you lose more points then you can gain by winning. As your score progresses, the risk of losing becomes much greater than your gain by winning. Eventually, a player can gain 1 point by winning, but lose 31 points by losing. This felt unfair, and became a disincentive to play.

So, in a moment of frustration and creativity, I decided to save a game that I was just about to win, bigtime. I then learned that I could load that game and play it in a fraction of the time of a regular game, and keep winning, again and again, and again. I could inflate my score with less effort, and reduce the 31 to 1 discrepancy that the programmers had introduced.

The point? It took me over two years to discover this. See why I may not be good at games?

Most importantly (and why I am okay admitting to this), I think that this speaks to an issue of character.

There are those of us who value rules, and enjoy exploring the landscape of life that exists within them. On the other side there are those who believe that ends always justify means, and work immediately to "game the system" to gain advantage.

Some of these people are business executives promoting potential pyramid schemes for personal gain.

Some of them are teenagers playing online role-playing games in one window, while hacking the game servers in another.

Some of them are politicians at the highest levels of power.

Some of them are "theologians" who think less about their faith than their personal gain.


Wow. I've just drawn a line from backgammon on my cell-phone to Islamist Reformation and U.S. policy change in 500 words or less. Can you beat that?

Posted: Sun - February 12, 2006 at 01:16 AM            

©