I played poker for this week’s critical play using 247 Free Poker online. Poker’s gameplay mechanics – including identical betting, bluffing, and hand-ranking – originated in the Persian game As-Nas in the 16th century. The game is intended for audiences 14+, though younger players could most likely participate with less rigorous strategy. I played a free website version of poker. In this critical play, I will argue that while risk is not inherently dangerous in most games, poker puts players at risk of addiction through its coercive use of betting.
My personality makeup is the worst possible combination for games like poker. I am a terrible liar, I am an optimist, and I do not like to take risks. As a result, I fail to put money on the line when I could win big, but I put small amounts in to continue playing, and I end up losing all that I have. I have moral reservations about games that incentivise lying and deception as someone who struggles to act dishonestly, and if I were playing with any real money, I would never even buy in. The gameplay experience, as a result, felt very uncomfortable and inauthentic to me because I was taking risks I would never take with real money. The digital interface of the game removed so much of the reality of poker because the added game mechanic of social deception was not a factor at all.
Even for someone more amenable to games of deception and chance than I, I want to draw a critical distinction between games of chance and games of risk to argue that coercive betting is only possible because of the disruption of the magic circle. One of my favorite games of all time is Dungeons and Dragons. The game is heavily reliant on chance and randomness, arguably more than poker, and the use of a d20 puts low odds on most ambitious maneuvers. However, D&D is not a risky game. Players are safe, their possessions and autonomy remain untouched, and the magic circle lives in the realm of fantasy and imagination. Poker represents the opposite dynamic. The magic circle of poker has permeable boundaries that interact with and consume real people’s lives and circumstances. Where does the magic circle end and life begin? For someone addicted to gambling, the question becomes impossible to answer. The game erodes relationships, devastates stability, and preys on optimism. To me, the central difference between these two gameplay experiences is the coercive act of requiring players to put real material value on the line. D&D, while based on chance, never asks players to relinquish valuables to the magic circle.
The digital version of the game that I played had a few mechanics and design choices that added to the coercive nature of the game. I immediately felt afraid of betting because the game included numerical dollar values. No note or message on the site indicated that the money was fake, so I had some confusion initially about whether or not the website included betting. This design choice blurred the line of the magic circle.
Perhaps predictably, the game site had ads for real-money gambling games along the margins, drawing attention away from the gameplay and reminding players of the potential to gamble with real assets. I found this choice of advertising upsetting and undermining for the poker game itself. Lastly, the win screen (which I only achieved once through a big bet) told me I had reached a “record,” although other players in the game had made more earlier on. The fanfare played to my desire to feel skilled at the game and encouraged me to keep going, adding to the possibility of addictive dynamics in the game.
I do think for all its imbalance between the game and the player, poker is a relatively balanced game between players: chance initially determines gameplay, but after the cards are dealt, skill becomes the driving force of the game; the game is symmetrical as the round structure allows for everyone to go first; the game rules are static within and across rounds meaning that players can strategize, improve, and gain fluency in the game’s mechanics. I think this balance is one of the affordances of the game that creates challenge and fellowship fun between friends who play casually.
Although we do not have a specific ethics question this week, it is clear to me that the coercive nature of addictive games violates the sanctity of play itself by asking players to bring the value of their realities into the game. Addictive games often profit from people experiencing desperation and loss, and their deceptive strategies leverage any remaining hope players have for profit.
