While I can’t say if I really enjoyed the reading this week it did bring up an interesting portion of games that is often overlooked, and definitely isn’t something we’ve really talked about in class, how games can be a powerful means of self expression. Though the creation of games is obviously an expressive action, playing games can be a creative act as well.

They discuss this somewhat in “The Art of Black and White”, ‘For novices or enthusiasts of modest attainments in either activity, mechanics are the primary concern. Masters. however, are occupied with the art of self-expression.’ I think this statement, while perhaps historically accurate, doesn’t really do justice to the fact that many players, regardless of skill level, use games as a means to express themselves. That being said, I certainly agree that Masters of any game are much better at appreciating expression as well as expressing themselves through play. Although a bit anecdotal, Super Smash Bros allows for a great deal of creativity through its play. On the surface level, you simply have the ability to choose from a variety of characters, but individual players can develop noticeable different play styles even with the same character. However, Smash Bros hasn’t developed the kind of culture, and poetry, that arose surrounding Wei-qi, but other games certainly do. At least with art and fan recreations.

It was interesting to see that basically fan creations surrounding games has both existed for as long as it did, and in the elite, intellectual circles that it did. I’m genuinely curious to see if any game present today will be able to establish the same kind of following that wei-qi had. There are more games today that have a vastly broader following than wei-qi ever had, but games are in a completely different place culturally which may prevent them from establishing an intellectual following, at least for the time being.

This came out a bit granier than I had hoped, but its the image of several bureaucrats playing wei-qi. I picked this image because it fell easily in line with what I was talking about in terms of the culture surrounding wei-qi. While many pieces of art are made today depicting games and their contents, we don’t often see renditions of players playing those games, aside from advertisements. It will be interesting to see if we begin getting similar pieces of art depicting modern games in the future.