The New Games movement was popular in the 1970s and early 1980s which sought to replace competitive sports with cooperative ones, and spectator sports with participatory ones. Stewart Brand created one of the first such games in the late 1960s, ironically called “Slaughter”, which involved two groups of people trying to push a large ball over the other side’s line in a sort of inverted tug-of-war, but with some on the winning side encouraged to switch to the losing side whenever it seemed like the ball was moving too far in one direction; this would supposedly teach cooperation over competition, and ensure a game in which there was heavy physical exertion but no winners or losers. The large ball was painted like the planet Earth. Brand’s motivation as described in the first New Games Book had a more obvious connection to the opposition to the Vietnam War, as a game like Slaughter would allow people to get in touch with their warlike impulses and get them out of their system while turning the tables on the nationalistic implications of conventional team sports by encouraging people to switch sides to make sure neither side could push the Earth over the edge. He also felt the peace movement was unhealthily out of touch with intense physical activity and needed some sports of their own.
I played a cooperative game in high school that I hadn’t come across till then. It’s much easier to recognise the game theoretic benefits in-game than readind Alice in Wonderland is hermeneutically interpreting lines like ″Everybody has won, and all must have prizes!” or picking up an economics textbook.
The New Games movement was popular in the 1970s and early 1980s which sought to replace competitive sports with cooperative ones, and spectator sports with participatory ones. Stewart Brand created one of the first such games in the late 1960s, ironically called “Slaughter”, which involved two groups of people trying to push a large ball over the other side’s line in a sort of inverted tug-of-war, but with some on the winning side encouraged to switch to the losing side whenever it seemed like the ball was moving too far in one direction; this would supposedly teach cooperation over competition, and ensure a game in which there was heavy physical exertion but no winners or losers. The large ball was painted like the planet Earth. Brand’s motivation as described in the first New Games Book had a more obvious connection to the opposition to the Vietnam War, as a game like Slaughter would allow people to get in touch with their warlike impulses and get them out of their system while turning the tables on the nationalistic implications of conventional team sports by encouraging people to switch sides to make sure neither side could push the Earth over the edge. He also felt the peace movement was unhealthily out of touch with intense physical activity and needed some sports of their own.
I played a cooperative game in high school that I hadn’t come across till then. It’s much easier to recognise the game theoretic benefits in-game than readind Alice in Wonderland is hermeneutically interpreting lines like ″Everybody has won, and all must have prizes!” or picking up an economics textbook.