Why do people love games? As the Game Maker for The New York Times, I grapple with this question every day. The reductively easy answer is simple: They’re fun! But why are they fun? Do they have to be fun? As we dig deeper and deeper, we find more questions. What even is a game? What is fun? My take on the appeal of games is also simple, if paradoxical. Games are a controlled form of freedom. Our brains grab onto them because they are structures that exist to be avoided.

Games occupy a strange place in our cultural consciousness. Nearly everyone has played a game at some point in their lives. Despite that ubiquity, games are rarely discussed with the same reverence as other media like films or books. For most, games are like chocolate: a guilty pleasure consumed secretly. The game designer Sid Meier once remarked that “a game is a series of interesting choices.” Navigating these choices shapes the course of play, revealing who we are and how we think. Playing a game is an act of exposition.

Let’s play one now so you can see what I’m talking about. We’ll play Rock, Paper, Scissors right here in this article. I’ve put my choice in the last paragraph. Hold up a fist, give a “Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shoot!” and throw out your choice then go look at mine.

Everyone loves to play games because when you play games wordle io games, you will feel relaxed and entertained, and if you play well, you can make money from it.