2. When we play well together, we have made an
embellishment, a useless, spontaneous, joyous human
decoration on the shape of necessity – a piece of junk
art, a beautiful graffito.
- Bernie DeKoven, The Well-Played Game
a conversation with Bernie DeKoven
Eric Zimmerman
IndieCade 2012

3. When we are playing we are only playing. We
do not mean anything else by it....
When we are playing well, we are at our best.
We are fully engaged, totally present, and
yet, at the same time, we are only playing.

5. The nature of a play community is such that it
embraces the players more than it directs us
towards any particular game. Thus it matters
less to us what game we are playing, and more
to us that we are willing to play together.

10. No matter what game we create, no matter
how well we are able to play it, it is our
game, and we can change it when we need to.

11. We can make up any kind of rule that we want
to. We could make the court three feet wide.
We could play volleyball with balloons. We
could give everybody a ball. We could play
with two nets. With four nets. With a moving
net. Without a net. We could play silently, in
the dark, with a luminescent ball. We could
play on the ice. There could be three teams.
Four. One.

12. There is a very fine balance between play and
game.... On the one hand we have the playing
mind—innovative, magical, boundless. On the
other is the gaming mind—
concentrated, determined, intelligent. And on
the hand that holds them both together we
have the notion of playing well.

13. The game offers us a purpose. It says: Win.
Play offers us purposelessness. It says: Play!
Odd, isn't it? Paradoxical. Apparently without
solution. Is play the completion of game, or is
the game completion of play?

14. I think of games as social
fictions, performances, like works of art, which
exist only as long as they are continuously
created.
They are not intended to replace reality but to
suspend consequences. They are not life. If
anything, they are bigger than life.
At the same time, they are works of art, they
do reflect reality.

15. If I’m playing well, I am, in fact, complete. I am
without purpose because all my purposes are
being fulfilled. This is the purpose of this game
for me... so I could experience this
excellence, this shared excellence of the well-
played game. This is a veritable end unto itself.
When we have this clarity, when it is always
obvious to us what we are playing for, we can
play for
growth, wisdom, knowledge, truth, but always
for the sake of playing.

16. There's a difference between playing to win and having
to win...
When you have to win, you're willing to break whatever
rules you can if that would help you get closer to the
goal. When you have to win you can't leave the game
until you have finally, ultimately, won.
What's amazing to me about all this is that the game
itself doesn't change. The rules and the conventions are
the same. But the manner of playing the game is
completely different.

17. If we can’t let go of our games, we can’t hold on to
each other.