Hit play, and start reading.
This piece from the NY Times about stupid games really rung a bell in my head:
Stupid games, on the other hand, are rarely occasions in themselves. They are designed to push their way through the cracks of other occasions. We play them incidentally, ambivalently, compulsively, almost accidentally. They’re less an activity in our day than a blank space in our day; less a pursuit than a distraction from other pursuits. You glance down to check your calendar and suddenly it’s 40 minutes later and there’s only one level left before you jump to the next stage, so you might as well just launch another bird.
It’s a big read, but a good one. It hits all the major important points in the question of what is a stupid game. When you are done, you can play a stupid game where you destroy the article. You can hardly fault the author for not bringing up the magnificent satire game that ate itself, Cow Clicker. On the other hand, you need to to know, so you should at least read the Wired article on Cow Clicker. So they cover a big idea about what makes games especially stupid. What about the other end?
Are all games stupid? Can they be art, as Roger Ebert once denied? I’ve been avoiding games because I decided a while ago that I have produced too little and consumed so much. Recently though, I’ve played Dominion, where the rules can change every game, and Pandemic, where you cooperate as a team to fight the game rather than each other. I’ve played Passage, which forces you to think about your life. Even Poker isn’t a stupid game – I’m learning that there are depths and that it is a little struggle with friends.
Are you exhausted yet? 420 words is a bunch on the web. If you have energy, read this piece on art, death and gameplay. It’s the best thing linked in this post.
I have some stupid games, but they are all on my phone. I find them to be the thing I reach for when my brain is exhausted and I am scattered and bored. When I can’t get a seat on the train to code and I can’t listen to music or a podcast, I go click on things and move stuff and complete levels as the subway moves me home. Time disappears. A little bit of my precious finite life drips away and I climb the steps out of the station.
But wait, there's more
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Also, group games are not just about the game itself, but about shared experiences, which have their own value. Not at all a waste of time. We just joined a board game Meetup, which had its first meeting yesterday. It looks like we’ll get to play all kinds of games we’ve been interested in without having to buy them, since we’re all sharing our stuff. I’m pretty excited about that, since most of our games don’t get a lot of playing time and I feel kind of bad for buying them.
I used to not like those, but you are right – the game is an occasion and a structure for friends to struggle together. Those are bonding experiences.
In those cases, games form a skeleton to grow friendships over. What tells you more about a person than watching how they try to achieve a goal, how they react to hardship and success?